Taking centre stage in Henrik Stenson’s trophy cabinet is a handwritten letter from Jack Nicklaus generously informing the Swede that his 2016 Open win was better than the Duel in the Sun. In a less salubrious position is a note from the DP World Tour with details of his fines for joining LIV that he believes are double what Jon Rahm was to receive.
As Stenson puts it, “there is being valued and there is being overvalued”.
Of course, as the 48-year-old returns to the Ayrshire where he and Phil Mickelson staged their epic confrontation it is Nicklaus’s anointing that is uppermost in his mind, as is the fact he so almost missed the cherished piece of post.
“After The Open we went straight to an Olympic training camp and from there to Rio [where he won the silver medal],” he tells Telegraph Sport. “So I had this big pile of mail waiting when I got back. Anyway, I was slowly going through it and there, in the middle of all the well-wishes and bills, was this letter from Jack.
“It said, ‘Tom [Watson] and I had a great battle at Turnberry [in 1977] and played well, but yours was better and you both played better’. That meant a lot. It’s there in the cabinet with the gold medal on top. It’s cool and a reminder of how exceptional that Sunday was. People always say to Phil, ‘could you have ever imagined shooting 65 and still losing?’. But I could never have foreseen when I had that one-shot lead going into the final round, that I’d come up with a 63 and still not be sure of the win until the very last hole. He pushed me to greatness and I pushed him to greatness.”
Mickelson readily acknowledges “it is the finest golf I’ve ever played in defeat” and although there is clearly pride in the levels he produced eight years ago, Stenson feels there must be pain, too.
“I have been asked by so many, ‘how often do you talk to Phil about Troon?’ and I am like ‘are you serious?’” Stenson says. “I’m not going to go up to a guy who came second and say ‘hey, let’s reminisce about that time I beat you – won’t that be fun?’.
“We have a good relationship and have plenty of banter, but that is off limits to me. It would be disrespectful. And that’s why I give him full kudos for sitting down and doing an hour with me on video about it for our social channels. However well he played – and he was incredible, because if you look at it in terms of the distance back to three then I was 14 ahead and he was 11 ahead and only Tiger [Woods] at the 2000 US Open [with 16 shots] was further ahead – that must be difficult to talk about.”
Exclusive content alert; Henrik and Phil discuss their battle at Troon from The Open 2016 for the first time ever…⛳️
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Mickelson took it well and with his characteristic humour. In the recorder’s hut as they verified the figures, the American looked at Stenson’s row of numbers and said. “You made 10 birdies today! F— you.”
And what made it all the more fantastical was that this was the then 40-year-old’s major breakthrough. “I would have taken a scrappy 71 to win by one and still would have been as euphoric”, he said. “But to go that low [equalling Jonny Miller’s record for the lowest round ever to win a major] and fending off an all-time great like Phil was the icing on the cake.”
Make that gold-letter icing. It began with a three-putt for Stenson, but thereafter it was almost perfection. The moment, he says, was his 50-footer on the 15th. “It was not over at that point, but I thought ‘things are happening for me here’ and you don’t get many instances when a golfer in the lead holes a putt that long and goes on to lose. It was probably the most hyped I have ever been and my fist-pump, which is not like me, showed it. At the back of that green I said to Lordy [his English caddie, Gareth Lord], “how am I supposed to bring myself down after that?’ Lordy turned to me and said ‘well, you can try breathing for a start. You’ve gone blue.”
It is problematic to put a plague on a green, but there should be something on the course to honour its most thrilling fight. At Turnberry, there is a plaque on the 18th fairway where Watson hit his seven iron to two feet, but at Troon, nothing. Stenson is not about to get into a row about any perceived slight, and neither will he go on the offensive about the R&A’s bizarre decision not to invite him into the interview room this week.
In the last 10 years, there have only been two occasions when the last champion at the host venue was not beckoned inside to face the press – Zach Johnson in 2022 at St Andrews and Royal Portrush in 2019. And at the latter, Max Faukner died in 2005. “It’s petty b——-,” Pete Cowen, Stenson’s long-time coach, said. “Henrik’s not dead. They do know that, don’t they?”
‘Those of us who joined LIV early have been treated differently’
For the conspiracy theorists among us, it is hard not to link this with Stenson’s move to LIV two years ago, maybe the most contentious switch of all. He was the Europe Ryder Cup captain at the time and had signed a contract that, the DP World Tour is still adamant, guarded against him jumping ship in a $40 million (£30.8 million deal). Fair enough, but it is the way he was handled next that seems unfair.
“Yeah, those of…
