CNN
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As Linn Grant left the course at Halmstad Golf Membership in Tylösand, Sweden, she discovered herself swarmed by a gaggle of younger followers.
Clamoring for something and every thing within the Swede’s golf bag, they excitedly waved pens within the hopes of securing an autograph. Grant duly obliged, signing every thing from hats to golf balls.
It was a buzz worthy of a landmark achievement: Grant had simply change into the first-ever feminine winner on the DP World Tour together with her victory on the Scandinavian Blended occasion on June 12.
And as if making historical past wasn’t sufficient, she did so in dominant vogue, cruising the 156-player subject. A weekend-best eight-under 64 on the ultimate day confirmed an emphatic win, with Grant’s 24-under par seeing her end 9 photographs away from runners up Marc Warren and fellow Swede Henrik Stenson, and 14 photographs away from the subsequent feminine participant, Gabriella Cowley.
The win was made all of the sweeter by the truth that it was a victory at residence – in all senses of the phrase. Boyfriend Pontus Samuelsson caddied, with family and friends supporting amongst an ecstatic Swedish crowd.
“The environment there, I may really feel that,” Grant instructed CNN Sport. “I felt that it was simply because I used to be from there, however after sitting within the automobile on my approach residence, I noticed social media calls, journalists reaching out – every thing simply grew … it’s a bit insane.”
Minjee Lee’s win on the US Ladies’s Open per week prior had seen the Australian scoop $1.eight million, the most important payout in girls’s golf historical past. But Lee’s unprecedented earnings have been dwarfed by the major-record $3.15 million taken residence by England’s Matt Fitzpatrick for successful the lads’s occasion only one week later.
Along with her historic win making worldwide headlines, Grant is optimistic her success will assist the ladies’s recreation take one other step ahead.
“I feel lots of people can relate to girls’s golf,” maybe much more so than the lads’s recreation, she mentioned, as a result of “they [men] hit to date and the programs are usually not lengthy sufficient.”
“I hope it can have some type of impact that folks may take a look at it and see we’re a bunch of gamers who’re this good, hit the ball far sufficient, hit it shut sufficient, maintain the putts and rating properly.
“I simply hope extra folks understand that. After which we glance higher and we’re nicer too!” Grant added with amusing.
Having solely turned 23 per week after the win, victory in Halmstad marked the newest peak in what has been a meteoric rise for Grant since turning skilled in 2021.
Three wins in 4 months on the Girls European Tour (LET) have helped rocket Grant to second within the rankings in The Race to Costa del Sol, a 28-tournament LET season set to crown a winner on the Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España in November. Extremely, she leads the chasing pack regardless of taking part in the fewest occasions of any of the top-nine scoring gamers on the Tour.
Whereas some gamers wrestle with the leap from beginner to skilled, Grant has thrived.
“My final 12 months as an beginner, at any time when I dropped out of the zone of with the ability to win, it was nearly prefer it wasn’t motivating anymore,” Grant mentioned.
“The sensation that I’m taking part in for cash now – that it’s my residing – swiftly, I really feel prefer it doesn’t matter [dropping out of the zone]. If I can simply make it birdie on the final I can nonetheless earn greater than if I didn’t.”
The one participant besting Grant in The Race to Costa del Sol is childhood buddy Maja Stark. Teammates on the Swedish nationwide workforce from a younger age and college students on the similar highschool, the duo share a detailed bond.
“I all the time cheer her on and I hope she does the identical for me, which I do know she does,” Grant mentioned.
“It’s good to have somebody there that is aware of the state of affairs you’re in and to have the ability to discuss to about issues that different folks both can’t get their head round or just don’t perceive.”
Not that their friendship has stopped Grant from declaring the will to chase down and beat Stark to Spain as one in every of her key season targets.
With Johanna Gustavsson trailing Grant, an all-Swedish trio on the summit of The Race to Costa del Sol displays the Nordic nation’s dominance on the LET and the rising inventory of golf in Sweden, which has already produced a legend within the sport.
In Annika Sorenstam, Grant has a towering function mannequin. Sorenstam, co-founder of the Scandinavian Blended occasion, solid one of many best careers in girls’s golf historical past with 10 main triumphs and 72 LPGA match wins earlier than her skilled retirement in 2008.
Grant cites two causes for the current surge of prime girls’s gamers within the nation: the funding and energy of the Swedish Golf Federation to develop the sport and, paradoxically, the tough Nordic local weather.
As snowy circumstances reduce brief {the golfing} season within the nation, Swedish gamers should work further arduous to maximise coaching, with Grant placing “misplaced” observe time into different actions that may assist her recreation, such because the health club.
“We can not play 12 months a 12 months, which provides you a little bit of thick pores and skin,” she defined. “It’s zero levels, you simply must go on the market and hit wedges or no matter you have to observe on.”
Along with her historic victory within the Scandinavian Blended occasion, it seems that angle is paying off – and serving to Grant in her mission to develop the game and act as a job mannequin, not only for girls however for all who play the sport.
“If that win will help anybody or simply give somebody a bit of additional motivation, I’m completely satisfied,” she mentioned.