Alex Noren just had one of the best seasons of anyone on the European Tour. Here’s how he did it.
Reaching the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking is hard. For those without a PGA Tour card, it’s even harder — the world’s top golf circuit awards more ranking points than any other tour, and indeed, nine of the current top 10 players are members.
Then there’s world No. 9 Alex Noren, who’s putting the finishing touches on one of the more memorable season-long performances in recent memory. Although he’s been a European Tour member since 2007, the Swede has yet to finish a calendar year inside the top 50 of the OWGR. However, with few prominent events coming up in in December, he looks like a great bet to maintain his current position.
Noren began 2016 as the 96th-ranked player in the world, and while he needed a number of strong performances to infiltrate the game’s elite ranks, the story of his season didn’t really begin until early July. With the wind blowing hard and the pressure on, the soon-to-be-34-year-old delivered a nervy performance to secure the title at the European Tour’s Scottish Open. One month later, he advanced to the final round of the Paul Lawrie Match Play before falling to the long-suffering Anthony Wall.
By the time the calendar had turned to September, 2016 was already shaping up as one of Noren’s better seasons, but he wasn’t even close to done.
With the Race to Dubai’s Final Series fast approaching, he pulled off a couple of quality wins within six weeks of each other: a playoff victory over Scott Hend at the European Masters and a very solid two-stroke win over Bernd Wiesberger at the British Masters. For his efforts, he rose to the 18th spot in the rankings, about dead even with standout players like Matt Kuchar, Brooks Koepka and Branden Grace. If those wins had come a month or two earlier, he’d have certainly been a member of Darren Clarke’s team at the Ryder Cup.
But despite that snub, Noren continued to dominate wherever he went. He concluded the 2015-16 season with three consecutive top 25s, including a fourth win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge hosted by Gary Player, one of the Final Series events. He ended up third in the Race to Dubai — not bad for a guy who missed virtually the entire 2014 season due to injury.
While Noren’s 2016 performance ended up being a far cry from his previous standard, it’s difficult to pinpoint any one area that made the difference. Rather, he performed at or near a career-best level across the board. He was more accurate off the tee than he’s been in five years. He posted the second-best greens in regulation percentage of his career. His putting was as good as it’s ever been. A brief look at his statistical profile shows steady performances across the board — it was just a matter of putting it all together, which he did on four occasions this year.
At the start of the season, Noren would have been glad just to make the OWGR’s top 50. Now a top 10 player, he can gain entry into just about any tournament he wants, and receive star billing to boot. He may not be a household name in the states, but American fans should keep their eyes peeled — we’re going to start seeing a lot more of Alex Noren next year.
How do you think Noren will perform in 2017? Let us know in the comments, and keep it here at Pro Golf Now for more updates on your favorite European Tour members.
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