The Iceman cometh

Mark Kendall investigates how Henrik Stenson went from losing his local club championship to the hottest player on the planet in a year

"There's no point walking around wishing for it. It's all about being focused and doing the right things, and hopefully that will come."

Having racked up around £12 million of prize money since the summer and risen to a career high of third in the world rankings, Henrik Stenson has undoubtedly been doing the right things over the past few months.

The Swede's form figures simply defy belief; since the Scottish Open back in mid-July he has garnered three wins, two second-placed and three-third placed finishes over the course of just 12 tournaments.

And this was not a stretch of run-of-the-mill events, Stenson was competing in elite-level fields on both sides of the Atlantic, culminating in him becoming the first man to win the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup play-off series and the European Tour's Race to Dubai.

It is a run of form that has seen the 37-year-old propelled into the conversation alongside the game's all-time greats. Luke Donald - who had his own golden summer as he rose to World No.1 in 2011 - put the Swede's performance in context when he commented: "Henrik's ball striking is as good as I've seen... and I include Tiger Woods in his prime."

Players pay tribute to Stenson's success

Renowned as one of the more affable and straight-talking characters in golf, Stenson was refreshingly honest in his assessment: "It has been a dream summer for me. I would be lying if I said I saw this coming."

Maybe he didn't see it coming, but his resurgence has been no fluke. The speed and magnitude of the rise may have taken both player and observers by surprise, but this has been no quick fix - something that Stenson has been at pains to point out to those looking for a simple answer to a complicated question.

An established presence in the upper echelons of the world's top 50, a consistent winner on the European Tour and a Ryder Cup regular, there was no sign of the travails that lay ahead for the Swede back at the start of 2009.

But the origins of a slump that saw him slide down outside the world's top 200 can be traced to events far removed from the golf course just a few weeks later.

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