“10 f***ing birdies!” 2016 Open champion Stenson relives his Royal Troon duel with Mickelson

Henrik Stenson won the 2016 Open Championship at Royal Troon

The last Royal Troon Open was a record-breaking epic, and we asked the winner to relive every dramatic moment…

Early on Sunday morning of the 2016 Open Championship, Henrik Stenson woke knowing that he’d achieved substantially more than most in the game. A multiple winner around the world, a Ryder Cup star and a former World No.2, he was also the first man to win both the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup and European Tour’s Race to Dubai in the same year.

But as dawn broke on the west coast of Scotland, the Swede knew that the only gap in his CV could be filled that afternoon. For the first time in his stellar career he was leading a Major Championship with 18 holes to play and by sunset he wanted to have turned that advantage into something greater: a first Major Championship triumph.

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Before leaving his rented house to play the final round of the 145th Open at Royal Troon, Stenson found an empty room, settled down and had a quiet moment with himself.

Eight years later, reminiscing from a barber’s chair with TG in typically entertaining fashion, Stenson recalls the importance of his meditation. Were there butterflies? “Oh yeah, there were extra butterflies.” Was he wary of his closest rival Phil Mickelson? “I think it helped being up against someone of his caliber.” His final thoughts? “This is your time. Make it happen. Go and win a Major.”

And then, in probably the greatest Sunday duel in Open history, Henrik Stenson did exactly that. Alongside Mickelson, the Swede created one of the most definitive moments in Open history.

No form coming in

A month earlier, a lesser golfer than Stenson might have been fretting about his hopes of winning anything, never mind a Major. “2013 and 2014 were great years for me but then I suffered a hangover,” he remembers. “The next year and a half I had good results (16 top-six finishes, in fact) but no wins. Sometimes other guys played well, but I let a few slip. It was frustrating.” He was also irked that having recorded four top-four finishes in the Majors during 2013-14, he hadn’t come close to contending in one since.

The tide may have begun to turn in April when he turned 40 because, like having children and turning 30, significant life milestones can trigger a revival. “Really?!” Stenson laughs now. “Tell me more. What about 50? It’s only two years away…” He sounds doubtful and yet, at the halfway point eight years ago, he’d said, “I’m 40. I don’t have another 50 goes at the Majors. I’d better start giving myself chances to win them.”

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The tide definitely turned when he won the BMW International Open in Germany in late June. “I didn’t play that well on the back nine but I got the win. A huge relief. No more wondering if something had gone wrong for good.”

He visited Royal Troon on his way to play the Scottish Open in Inverness the week before. “It was the only venue on the Open rota I hadn’t played. I walked it Sunday, played it Monday, and felt like I knew it. The back nine is probably the toughest on the rotation which suits me. An early visit allowed me to conserve energy in championship week. I played just nine holes on Tuesday and then another nine holes on Wednesday.”

Despite that barren spell in the Majors, he started the week in a quietly confident mood. “I’d paid my Major championship dues,” he says now. “I’d had opportunities and sometimes I was just a bit unlucky. The thing is, you have to be there. Give yourself chances. Keep trying. Keep believing.”

Round one to Mickelson

In Thursday’s first round, Mickelson had a putt to record the first 62 in Major Championship golf. It wriggled past the hole but the 63 left him three clear of the field and five ahead of Stenson, who responded with a 65 on Friday to get within one and set up a head-to-head battle for the ages over the weekend.

Was there much interaction between them? “Not really,” he recalls. “We’d played together in the Masters and US Open that year and come the weekend at Majors there’s just not much chit-chat going on.”

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A third-round 68, to Mickelson’s 70, allowed Stenson to edge one shot clear. “Only one thing matters tomorrow,” he told the press. “Phil’s not going to back down and I’m not backing down either.” It was noted that Mickelson had beaten him into second place at Muirfield in 2013. “Thanks for reminding me,” he replied. “Please tell me there’s revenge on your mind,” the journalist urged. Stenson smiled and said, “There’s always revenge.”

Round four to Stenson

Troon’s unique layout provided a three-part backdrop for the final round. The early holes play alongside the beach and are rather quiet, with ticket holders limited to one side of the fairways. Bizarrely, on the 2nd tee, the finest view was available to dog walkers outside the property who congregated to stare in curiosity at the leaders.

The action around the turn was witnessed only by the intrepid spectators who traipsed up and down the distant dunes before the thrilling finale was played out in front of ever-louder galleries around the greens and tees.

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“We hadn’t quite pulled away from the field on Saturday,” remembers Stenson. “But early on Sunday it became a matchplay situation. After five holes it was pretty clear one of us would be lifting the Claret Jug.

“I came up short with my approach at the 1st and three-putted while he almost holed out with his second. A two-shot swing right there. I had to get back into it immediately and did it with three birdies. I loved the matchplay element, responding to Phil, throwing punches, blow for blow. It brought out the best in me.”

Between them, they made nine birdies and an eagle through 10 holes. They were both 5-under for the round, with Stenson one shot clear on 17-under. Television commentary teams were in ecstasy at the sustained brilliance, social media couldn’t keep up, and the field was so distant it felt like there had been a second cut at the turn which only the top two had made.

Stenson three-putted 11 to drop into a tie for the lead and it stayed that way until the par-3 14th. “I had about 18 feet for birdie,” Stenson says. “I was thinking: How many more opportunities are you going to get? If you want to win a Major you’ve got to hole one of these. I then hit a lovely putt and made it.”

His approach to the 15th found the fringe and he drained the putt from about 18 yards. “Big bomb right there. I think Phil thought he had a chance until then but suddenly he was running out of holes.”

Stenson pulled his approach to the par-5 16th green into thick grass, his only genuinely errant long shot of the day, but he got up and down for yet another birdie. Meanwhile, Mickelson’s eagle putt dived across the front of the hole just when it seemed destined to drop.

“All the bad luck I’d had in Majors? It flipped. That putt could easily have dropped but it was my turn.”

If fate had a hand there, on the next tee Stenson took full responsibility. “The best 4-iron of my life,” he says. “I just laced it. I looked away so quickly because I just knew it was good. Eight feet good and yet it still wasn’t over.

“Phil missed the green, hit a poor chip, then he made par from eight yards, and my putt was good but it missed. I’m stood on 18 with a two-shot lead thinking it could have been four. But, after what happened on 16, it could also have been all square. Madness really but that’s what the day was like.”

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From the final tee, Stenson unleashed his 3-wood and then peered anxiously after it. “I thought it was in the bunker,” he admits. “I was so pumped. I had to walk nearly 60 yards before I saw this little white thing in the distance, shining back at me, just short of the trap. Phil hit 3-wood and had 7-iron to the green. I had a pitching wedge. That’s how pumped I was. Four clubs pumped.”

There is no finale like an Open finale. The grandstands are bigger, the scoreboard more iconic, even the silence is special – nothing but the distant sounds of light aircraft, flags cracking in the wind, and the bleachers creaking under the weight of all those people.

Stenson had carried a heavy weight of his own – one of expectation and hope – but he was so close to being free of it. “I let my concentration wander a little bit when I reached the green. Making birdie there, the ball dropping in on its last roll, that was the perfect cherry on the top.”

After he had signed for a final round 63 and a record-low Open total of 20-under-par, the man he had out-dueled looked up and cried, “You made 10 f***ing birdies!” Mickelson later told the press, “It’s probably the best I’ve played and not won. It’s not like other guys were out there doing the same thing.” He finished three shots in arrears of Stenson but an absurd 11 clear of third-placed JB Holmes.

The winner returned to Troon in 2022 when the club granted him honorary membership and he opened the junior par-3 course. “I’m excited to put on a good show for my fellow members this summer,” he says. “I was T13th last year so I know I can still compete at The Open.”

Now one of three captains of Majesticks at LIV Golf, Stenson finished second in the Saudi Open last December, but has had four of his starts this season disrupted by illness. “I’m still hungry,” he insists. “I ask a lot of myself and the team and I get frustrated when I don’t play well. I want more.”

And what of the big question? Which Open duel was better – Nicklaus-Watson at Turnberry in 1977 or Stenson-Mickelson at Troon? Another laugh. “I can’t be the judge of that,” he says. “But I do have a hand-written note from Jack on the subject.”

And what does it say? “It says ours was the best!”

About the author

Matt Cooper
Contributing Writer

Matt Cooper has been a golf journalist for 15 years. He’s worked for, among others, Golf365, SkySports, ESPN, NBC, Sporting Life, Open.com and the Guardian. He specializes in feature writing, reporting and tournament analysis.

He’s traveled widely in that time, covering golf from Kazakhstan to South Korea via Seychelles, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

More straightforwardly, he’s also covered numerous Majors, Ryder Cups and Solheim Cups.

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