He might look like an old-style punk rocker, but his game is anything but a three-chord thrash. Fredrik Jacobson may have needed time to serve his apprenticeship in that branch of the entertainment industry called professional golf, but lately his records have all gone double-platinum.
With his spiky, dyed-black hair and wispy facial adornments, Jacobson, who won the Algarve Portuguese Open on Sunday, does not conform to the norm in the ranks of today's young pros. His unorthodox appearance and dress style is a million miles from the clean-cut, chinos-and-polo shirt mode of his peers, and his swing is not one carved on classical lines, either.
His upbringing in the sport of choice was even a bit unconventional. He started off with a handicap of 40 at the age of 10 when the entire Jacobson family took up golf at the same time. He rapidly outstripped the rest of the clan, though, and was a scratch player by 15.
As a youth, Jacobson was so good at ice hockey that he could have taken it up as a career. In fact, playing in a match between Swedish golfers and tennis players put him out of the game for a while at the start of the 2000 season while a broken thumb healed.
In others the Jacobson package could even be regarded as a wish to be different for its own sake, but not in this man. He is as he is. You take him on his own terms and if you don't like it, well, tough.
It is not as though he is particularly outlandish by the standards of some of his countrymen. Swedes are often portrayed as, first and foremost, solid and, perhaps, to some, even slightly prosaic, conformist characters. But we know better, do we not?
Just take a look at Jesper Parnevik? Prosaic? Don't think so -- nobody who voluntarily eats volcanic dust could be accused of that.
And what about Jarmo Sandelin? This is the man who is launching his own clothing line that, from the evidence last week, includes shirts that look as if they have been peeled off the back of several small furry animals. Sandelin is many things, most of which make the world around him seem a brighter place. Boring, he ain't.
It goes on. Anders Forsbrand, one of the founding fathers of modern Swedish golf, has a wonderfully powerful streak of eccentricity running through his veins. This, remember, is the man who was unable to hand in a card in the French Open a few years back because he had run out of golf balls on the 17th when heading for a three-figure score. Point at least partially proved? Thank you.
But this is about Jacobson, entertaining though reminiscing about his compatriots might be. And no matter how he looks or dresses, this is a seriously good golfer.
When he ended last season, his third in succession in the top 40 of the European Tour Order of Merit, Jacobson returned to his home in Monaco a frustrated individual. He had finished second six times in six years of varying success on tour and one of them had come in 2002 when he was defeated by the evergreen Eduardo Romero in a playoff for the Barclays Scottish Open crown.
True, he was now clearly one of the better players on tour, a performer who after a couple of visits to the q-school had established a deserved and rock-solid reputation as a dangerous customer. But still he had not won, and it gnawed at him.
He didn't have to wait long before the ache was assuaged. It's one of the small vagaries of the modern European circuit that the next season starts in the same year that the old one finishes, so after a short break, Jacobson took his long, lean frame to the Far East to launch his 2003 campaign.
As events were to turn out, his New Year's resolution did not have to concern such things as winning, because on Dec. 1 he finally lived his dream when he won the Omega Hong Kong Open. Before the end of January, though, he had another hurdle to overcome, another specter to banish.
Injury. Prolonged, painful and hugely frustrating injury.
He first noticed it during his preparations for the Caltex Masters in Singapore. An increasingly stabbing pain in his left wrist forced him out of the tournament -- although he went ahead and played in two tournaments in Australia, missing the cut in both.
That was the precursor to 10 weeks on the injured list while the medicos tried to diagnose the cause of the problem. If anything, his fine performance in Hong Kong made it worse, because Jacobson felt that with that victory he was on the verge of something special.
Now he could nothing but wait, and wait some more. And still the doctors did not come up with a solution. Jacobsen had to wait until it just got better.
It still had not, quite, when he went to Portugal. As late as the beginning of last week he was still not sure if he was making the right decision in travelling along the Mediterranean coast since he was still in some pain.
When he arrived, he said he was aiming for nothing more than a warm-up and, if things went all right, to playing four rounds and seeing how the dodgy wrist would hold up to 72 holes.
At about 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon he knew the answer. He had done everything from producing a scintillating 64 on the first day to playing sound, solid defensive golf -- helped by three chip-ins, it must be admitted -- on the last.
He was back in action and had proved it by claiming his second victory in just four appearances. And to think it had just been a warm-up. Some warm-up.
!
With his spiky, dyed-black hair and wispy facial adornments, Jacobson, who won the Algarve Portuguese Open on Sunday, does not conform to the norm in the ranks of today's young pros. His unorthodox appearance and dress style is a million miles from the clean-cut, chinos-and-polo shirt mode of his peers, and his swing is not one carved on classical lines, either.
His upbringing in the sport of choice was even a bit unconventional. He started off with a handicap of 40 at the age of 10 when the entire Jacobson family took up golf at the same time. He rapidly outstripped the rest of the clan, though, and was a scratch player by 15.
As a youth, Jacobson was so good at ice hockey that he could have taken it up as a career. In fact, playing in a match between Swedish golfers and tennis players put him out of the game for a while at the start of the 2000 season while a broken thumb healed.
In others the Jacobson package could even be regarded as a wish to be different for its own sake, but not in this man. He is as he is. You take him on his own terms and if you don't like it, well, tough.
It is not as though he is particularly outlandish by the standards of some of his countrymen. Swedes are often portrayed as, first and foremost, solid and, perhaps, to some, even slightly prosaic, conformist characters. But we know better, do we not?
Just take a look at Jesper Parnevik? Prosaic? Don't think so -- nobody who voluntarily eats volcanic dust could be accused of that.
And what about Jarmo Sandelin? This is the man who is launching his own clothing line that, from the evidence last week, includes shirts that look as if they have been peeled off the back of several small furry animals. Sandelin is many things, most of which make the world around him seem a brighter place. Boring, he ain't.
It goes on. Anders Forsbrand, one of the founding fathers of modern Swedish golf, has a wonderfully powerful streak of eccentricity running through his veins. This, remember, is the man who was unable to hand in a card in the French Open a few years back because he had run out of golf balls on the 17th when heading for a three-figure score. Point at least partially proved? Thank you.
But this is about Jacobson, entertaining though reminiscing about his compatriots might be. And no matter how he looks or dresses, this is a seriously good golfer.
When he ended last season, his third in succession in the top 40 of the European Tour Order of Merit, Jacobson returned to his home in Monaco a frustrated individual. He had finished second six times in six years of varying success on tour and one of them had come in 2002 when he was defeated by the evergreen Eduardo Romero in a playoff for the Barclays Scottish Open crown.
True, he was now clearly one of the better players on tour, a performer who after a couple of visits to the q-school had established a deserved and rock-solid reputation as a dangerous customer. But still he had not won, and it gnawed at him.
He didn't have to wait long before the ache was assuaged. It's one of the small vagaries of the modern European circuit that the next season starts in the same year that the old one finishes, so after a short break, Jacobson took his long, lean frame to the Far East to launch his 2003 campaign.
As events were to turn out, his New Year's resolution did not have to concern such things as winning, because on Dec. 1 he finally lived his dream when he won the Omega Hong Kong Open. Before the end of January, though, he had another hurdle to overcome, another specter to banish.
Injury. Prolonged, painful and hugely frustrating injury.
He first noticed it during his preparations for the Caltex Masters in Singapore. An increasingly stabbing pain in his left wrist forced him out of the tournament -- although he went ahead and played in two tournaments in Australia, missing the cut in both.
That was the precursor to 10 weeks on the injured list while the medicos tried to diagnose the cause of the problem. If anything, his fine performance in Hong Kong made it worse, because Jacobson felt that with that victory he was on the verge of something special.
Now he could nothing but wait, and wait some more. And still the doctors did not come up with a solution. Jacobsen had to wait until it just got better.
It still had not, quite, when he went to Portugal. As late as the beginning of last week he was still not sure if he was making the right decision in travelling along the Mediterranean coast since he was still in some pain.
When he arrived, he said he was aiming for nothing more than a warm-up and, if things went all right, to playing four rounds and seeing how the dodgy wrist would hold up to 72 holes.
At about 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon he knew the answer. He had done everything from producing a scintillating 64 on the first day to playing sound, solid defensive golf -- helped by three chip-ins, it must be admitted -- on the last.
He was back in action and had proved it by claiming his second victory in just four appearances. And to think it had just been a warm-up. Some warm-up.
!
