Henrik Bjørnstad is now one of the most mentioned sportsman in Norway at the moment. He has also become a well known man on the US PGA Tour, the best paid tour in the world. He has the best job a golfer can get, but the way to his success hasn’t been easy.
Henrik started playing golf when he was ten years old. He was a very eager golf player, and he attended many national tournaments until he turned pro. When he became pro, new opportunities opened up for him. He qualified to the European Tour in 1999 and he played steady golf for five years. In 2004 he retired from the golf. He lost his motivation and he was tired of all the travelling. He went back to the “normal” life and his brother gave him a job as a carpenter.
After a request from Jan Erik Aalbu, Henrik started playing golf again, and this time his motivation was on top! He was very keen to play big tournaments again. He made his comeback in a big tournament in Sweden called Scandinavian Masters, where many of the best players in the world attended. He ended at a shared 18th after a very well done tournament. He felt much stronger than he was before he retired and he enjoyed playing golf again. In my opinion I think it’s a very good achievement to go from the carpenter life and to start playing good golf again. I think it was very healthy for Bjørnstad to take a year off, because when you start playing golf again you will think its very fun and the will to play golf is much bigger than it was.
Late in 2005 he qualified to the PGA tour, as the first Norwegian in history. The tour gave him a lot of opportunities, and a lot more money than he made when he worked as a carpenter. Henrik Bjørnstad got a lot of attention when he lead his first tournament on the PGA tour and everybody wondered how a carpenter could play such good golf…
I read an interview with Henrik and he said that it was better to play golf now, because he had more people around who helped him and supported him. The time before he retired he was all by himself. He appreciated that the Norwegian golf association makes it better for the Norwegian golf players, and they take good care of them and follow them up better.
I’m very fascinated over the good achievements Henrik has done when he started playing golf again. Almost nobody thought he would try to qualify to the PGA tour, but he did, and that is a fantastic thing to do. He has never played golf as well as he plays now, and that is of course because he enjoys playing golf now. For three years ago he thought golf was very hard because of all the travelling.
Henrik Bjørnstad has become a man many Norwegian golf players look up to and I think he does good promotion for Norway. It is not many who thought that Norway could have good golf players because we don’t have summer all year, and I think Henrik’s good achievements can get the Norwegian people to start playing golf, so we can get more good players on the PGA tour in the future.
Henrik Bjørnstad makes me believe that there is a hope for everyone who really works for it to be good in golf, and that it’s not the size and strength that matters. I admire him for everything he has done, especially when he qualified to the PGA tour as the first Norwegian. I know that it has cost a lot for him, especially many of his friendships that he had to sacrifice. He shows that he has a very good psychological head and he is able to master all situations.
Since the PGA tour started in January, Henrik Bjørnstad has earned almost 2, 5 million NOK. That is a lot of money in only two months!
In the end I will say that Henrik Bjørnstad is and will be the best golfer in my eyes. Maybe he will take up the fight for the world #1 after Tiger Woods. I would say that he has the potential to do that in a few years, if he continues the good work and focus on being a better golf player all the time. No one will ever be perfect, but he can almost be perfect if he wants to.