Peter Williams: Sweden sets the example and we should follow suit

If you could put up with the dreadful commentary and lack of atmosphere generated by the TV coverage, you'd have noted that two more Swedish golfers were slugging it out for the Spanish Open on the Costa del Sol last weekend. Eventually Peter Hanson beat Peter Gustafsson and became the second Swedish player, after Niclas Fasth at the New Zealand Open, to win on the European Tour this year.

The emergence of the Scandinavian nation into one of the powerhouses of world golf in just 20 years is one of the more remarkable developments in modern-day sport.

Sweden didn't have a player on the European Tour until 1973. Yet there are currently 11 Swedes on the top 100 on the money list, more than any country except England. New Zealand has one. Those 11 don't include the country's best player, Freddie Jacobsen (ranked 67th in the world), or Jesper Parnevik (80th) who play in America.

Then there's the small matter of Annika Sorenstam, probably the greatest female player ever.

The high number of Swedish professionals is reflected in what can only be described as an explosion in the number of people who play the game in the country and in the number of golf courses built there in recent years.

Only 50 years ago the game hardly existed in Sweden. There were only 7000 players in 38 clubs. By 1995 there were 378,187 registered players. In the last 10 years that number has jumped a further 37 per cent to 604,466 in 460 clubs. There were about 250 golf courses built in Sweden during the 1990s.

They are numbers incomprehensible to a golfing community in this country that is at best stagnating, if not regressing, in playing numbers.

Sweden's population is just under nine million but it's experienced little growth in the last 30 years.

The take-up of golf is a reflection of a robust economy, plenty of space on which to build courses and, most importantly, the international success of their players. But they also have very cold weather and in the most populated parts of the country, around Stockholm and Gothenburg, you can play golf for, at most, seven months of the year.

The staggering growth in player numbers is driven by the success of its tour professionals.

A bigger player base produces more stars and so the cycle continues. While a few like Sorenstam have left the country as youngsters and gone to college in America, the primary reason for Sweden's dramatic rise as a competitive golfing force has been the concept they introduced in 1983 called 'oppengolf'.

It is a simple idea. In tournaments in Sweden there is no distinction between professionals and amateurs. All tournaments are open to all players.

The Swedish Golf Federation, which administers both the men's and women's game and incorporates the Swedish PGA, say they did this with the stated intention of making more Swedish golfers competitive in international tournament play.

They also take a swipe at those countries with more traditional administration and say it's a wonder that "no other country has followed this easy step to encourage a higher standard".

Greg Turner is well aware of the Swedish success and it inspired him to start the Golf Tour of New Zealand last year that was designed to put amateurs and professionals head to head in serious competition. So far there's been one tournament in Taranaki and no sign of any more.

But why can't established events like the North Island and South Island championships, even the New Zealand Strokeplay, become open tournaments?

If necessary, just use the players' entry fees to make up a small prize pool for the professionals. The Swedish Federation says the issue in 'oppengolf' is not prizes but the level of competition.

If golf here is to grow, we must incorporate the best ideas from overseas. Sweden's spectacular growth on all fronts suggests they could tell us a whole lot.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY