Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn has kept himself very involved with the inner workings of golf on the back end of his playing days on the DP World Tour, but now he has set most of that aside to concentrate on playing once again.
Bjorn, 53, who captained Europe to a resounding Ryder Cup victory over the U.S. in Paris in 2018, has been playing quite nicely when scattered opportunities arise among the 50-and-over set. This week he will make his sixth start of the season on PGA Tour Champions; already has a tie for second (Trophy Hassan II) and tie for third (Invited Celebrity Classic).
“I’m just trying to get things going,” Bjorn said Tuesday, readying for his second appearance in the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. He tied for 15th at PGA Frisco in Texas last May.
“I’ve kind of withdrawn myself a little from all the politics of golf – at least I’m not as involved as I was – and I want to see if I can have a few years of playing some senior golf.”
What is good in his game these days? For Bjorn, tee to green, he likes practically everything he is seeing.
“I’ve been hitting it extremely good. I struggled on the Bermuda greens the last few weeks (at tour stops in Houston and Alabama), but in general it’s pretty good,” said Bjorn, a 15-time winner in his DP World Tour career. “I’m in a good space, positive about it.”
Bjorn says the game on the “main tour” has changed so much in the last five or six years that he no longer has the length to compete regularly among the younger set in Europe. He owns a couple of wins on the Legends Tour in Europe, a senior circuit, and won the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan last year.
On PGA Tour Champions, he likes the fact that his competitors are striking approach shots while standing in the same zip code as he is, and are not 25-30 yards up ahead. Mostly, he’s just glad to be seeing old friends and playing golf where he wants to be playing. If he gets the putter going, he is a player to watch this week.
“I don’t feel like I’m ‘catching up’ at the moment,” Bjorn said, “which is where I feel I’ve been for a while. I’ve felt I was behind. So I don’t feel like I’m catching up, I feel that I’m right where I want to be.”
