Masters leader Hanson gave up tennis for golf

He wanted to be the next Bjorn Borg or Stefan Edberg, or maybe Mats Wilander.

But Peter Hanson eventually realized if he wanted to reach the stature of these Swedish tennis greats, he first had to put down the racquet.

As a teenager, Hanson made the switch from tennis to golf, and now – almost improbably – has the Masters Tournament lead heading into Sunday’s final round. He would be the first Swede to win a major in golf.

“I wanted to be a tennis player and I very quickly found out I wasn’t good enough,” Hanson said. “So when I was 14, 15, I decided, ‘Well, I’ll skip the tennis and try to go full time with the golf.’ ”

His choice looks good af­ter a blistering 7-under-par 65 on Saturday that has him close to donning a green jack­et.

Hanson’s 65 approached history, just two shots off the course record 63 set by Nick Price in 1986 and Greg Norman in 1996. Like Hanson, Price’s low score came in the third round.

“I have to say very surprised,” Hanson said about his round. “I think this golf course is unbelievably challenging. To shoot 65 around here, I’ve been watching this tournament since I was a young kid, and you know, seeing Freddie Couples and the guys go and shoot 30 and 31 on the back nine is something you just dream about.”

But this dream is real, and Hanson, all of four European Tour victories and just one top-10 finish in a major, is on the cusp of winning a green jacket.

He said he tapped into his potential after he moved to Florida a few years ago, away from those fall days in Sweden of hunting and fishing and near good golf facilities in Orlando.

“Being over here, we’re pretty much walking out every day 30 yards from my house,” he said. “I’ve got a perfect putting green, the range in front and the balls are out there, so the people down at Lake Nona, they do a great job, and I think it really helped my career to where it is now.”

Hanson, 34, brought his wife, Sanna, and two children, Stella and Tim, with him to Augusta, but in some ways he’s always with his family.

He said his son, Tim, was born on Nov. 17, 2010, at 5:17 p.m., a time that’s at first a seemingly insignificant detail.

But in Sweden, that becomes 17:17. To further the connection between father and son, Hanson, who missed the cut a year ago in his first Masters appearance, asked TaylorMade to put the number on his golf ball.

Now, one round away from a Masters win, Hanson expects to spend time with his family before his Sunday round, trying to escape all the buzz and hoopla.

He admits it’s not going to be easy.

“It’s going to be tough,” Hanson smiled, thinking about sleeping with the lead. “It’s a new situation to me. I’ve been up on the leaderboard a few times, but I’ve never led in anything like this.”