Henrik Stenson's on a great run and headed to Augusta

Following what he calls “the season of his life,” Henrik Stenson has gone from one of the last players to qualify for the 2013 Masters Tournament to one of the world’s top-ranked players and a favorite to win the green jacket this year.

At this time last year, the Swede was breaking out of a nearly two-year slump. He tied for eighth at Bay Hill in mid-March and then tied for second in Houston. The finish in Houston moved him into the top 50 in the world ranking at the cutoff date to make the Masters field.

He would finish in a tie for 18th at Augusta National Golf Club.

Stenson dominated play on both sides of the Atlantic over the summer and into late 2013. He became the first player to win the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup and European Tour’s Race to Dubai in the same season. The former is a points race based on finishes, culminating in a playoff for the Cup; the latter is based on money earned, which Stenson wrapped up by winning the season-ending DP World Tour Championship by six shots at 25-under.

“I have managed to achieve something very special,” he said of his double. “That’s going to take some beating I guess in the future.”

His world ranking skyrocketed from 222nd at the end of 2011 to third at the start of 2014.

“It was a dream year, a dream summer for me. I would be lying if I said I saw all that coming,” said Stenson, who won the Deutsche Bank Championship and the Tour Championship on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour Championship on the European Tour last season.

“One of the main things is it never stops,” said Stenson, referring to expectations. “I had my great run starting from July to the end of the year, which I think is a very good achievement in its own to keep it going for such a long time playing at such a high level.”

Indeed, from mid-July to the end of the season, Stenson had six top-three finishes and won twice.

That was quite a contrast to 2011. He was playing so poorly, due in part to viral pneumonia and a stomach bug, that he failed to qualify for the PGA Championship that year in August. So he played in his club championship at Barseback Golf Club in Sweden.

“I was playing in the club championship, and maybe you’re not really up for it, and I finished second,” he said with a chuckle.

With the help of instructor Pete Cowen, Stenson started to regain his form. It didn’t happen overnight, though a good sign came when he won the South African Open in November 2012 for his first European Tour victory in five years.

“It is a lot of hard work,” Stenson said of his return to golf’s elite (he had been ranked as high as fifth in 2009 before his swoon). “It’s not something you do in June. It’s probably a year, year and a half in the making leading up to that point where I addressed 20 different processes, anything from scheduling to practicing. So many different things.

“One of the biggest things for me was sticking to the long-term process rather than chasing the quick fix,” he said. “When you’re down and out, it’s so easy to look for something you want to work on tomorrow or this week instead of saying, ‘Where are we at and where do we want to get to?’ and put a plan in place and work.”

Stenson accepted the fact a revival was going to take time – and patience.

“It’s hard to do when most players out here would have an overhanging feeling of having to perform in terms of otherwise thinking ‘I’m not going to make my money, I need to keep my card in order to stay on tour,’ ” Stenson said. “It’s hard to commit to the long term.”

This will be Stenson’s ninth Masters, where his best finish is a tie for 17th place in 2007 and 2008. He is best known for what he did in the first round of the 2012 Masters. He was leading the tournament at 5-under when he came to the 18th hole. He hit his drive left and eventually ended up taking a quadruple bogey 8 that left him at 71.

“In 2012, that (round) was more of a fluke with the putter,” Stenson said. “I hit some good shots into two and eight and made some good putts for eagle and snuck another one in there, and then made a monster putt on 10.

“I wasn’t playing that great,” he said. “I don’t think I hit a fairway on the back nine more or less. It all kind of ended quite abruptly with a quadruple up 18.”

He ended up finishing tied for 40th in 2012, but he felt his best performance came in 2009 when he tied for 38th place.

“That was probably the year I played the best tee to green, but I wasn’t putting good at all. You know you have to putt well around there to have much of a chance.”

Looking at his body of work in the Masters, Stenson said, “I’ve done some half-decent tournaments, but nothing great. We’re hoping to change that this year. It’s a course I can see myself doing well at, absolutely.”

When he got into the Masters at the 11th hour with his runner-up finish in Houston last year, Stenson had to wait two weeks before the Masters started, which he said didn’t help.

“For me it would have probably been more beneficial to come straight from Houston into Augusta,” Stenson said. “It would have been easier to carry a bit more momentum to go straight in there. I feel like I’ve got a good schedule leading up to the event this year.”