British Open: Ranking the 25 most dominant performances of all time
By Bill Felber
Henrik Stenson, 2016, -3.504
Is there anything more captivating than two players, both at their best, performing head-to-head at a level that is far superior to all of their peers? That’s the kind of battle Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson jointly staged in 2016 at Royal Troon before a gallery numbering in the hundreds of thousands and a worldwide media audience in the hundreds of millions.
To call this a British Open for the ages might actually be an understatement.
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Stenson eventually persevered to become the first Swedish winner of a major championship, defeating Mickelson by three strokes in a pulsating drama. His score of 20-under par was punctuated by an 8-under par finishing 63.
Stenson and Mickelson played the final 36 holes face-to-face, Mickelson leading Stenson by one at the halfway mark. By the beginning of the final round, Stenson had assumed the one-stroke lead, with no other player within seven shots of them.
In that memorable final round, Mickelson retook the lead with a birdie at the first hole, while Stenson bogeyed. But Stenson birdied the second to move back into a tie, and another birdie at the third put him back in front.
From that point in it was one sensational shot after another. Mickelson trumped Stenson’s birdie at four with an eagle to regain a share of the lead, both players at 14-under. They also matched birdies at the sixth, and when Stenson birdied the eighth he found himself ahead again.
They both turned at four-under for the front nine, nine strokes clear of J.B. Holmes in third. Then they both birdied the 10th. When Stenson bogeyed the 11th, Mickelson regained a share of the lead. But Stenson’s birdie at 14 was the first of three straight; by the 17th tee he stood two in front.
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He capped off the remarkable duel with a birdie at the final hole and celebrated the first major title by a Swedish golfer.
“There have been many great players from my country who have tried and there have been a couple of really close calls,” he remarked, adding, “this is going to be massive for golf in Sweden.”