Ten years removed from his career-highlight win at the 2016 Open, Henrik Stenson is looking like his old self at the 2026 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.
After a hot start, Stenson is starting to think the unthinkable: winning a second Open far into his career swoon.
But a second major title isn’t all Stenson is eyeing this week. The former LIV Golf pro, who turned 50 in April, is planning a second life in his golf career on the PGA Tour Champions, following a lengthy suspension for playing on LIV.
It turns out his PGA Tour suspension provided him with a much-needed “break” that could be key to his solid play this week.
Stenson in Open hunt, eyeing post-LIV PGA Tour Champions future
In his long career in pro golf, Stenson captured six PGA Tour wins and 11 DP World Tour victories to go along with his lone Claret Jug. At one point in 2014, he rose all the way to No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Now, though, he’s missed the cut in three of his last five Open starts. And, largely thanks to his time on LIV Golf, his World Ranking has plummeted to 1,399th.
You wouldn’t know it based on his play in Thursday’s opening round. Stenson started off steady in Round 1, making birdie at 5 and only surrendering his first shots at the 11th, which he doubled.
Over Royal Birkdale’s closing stretch, Stenson got hot, making birdies on three of his final four holes to finish at two under, just a couple shots off the early lead.
After his round, though, Stenson would only allow that his game had been “pretty good” on Thursday, despite also admitting this week’s Open is only his “fourth event in pretty much a year.”
That long stretch of little play is due to his current playing status. Stenson was relegated from LIV Golf following the 2025 season. Soon after, he re-applied for PGA Tour membership, sparking a one-year probationary period before he could start teeing it up in Tour-sanctioned events.
That includes the PGA Tour Champions, which is where Stenson is hoping to start plying his trade.
Stenson was able to compete in two senior majors this year, the Senior PGA Championship in April and the U.S. Senior Open in July (where he finished T11), but only because those events are not run by the PGA Tour, as regular-season PGA Tour Champions tournaments are.
Stenson helped clear up his PGA Tour Champions status after his round on Thursday at Birkdale, saying, “I’m a rookie.”
He went on to joke that the PGA Tour will remove his “ankle bracelet,” a reference to his one-year suspension in August.
“Yeah, so from end of August, they remove my ankle bracelet, and I’ll be out of that one-year probation,” Stenson explained. “I think from — I played the last LIV event 24th of August last year. So I’m kind of reinstated as a member, and I’m free to play PGA Tour-sanctioned tournaments from the 25th of August this year.”
Stenson revealed that once the suspension is over, he is planning a busy schedule for the rest of the year on the senior circuit.
“Full schedule, I don’t know. I will play five, six, seven here on the back end. I guess if I play well, I have a chance to maybe make it into the playoffs there as well depending, and then we’ll see,” Stenson said on Thursday.
Stenson says Tour suspension left him ‘little bit more motivated and hungry to go again’
Despite playing so little this year, Stenson’s game looks sharp so far at Royal Birkdale. That’s not a surprise to him.
While Stenson would have preferred not to serve a suspension, the time off has given him a much-needed break after feeling “worn out” at the end of last season.
“Yeah, I needed a break. I feel like I was pretty worn out both physically and mentally. I’ve done this for 28 years now, playing two Tours, one season kind of tagging onto the next. Being in season — not playing every week, as you know, but being in season for near 10 1/2 months throughout the year, and I guess it gets to a point where the body says how about a little break?”
That break, while forced, has left the former major champion “more motivated and hungry” as he resumes his playing career.
“I had some more breaks the last couple of years, but it was also a lot on my plate there for a while. It’s been good. It’s been the longest break I’ve had during all those years. I think it definitely gives me the opportunity to come back out and be a little bit more motivated and hungry to go again on these last couple of holes of my career.”
We’ll see if Stenson can kick off the newest stage of his career with a myth-making win at the Open.
