22 July 2012 09:03
GMT
Never mind ten things…. Here is lots of stuff we didn’t know about Thorbjorn Olesen before The Open 2012
He is 22 and was born in Furso, a lakeside town 20 miles north-west of the Danish capital Copenhagen. The freshwater Furso lake is popular with scuba divers, and yields a lot of crab for local restaurants.
Olesen’s first name is actually Jacob, but he dropped it in favour of his middle name because it is more unusual.
Friends call him Thor.
According to the BBC, Olesen’s father Soren gave his son the name Thorbjorn in tribute to the Canadian 1980 world snooker champion Cliff Thorburn. Soren is a huge snooker fan, and Thorburn is his hero.
Father and son are very close. Soren Olesen is at Royal Lytham following his son on every round, and is always very nervous for Thorbjorn.
When Olesen was aged 10, he went on a golf trip with his father and some friends. They told the boy that every time he got the ball on the green, he would be given a Mars bar. By the end of the holiday, they had to buy an enormous box of Mars bars.
The Danish television sports presenter Michael Lermark, who has known Olesen for years, says that as a teenager, the golfer was known as a party guy and would “party all night”.
Olesen has huge self-belief but, according to Michael Lermark, it never tips into arrogance. “Even at a very young age he said he would become one of the world’s great golfers. But despite that enormous confidence, he is a really nice guy, very likeable.”
His debut event on the European Tour was the Scandinavian Masters in 2009, where he finished fourth.
Olesen is a big football fan who divides his loyalties between FC Copenhagen and Manchester United. Says Olesen on his Facebook page: “My favourite football player of all time has to be Ryan Giggs – 37 years old and he’s played for the same club for 20 years. What a legend!” Actually, Giggs is 38. But never mind.
Olesen also loves ski-ing.
He is on Twitter as @Thorbjornolesen with 6,891 followers as of 9.30am today. Last Tuesday he tweeted a picture of the 18th at Royal Lytham with the caption: “Could be a lot of fun to walk down here in the last group on Sunday!” Fourth last group will do nicely though.
His Facebook fan page has 1,251 “likes” as of 9.30am today. (Tiger Woods’ Facebook fan page has 2,614,146 “likes”.)
He rounded off his second practice day at Royal Lytham by watching The Bourne Supremacy – “brilliant movie!” His favourite film is The Godfather, and he is also a fan of the TV series Entourage and Friends.
He loves Eminem and Michael Jackson – and musical theatre.
His all-time top three courses are Tseleevo (in Moscow), Valderrama and Royal Aberdeen. His all-time top three golfers are Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros and Adam Scott.