Chris Hanson's Tour blog: The famous Himmerland Hill

Chris Hanson on his exploits in Denmark…

“It was great to play four rounds in Prague…especially when many aspects of my game felt average at best! And it’s great to know that I can still compete and get myself into some good positions with my game feeling below par… but I know I shouldn’t be letting some of the shots slip, which I am!

So knowing that things were getting better as the week went on, I was hopeful for a good showing in Denmark, an event which I have played before!

Having been before I knew what I was in store for and what a fantastic event it is!

The famous ‘Himmerland Hill’ is something you can never forget!

So I ended up flying Monday morning from Prague to Copenhagen… and then drove 3.5 hrs to pick up Laura, the kids and my out-laws (sorry, I mean in-laws) in Aarhus and from there we all drove across country to Himmerland Golf Club and our woodland lodge! (sounds a lot more glamorous than it was).

Chris Hanson

This was a typical Danish summerhouse, but this one was pretty un-used! For £900 it was very damp, had more creepy crawlies and frogs than you could imagine but it was a mile from the course so that was its selling point!

Pros and cons for sure, as the players’ hotel was 40 minutes away in Aalborg which was certainly not ideal!

Tuesday and Wednesday, as most weeks, were standard practice days for me. I’ve been training pretty hard in the gym recently too with the programme Rachael Tibbs (Dynamic Golf) has set me, so some hamstring treatment on the Tour Physio bus afterwards was really needed!

Chris Hanson

It’s an unbelievable facility and service that the Tour and the European Tour Performance Institute provide and many injured players would not play some weeks if it wasn’t for their help and expertise!

So I was all set for another week on Tour and luckily for me after a week of moaning about self- inflicted early starts last week, I got the two perfect times to be able to rest up for this week!

1.50pm round 1 and 8.50am round 2!

As my stats proved for the week my game is in a good place, I’m just not capitalising on the many chances I’m creating each round! Patience has to be key and I know I will get my reward in the coming events!

After two rounds of 69 I was -4 and around 18th position; I followed it up with another 69 which moved me up to 10th. In that round I was bogey free until the tough 18th took its toll…but overall a great position to be in as I expected that if I could push for a top 10 it would possibly get me into Crans the following week!

The fans at the ‘Made in Denmark’ event are incredible; 80k came through the gates for the week and at times fairways and greens were 4/5 people deep.

Especially up around the 6th green which seemed to get the better of me for the week, even when it was a hole most people were making look easy!

For example, Martin Kaymer went birdie, birdie, eagle, eagle…

Me… I made a scrappy par day 1, a shocking bogey day 2, then salvaged a par day 3 after pulling my 3 iron left of the green!

On leaving the club face I knew it was heading for trouble, but second thoughts were if it hit my mother-in-law I would surely get a bonus point…

On shouting “fore” the crowd scattered, only to see it miss Linda by a whisker!

After a grovelling apology and that scrappy par save I think it was soon forgotten… and finally in round 4 I made birdie!! But that was a hole I definitely gave a lot up on the field!!

For round 4 they forecasted shocking weather, so they got us all out early in a ‘U draw’ and it was a good job they did… after 9 holes we then spent 4 hours inside sheltering from a huge downpour… luckily we got back out and somehow stayed dry until the end!

Round 4 I had a fun group, Jaco Van Zyl and Edoardo Molinari…Jaco ended up shooting -6 and made it look pretty easy but my game wasn’t far behind him tee to green, he just took his chances and made a few nice par saves along the way!

That’s golf!! And it’s a funny game and one with far too many frustrating fine lines but that’s something you have to learn to deal with if you want to get to the top of this game!

So in the end I finished the week T18th, scores of 69, 69, 69 and 71 for -6 total!

As always I found plenty of positives and came out with a new career high ‘World Ranking’ of 416, so I have to be pleased with that!

I can’t forget to mention ‘Himmerland Hill’ – if you watched the event on TV you will have an idea about what we had in store… but until you’re there you would never fully appreciate the atmosphere!

The hole at the weekend played around 90 yards, over a valley to a small, extremely undulating green with an amphitheatre-like banking which seated approximately 3000 people, where most of them had squeaky rubber ducks!

I made a mess on day one but gave myself three great birdie chances the next 3 days!

After a spine-tingling Danish clap on walking to the green I failed to convert any of my birdie putts, meaning I never got the famous squeaky duck treatment for making birdie!

Chris Hanson

It’s quite a surreal experience, for a hole that is so short and should be so easy, I think just the environment it’s set in makes your knees shake and all of a sudden it becomes one of the hardest holes on the course!

Again, a fun week on Tour with plenty going on, and even more for some players with a little player fisty cuffs in the locker room and also a caddy sacking his player mid round, leaving him out there with his bag – it was all going on! (No names mentioned from me, sorry!).

So it’s on to the KLM Open in Holland where I get another opportunity to put some points on the OOM!”

How to hit your putts end over end