How many golfers around the world today can say that they beat Tiger Woods in one-on-one match play?
Some European Ryder Cup stars, such as Jon Rahm, can. But so, too, can Lucas Bjerregaard, the 33-year-old Dane who is currently 378th in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR).
In 2019, two weeks before Woods triumphed at Augusta National, the 15-time major winner suffered a head-scratching defeat at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas.
Bjerregaard, then the 52nd-ranked player in the OWGR, defeated Woods 1-up at Austin Country Club to advance to the semifinals. Before that quarterfinal match in the afternoon, Woods defeated Rory McIlroy 2 & 1 in a star-studded showdown that morning. Many suspected that the winner of the Woods-McIlroy match would roll their way to the finals, as Bjerregaard was an unknown to most American golf fans.
The Dane had other ideas.
After defeating 2016 Open winner Henrik Stenson, Bjerregaard beat Woods but then lost to Matt Kuchar and Francesco Molinari the following day to finish in solo fourth. He then tied for 21st at The Masters, tied for 16th at the PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, missed the cut at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and then posted another T-16 at Royal Portrush.
But Bjerregaard has not played in a major since the 2019 Open Championship.
He had mixed results on the DP World Tour in the fall of 2019 but nothing that jumped off the page. Then, as soon as the calendar flipped to 2020, his game completely abandoned him. He began 2020 by playing on the PGA Tour and missed five straight cuts before the pandemic shut everything down. When golf returned, Bjerregaard was still in a funk and missed three more cuts at the Travelers Championship, Rocket Mortgage Classic, and Workday Charity Open. He returned to Europe in August, as he received no invites to any of the majors postponed to that fall. Of the 10 events he played during that stretch, the Dane made only three cuts, with his best finish being a T-27 at the Portugal Masters. He took home €8,487.00 that week.
The struggles continued in 2021, as he made 14 of 26 cuts on the DP World Tour. But he played well enough to keep his DP World Tour card for the 2022 season. Regardless, 2022 turned out much worse than 2021, as Bjerregaard missed 19 cuts and finished 140th in the DP World Tour rankings. He consequently lost his status for 2023, not even four years removed from being a top-50 player in the Official World Golf Rankings.
After being relegated to the Challenge Tour, the DP World Tour’s equivalent of the Korn Ferry Tour, Bjerregaard continued to play poorly, making only 12-of-21 cuts in 2023. He ended the season ranked 116th and did not even have status on the Challenge Tour for 2024.
“I actually played a bit of Nordic Golf League to start the year,” Bjerregaard said Wednesday.
“I played on invites mostly at the beginning of the season.”
Somehow, those invites helped. They gave him a breath of life and a glimpse of hope.
Strong finishes throughout the summer followed, and then, out of nowhere, Bjerregard tied for second at his national open—the Danish Golf Championship on the DP World Tour—in late August. The DP World Tour invited him to play in his home country, and he took advantage of the opportunity. Since then, he has not missed a cut and finished the season ranked 20th in the Challenge Tour rankings.
Now, he is in Mallorca for the Challenge Tour Grand Final, an event in which 46 players compete for 20 DP World Tour cards. He has a tremendous opportunity in front of him—a chance to return to the DP World Tour.
“It is great to be here at the Grand Final, and it’s my second time playing at this event,” Bjerregaard said.
“I’m trying to take it one day at a time and put in the work. I’ve taken a look back at the year I’ve had and a few months ago I didn’t think I would be in this position. This week means so much to all of us, and it’s going to be difficult for most people, so if I can handle the pressure a little bit better than them, I think that will be key.”
Bjerregaard last played in the Grand Final in 2013, when this event was held in Dubai. He finished solo 18th that year, earning his DP World Tour card by the slimmest of margins for the following season. He opened with a 1-over 71 and a 5-over 77 over the first 36 holes that week, digging himself a huge hole. But he bounced back emphatically with a 5-under 67 and a 7-under 65 to secure his card.
Eleven years later, he hopes to bounce back again, although this one would be a much greater accomplishment considering the depths that his game descended into.
“I’ve probably been through more in my career than most of the guys here this week,” Bjerregaard added.
“There are a lot of up-and-coming players here, and they are fearless. They haven’t experienced the hard times and just how difficult golf can be sometimes. Going through what I had to go through over the last few years will help me put things into perspective a little bit this week.”
Bjerregaard has reached the pinnacle of the sport, defeated perhaps the best player of all time, and has had the opportunity to play—and play well in—all four major championships. But he also saw his game completely abandon him, something nobody wishes on anybody. And yet, five years after the peak of his career, Bjerregaard has a chance to secure status on the DP World Tour once more. The entire golf world will cheer him on, hoping he can achieve the ultimate story of redemption.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
