Golf fans have come to look forward to the creative cooky pre-tournament photo shoots at the WGC-HSBC Champions every year. But not surprisingly, tour stars aren’t as in to the annual tradition. And that’s not going to change after what happened to Henrik Stenson this year.
The Swede said he’s shutting it down for the year earlier than planned after suffering a rib injury. And Stenson strongly hinted it was the recent photo shoot in Shanghai that got him hurt, according to The Telegraph.
“I’m no superman even though certain people thought I was superman,” Stenson said after finishing T-35 at the Turkish Airlines Open last weekend. “If you saw the promotion in Shanghai, you know what I mean.”
At that promotion, Stenson, Dustin Johnson and Haotong Li were suspended in the air as superheroes with defending champ Hideki Matsuyama on the ground protecting his 2016 trophy.
According to The Telegraph, Stenson was “annoyed about being persuaded to do it” and other big names refused. Once the 2016 British Open champ participated, he appeared to get into his role as Henrik “The Machine” Stenson, but perhaps he took things a bit too seriously. The injury certainly didn’t keep him from playing well in Shanghai as he finished runner-up (along with Johnson) to Justin Rose, although he says the situation has deteriorated since.
“I was not 100 percent last week, but I guess the travel and the way things progressed it just got worse,” Stenson said. “It’s not been good, and obviously I haven’t been able to do myself justice in terms of the golf.”
Stenson, who is currently No.9 in the Official World Golf Ranking, has withdrawn from this week’s Nedbank Challenge and next week’s DP World Tour Championship, the European Tour’s season finale, which Stenson has won twice.
We’re also going out on a, um, wire, and predicting he’ll be a WD from next year’s photo shoot in Shanghai.