Former PNGA Player of the Year Adam Svensson preps for PGA TOUR
The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season is less than two weeks away and Adam Svensson is serving notice that he’s ready for his second crack on the big stage.
Two weeks ago the 27-year-old from Surrey, B.C. earned his second Korn Ferry Tour win of the season and third overall by capturing the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship by two shots in Columbus, Ohio.
Svensson had already clinched his PGA TOUR card for next season, but the win improved his priority ranking. He then played in last week’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship in Newburgh, Ind., seeded third overall.
Svensson was named the PNGA Men’s Player of the Year in 2014, and twice named the PNGA Junior Boys’ Player of the Year (2010, 2012).
He starred at Barry University and won the 2013-14 NCAA Division II Jack Nicklaus National Player of the Year Award as a sophomore. He turned professional in February 2015, the spring of his junior season, and won the 2015 Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament’s Final Stage by seven strokes. It would be two Korn Ferry Tour seasons before Svensson’s first victory, though. A win at the 2018 The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club propelled him to a 14th-place finish on the regular season money list and a PGA TOUR promotion.
The Canadian finished 167th in the 2019 FedExCup standings, sending him back to the Korn Ferry Tour for what became, after the COVID-19 cancelations, the 2020-21 season. Svensson secured a return trip to the PGA TOUR two weeks ago, as he finished 11th in the regular season points standings.
“I’m pretty pumped,” Svensson said. “You know, it’s been two years playing on the Korn Ferry Tour and it’s been great, but I’m ready to take my game to the next level and get out there and play.”
He said he feels like he is now much better equipped – on and off the golf course – for the big tour than he was as a wide-eyed rookie three years ago.
“I would say off the golf course I’m a lot more mature,” Svensson said. “I do things correctly now. I give it 100 per cent, practicing more. I would just say I am maturing as a player and that change in mentality is going to benefit me.”
Svensson said he will be bringing a better short game to the PGA TOUR the second time around. “I have just been putting more work into it, just grinding and practicing more. When you practice more, you feel more confident and that’s pretty much what it comes down to.”
Svensson closed with a four-under 67 and finished the event at 17-under par, two strokes ahead of American Bronson Burgoon and Stephan Jaeger of Germany. The win earned Svensson $180,000, his biggest check as a pro.
The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season begins with the Fortinet Championship, which goes Sept. 16-19 in Napa, Calif.
(Thanks to Brad Ziemer of British Columbia Golf, who contributed to this article.)
