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Linn Grant – The Making of The Champion
Swedish professional golfer Linn Maria Grant (born 20 June 1999) competes on the LPGA Tour and Ladies European Tour. She competed in the 2018 and 2020 U.S. Women’s Opens and won the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship in 2017.
Family and early years
Grant is the granddaughter of Scottish golf professional James Grant, who moved to Helsingborg, Sweden, from Inverness, Scotland. On Catriona Matthew’s home course, North Berwick Golf Club, the Grant family has enjoyed a good amount of success. On the course, James won the Scottish Boys Championship, and 49 years later, Linn took home the British Amateur Stroke Play Championship. Linn was six years old when James passed away. John, her father, won seven times on the Swedish Senior Tour and competed on the Swedish Golf Tour.
Linn Grant Amateur career
Grant joined the Swedish National Team in 2016 and competed for her nation in the 2016 and 2017 editions of the European Girls’ Team Championship, where Sweden finished second in 2016. She competed for Canada’s third-place squad in the 2017 World Junior Girls Championship. Together with Frida Kinhult, Sara Kjellker, Amanda Linnér, Maja Stark, and Beatrice Wallin, she was a member of the Swedish teams that won the European Ladies’ Team Championship a record three times in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
She was also exceptional on her own. She triumphed in the Junior Masters Invitational and the Doral-Publix Junior Classic in 2016.
In 2017, she won the German Girls Open and completed a Scottish double by winning the Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship at North Berwick Golf Club and the Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open Championship at Royal Troon by five strokes each.
She placed second at the Major Champions Invitational in Florida in 2018, tied for fifth at the European Ladies Amateur Championship in 2019, and reached the British Ladies Amateur semifinals in 2019. She received a request to participate in the 2019 inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur because to her accomplishments.
Grant played on the winning 2019 Vagliano Trophy team for the European Continent and was a member of the 2017 European Junior Solheim Cup team.
She was chosen to compete in the 2020 Arnold Palmer Cup on behalf of the International Team.
Grant qualified for the 2018 Women’s British Open at St. Annes Old Links Golf Club with a round of 62 (a 10-stroke improvement), but she missed the cut at the Women’s Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes Golf Club with rounds of 78 and 72. At the Buckinghamshire Golf Club, she also prevailed in the sectional qualifying for the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open with scores of 67 and 70, finishing seven strokes clear of the runner-up Catriona Matthew and nine strokes ahead of third qualifier Mel Reid.
After rounds of 69 and 72 in the U.S. Open at Shoal Creek Club, Grant was tied for fourth place and the tournament’s best amateur. After rounds of 78 and 81 in the following two rounds, he tied for 57th place.
Grant and fellow countrywoman Amanda Linnér both attended Arizona State University as freshmen in 2019–20. She triumphed in her first varsity competition for the Arizona State Sun Devils in March 2020 in Honolulu at the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational.
She competed on the Nordic Golf Tour during the summer of 2020, winning the GolfUppsala Open.
She finished second to Ingrid Lindblad in a playoff at the 2020 Skaftö Open, but went on to win the Swedish Matchplay Championship a few weeks later, following in the footsteps of Anna Nordqvist, Caroline Hedwall, Maria Hjorth, Helen Alfredsson, and Liselotte Neumann. Grant won the Creekhouse Ladies Open at Kristianstad Golf Club on the 2021 Ladies European Tour, earning first place in the 2020 Nordic Golf Tour Order of Merit, known as the Road to Creekhouse Ladies Open, but remaining an amateur and unable to receive prize money. On the World Amateur Golf Ranking, she was placed fifth.
Grant earned three straight individual tournament championships while competing for the Arizona State Sun Devils in the spring of 2021.
Amateur wins
- 2016 Skandia Tour Elit #5, Junior Masters Invitational, Doral-Publix Junior Classic
- 2017 Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open Championship, German Girls Open, Ladies’ British Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship
- 2020 Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational
- 2021 Sun Devil Winter Classic, Bruin Wave Invitational, The Clover Cup
Linn Grant Professional career
Grant, who is placed fourth in the world amateur golf rankings, stated that she will turn professional in August 2021. Grant had two consecutive second-place finishes on the Ladies European Tour in her debut month as a professional, at the Creekhouse Ladies Open and the Skaftö Open. She triumphed in her maiden professional competition in October at the Terre Blanche Ladies Open in France.
She qualified for the LPGA Tour in December 2021 by winning the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament.
Grant achieved two victories on the Sunshine Ladies Tour in South Africa in February 2022. She gained her maiden victory on the Ladies European Tour in March at the jointly sanctioned Joburg Ladies Open.
She won the Sunshine Ladies Tour’s Order of Merit after finishing in a tie for seventh place in the season-ending Investec South African Women’s Open, beating Lee-Anne Pace.
In June 2022, Grant won the Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed at Halmstad Golf Club in Sweden, a competition with a field mixed of 78 women and 78 men, playing from different tees for the same title and the same prize money, but divided when counting for the women on the Ladies European Tour and for the men on the European Tour. This victory made Grant the first woman to win on the European Tour, which at the time was known as the DP World Tour.
Grant had a two-shot lead going into the final round. He went on to shoot an 8-under-par 64 to win by nine strokes over the next-closest man and 14 strokes over the next-closest woman.
In 2022, Grant won the Skaftö Open by one strike over Lisa Pettersson after placing second in 2020 and 2021.