Left to right: Emily Kristine Pedersen, Shanshan Feng and Nicole Broch Larsen
Nicole Broch Larsen of Denmark was named the 2015 LET Player’s Player of the Year at the end-of-season awards after a vote by the Ladies European Tour Membership.
The 22-year-old Dane finished third on the order of merit in only her second year on the LET, having graduated from the LET Access Series in 2013, where she won back to back titles in the Nordic region.
The highlight of her 2015 season was her maiden LET win at the Helsingborg Open at Vasatorps Golf Club in Sweden, where she led from start to finish immediately after her second place at the Tipsport Golf Masters in the Czech Republic.
The victory earned an entry to the following week’s Evian Championship, where she was the top European, finishing tied 11th against a world class field in the fifth Major. She also tied for 24th in the Ricoh Women’s British Open, the other European Major in which she played. “It’s been a really good year. I’ve had the win, which was my main goal to win on The European Tour, which got me into the Evian, and I played very well there. Got some good experience in Evian and the same at the British Open, even though I didn’t finish the two tournaments as I hoped for. But it was still good memories and great weeks,” said Broch Larsen, who has also been a great friend and mentor to Emily Kristine Pedersen, this year’s Rookie of the Year, in her first season.
“It started with a third place in the Buick Championship and then fourth, and yeah, a little bit of crying for second place in Czech Republic and then my win. Just kind of step by step through the year. “I know myself much better. Kind of learned to deal with the situation where I’m in the leading group and stuff like that. So I think I just improve like my golf but also how I act on the course and how I handle myself. I want to win again. It’s a nice feeling and now I know I can.”
Broch Larsen seemed set to earn her first LET title at the Tipsport Golf Masters where she was playing very nicely until she made a costly triple bogey on the par-4 16th hole in the final round, which gave the eventual winner Hannah Burke the advantage, but the Dane’s resilience, going on to win the next tournament in Helsingborg three weeks later, just across the Oresund from her home in Copenhagen, was impressive.
She added: “I talked a lot with my coach and the conclusion would be that I had this picture of how I should play the 16th hole where I kind of missed it. Then I hit it into the bunker and I didn’t really like take a look from the outside. I just played for the four until I actually hit four shots. Like if I made bogey, I would have been tied with Hannah Burke and I still could have made a birdie on the last two. “It’s like take a deep breath when it’s not going as planned and make a new plan from there. That’s what I kind of did in Sweden, as well, where I played not my best golf on the last six, seven holes. I just took a step away and looked.”
Broch Larsen is leading the new generation of young and talented Danish golfers on the Ladies European Tour, which includes Pedersen, Malene Jorgensen and Nanna Koestz Madsen, who are pushing each other on to success. “Everyone wants to be the best Dane and that’s for sure helping. Then we have a really good coach who knows all of us very well. You just kind of like have to accept that you have got bad weeks but you have to look at your own game and try to push that and improve that.”
“I’ll give my coach, David Dickmeiss, a very big credit. He’s been there and we’ve had a really good year together building this up until I won in Sweden. “The Olympics is like my main goal for next year. We are four Danes right now battling very hard to get one of those two spots. Right now I know that Emily and Nanna and Malene can play very well and nothing is clear until July next year. So it will be a good battle next year and I’m looking forward to hopefully getting there.”
