Not many people can say they grew up living on a golf course.
Isabell Ekstrom, who witnessed the transformation of Golf Uppsala Soderby from farmland into lush fairways and greens, is an exception.
The 28-year-old Swede is among a field of 138 players competing at this week’s Swedish Strokeplay event on the LET Access Series (LETAS) on a course she knows inside out.
“It’s very nice to be able to play at home,” she said. “It’s nice to be able to stay in your own bed, it’s nice being walking distance to the course.
“I was born just on the other side of the road, then we moved here and I’ve lived here ever since. We opened in 2004 and my dad and his brother started building it in 2002.
“Before that it was just farmland, and it was my grandpa that ran it. It looked very different a couple years ago and it’s fun to see how it has developed.
“A lot of the buildings are still left and used for something else now than they were before, it’s a very different place now than it was back in the 2000s.”
It is a venue that holds special memories for Ekstrom.
“I learned to swim in the pond on (hole) number five,” she said. “We used to have a driving range on the other side first, and my dad always said that when he brought me over it was the only time that I was quiet.
“Me and my dad, when I was younger, we always used to go out in the evenings and play the first six holes together with our dog. So I know the first six holes really well.”
In 2018, she won the Swedish Junior Open, her first victory on home soil, by a whopping 15 strokes.
“I think it was after my first year in college,” she said. “I played really well. Winning at your own course is always kind of like a dream come true, but I also know that it’s very tough.
“The girls that come here and play, they are really, really good so you need to put up some good strokes. As long as the weather is nice and there’s not a lot of wind, there’s a lot of birdies to be made out there.
“If I could pull off a win, that would be a dream come true. I know that I can shoot good scores out here and I just have to do it when it’s time.”
Ekstrom will be hoping to improve on her tied-42nd finish in last year’s event, which was won by fellow Swede Andrea Lignell.
She has had a mixed start to the 2026 season with two missed cuts but also a strong top 15 finish at last week’s PGA of Sweden Championship at Elisefarm Golf Club.
“I haven’t really played that well this far into the season,” she said. “I had a good score on the last day last week, so I’m trying to just build off that.
“Other than that, not really having that much expectation for this week, just trying to figure out my game to have a couple better results coming into the later part of the season.”
Ekstrom will tee it up in the first round of the Swedish Strokeplay at 8.11am (local time) from Tee 11 alongside Venezuela’s Vanessa Gilly and English amateur Grace Bowen.
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