Peter Hanson can focus fully on helping Europe retain the Ryder Cup in Chicago this week after a happy conclusion to the health scare surrounding his one-year-old son.
On the second day of the KLM Open in the Netherlands earlier this month, the Swede called home to his wife Sanna in Florida to hear the news that their son Tim had been taken to hospital with a respiratory virus.
The 34-year-old was on the verge of withdrawing from the tournament until his wife convinced him there was nothing he could do, and two days later he rolled in an eagle putt on the 72nd hole to claim his first victory for two years.
"It was a very strange week," Hanson said yesterday. "When you think about other stuff in between shots . . . I was thinking about him all the way around, especially Saturday. And all of a sudden, golf doesn't become that important anymore. So that might be one of the reasons why I won that tournament."
As for his son, Hanson added: "He's doing a lot better. They got out of hospital the Monday I got back home, which was nice. He's lost quite a bit of weight, of course. He's turning two in a couple of months, so getting stronger and getting back where he was before."
Hanson was a member of the victorious Europe team at Celtic Manor two years ago, when he collected one point from three matches after teaming up with Miguel Angel Jimenez for a fourball win over Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton.
Having experienced home advantage in Wales, however, he is bracing himself for being on the receiving end in Chicago.
"We discussed this within the team room and we've got some boys in the team that played quite a few Ryder Cups over here, and we are trying to get as much information as possible of what to expect and how to handle the different situation playing over here," added Hanson.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article