WHEN Henrik Stenson had handed in his exceptional scorecard after walking off the 18th green at Royal Troon on Sunday evening, he soon returned to be presented with the Claret Jug.

It is safe to assume the memories of a week-long appearance on Teesside more than a decade ago will have been the furthest thing from his mind.

The latest winner of The Open Championship delivered in incredible fashion; he is only the second player to have finished a major on 20 under par courtesy of his closing 63 on the west coast of Scotland.

At the age of 40, Stenson has claimed his first major triumph and added his name to a pantheon of greats to have got their hands on the famous trophy: Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros, Sir Nick Faldo … the list goes on and on.

And yet, despite the greatness of some of those sporting superstars, Stenson’s stunning final round will go down in the history books as one of the finest of them all, edging him ahead of five-time major winner Phil Mickelson to evoke memories of Nicklaus-Watson’s ‘Duel in the Sun’ in 1977.

Stenson has had to bide his time. Having turned 40 and collected seven top four major finishes he must have feared more than once that he would forever be the bridesmaid but never the bride.

Royal Troon provided the aisle for him to grace and he played the main part to perfection by finishing off with a beautiful 15ft putt to secure a three-shot win over Mickelson, cue the hugs and celebrations at the end of an spectacular four days.

Those were a far cry from 11 years ago when the up-and-coming Swede was just starting to make waves on the European Tour. Four years after securing his card he had earned a place in the Continental European team to face Great Britain & Ireland in the Seve Trophy.

From a North-East perspective it was not just any Seve Trophy, it was the one which was staged at The Wynyard Club, and Colin Montgomerie’s GB & I went on to win by five points; but Stenson could not be blamed.

Over the course of his four days of team golf he won his two fourballs against Ian Poulter/Nick Dougherty and Montgomerie/Graeme McDowell. He won his greensomes against Poulter/Bradley Dredge before halving his individual match with Dougherty. He only lost one of the five points available to him.

Perhaps his biggest triumph over the course of his week staying at Sedgefield’s Hardwick Hall was actually being fit enough to play, though.

After all Stenson, who has gone on to earn approaching £20m on the PGA Tour alone, was cracked on the leg by a stray ball on the 15th as he walked the course on the eve of the Seve Trophy.

That was exactly where my well struck sand wedge from the fairway bunker connected as he made his way around the green, less than 24 hours before he was due to tee off in the Thursday fourball with Thomas Bjorn. That pairing even went on to win 2Up that day.

Stenson could have reacted a lot differently to how he did, with a little smile and ‘watch what you’re doing’ comment thrown my way before going on to assess the contours of the green.

The Pro-Am, which saw the likes of Alan Shearer and Michael Owen share fairways with Ballesteros and Fraser that day, was a perfect warm-up for the main event, and Stenson has never looked back since.

His smile was back again at Muirfield three years ago when I reminded him of that ‘moment’ at The Wynyard Club, ‘ah, yeah, that nice course in the North-East near Middlesbrough’, he said before going on to finish second behind Mickelson.

That same smile was much bigger on Sunday, when he went one better to finally end his long wait for major glory by becoming the first Swede to lift the Claret Jug. To term an old North-East phrase, I knew him when he had nowt (or less, anyway!).