Challenge Tour: Matt Cooper chats with Johan Edfors at the season finale in Dubai

Johan Edfors has played in the Masters, the Open and the US Open. In 2006 he won three times on the European Tour. He's also represented Europe in the Seve Trophy.

And yet when the 39-year-old Swede completed victory in the Challenge Tour's Foshan Open last month in China he admitted: “To be honest, I don't think I have ever been as nervous as I was today.”

To understand the reason – and also why he is chasing a card this week in Dubai - we need to press rewind.

Outsider

Back in 2006 just about everything Edfors did on a golf course turned to gold. Well, maybe not gold, but it frequently turned into a cheque with a big number on it.

In March of that year he won the European Tour’s TCL Classic in China, but as a recent Challenge Tour graduate with few credentials many wrote his performance off as the one hit wonder of a gym-obsessed Swede they hadn’t heard of – so much so that when, a few weeks later, he teed it up in the British Masters at the Belfry he could be backed at 200/1.

When he completed the win there he ceased to be a rank outsider and completed a hat-trick of seasonal wins when he added victory in the Scottish Open at Loch Lomond.

Although never adding to that tally of European Tour wins, Edfors did spend the next six years accumulating top ten finishes and solid Race to Dubai ranking positions. He was (and is) one of the Tour's most recognisable figures thanks to his long hair, huge shoulders and distinctive Puma apparel.

But throughout this period his game was pigeon-holed as one-dimensional; many saw him as the archetypal modern golfer: muscle-bound with a somewhat manufactured swing.

That view rather overlooked his greens in regulation statistics which hinted at long game skills which went beyond smashing it heedlessly from the tee. Indeed, in four years of six from 2006 he finished in the top 25 of the seasonal rankings and in 2008 only one man hit more greens than him.

On them it was a slightly different story. As one voice in the crowd at an American major championship famously put it: “Looks like Jesus, putts like Mary.”

He had scraped his way to retaining a card in 2012, but when, last year, he recorded the worst GIR stats of his career (ranked 126th) he lost his playing privileges.

It was not only the form that was suffering: “I injured my shoulder and later had difficulties with my sciatic nerve.”

Those problems, plus the loss of his father, led to disenchantment with the game. “I just wasn't enjoying it last year.”

He began this year asking for invitations onto the main tour, but it was making any sort of family life difficult – the last minute nature of it playing havoc with any attempt to plan time with wife Cecilia and daughter Jolene.

Challenge

The alternative was to play Challenge Tour, or even split the schedule. But plenty of golfers have found themselves stuck in the gap between the tours. It’s the professional golf equivalent of having one leg on dry land and another on a boat that’s drifting out into the middle of a lake.

So in July Edfors made a decision that put his family first and also created a clear strategy for regaining his European Tour card: “I decided to commit to the Challenge Tour in the middle of the summer. I knew the schedule and I was able to plan.”

He was consistent in late summer and then a return to China, scene of that first European Tour win, prompted the Foshan Open success, completed in style with a four-birdie finish.

He laughs at the memory. “Yeah, it was a good finish, but I really was nervous, more so at the start. I think it's easier to win on the European Tour because it matters so much at this level.”

How does the Challenge Tour of 2014 compare to his previous experience ten years ago?

“The standard is really great. There are so many good players out here. I was expecting maybe 30 or 40, but I think there are about 100. I've been really surprised at the level of the competition.”

He began his tilt at converting his 16th place on the rankings to one in the top 15 with a four-over-par round of 76, but a two-under-par 70 in round two hinted that the cause is not lost.

It also provided proof that his long-hitting remains (he drove his ball 380 yards down the fifth), nor his ability to rack up the birdies (he made four).

This week is important and Edfors is not a man who naturally smiles on the course. But he’s a good guy and you know it because his long time caddie Lorne Duncan, now retired from the tour grind, will tell you as much.

The Canadian veteran is not one to mince his words - he happily told a stuffy Masters official what he thought of him earlier this season whilst working for young English amateur Matt Fitzpatrick - but ask him about Edfors and he breaks into a smile.

“One of the best,” he likes to say.

Watching Edfors walk the fairways without Duncan is a bit like Starsky missing Hutch, so any chance of a reunion?

“He's been out a few times this year,” laughs Edfors. “Hopefully I can get him out again next year!”

And hopefully the fairways they tread together will be European Tour ones.