CADDIE'S ROLE:THE SCANDINAVIAN Masters is the biggest golfing event in the region. Held near the gateway to Sweden, in the southern port of Malmo at the end of July, it is part of many Swedes holiday plans. But no matter how big the event is in Scandinavia, it can only be a let-down compared to the magnitude of the British Open held the previous week, writes COLIN BYRNE

It is the perennial problem for those staging a tour event, staging your tournament straight after a major. Jesper Parnevik, once the luminary of Swedish golf having excelled on both the European and US Tours, has become active in promoting the somewhat flagging national tournament. He was both competing and organising alongside his wife, Mia.

It is refreshing to see a former champion adopting the role of ambassador. With a limited budget and a post-major lack of interest, the best Jesper could do to attract his US Tour colleagues was to lure James Driscoll and Will McKenzie to the southern part of his homeland on a combined cultural/golf visit. The rest of the Open contestants from the US Tour either opted for a break or the Canadian Open.

There were 38 Swedes on the original starting list, and the Swedes, being justifiably a patriotic people, it was enough to bring the blue and yellow flags out en masse to support what is the extraordinary success story of a young golfing nation.

Most of us trickled over the expansive bridge that spans the Ore Sound which separates Denmark from Sweden last Monday, having flown into the busier Copenhagen airport. The news from my colleagues who had arrived a day earlier at the caddies’ hotel in the docklands of the elegant city of Malmo was the range had been busy that day and the majority of its occupants were members of the host nation.

There is a sentiment on tour that the Swedes are permanent range residents, they are likely to open and close it. It is as if the relative newcomers to the game are making up for lost time. When I suggested to Goran Zachrasson, the broadcaster and voice of Swedish golf for almost 50 years, that his fellow countrymen were hogging the range, he was quick to point out that Pádraig Harrington was not averse to a few extra hours of divot duty. True, of course, but Pádraig is the exception, not the rule. On tour there is no argument: the Swedes rule the range.

Who could argue with their perfect practice preference? Last year’s Order of Merit winner is Robert Karlsson, this year’s winner of the Players’ Championship, the biggest prize fund on the US Tour, is Henrik Stenson, and among the 38 native competitors this year a host of them were serious contenders.

Karlsson was in Malmo despite being sidelined since May due to an infection that has affected his sight and balance.

The amiable Swede has been advised to do absolutely nothing. He has been told not to get his heart rate too high, and therefore cannot practice or exercise. So he is trying to make the most of the enforced hiatus by playing no golf and spending an inordinate amount of time – for a professional golfer – with his family. It is a fickle existence being a golf pro, good or bad. Having enjoyed the fruits of a lifetime of labour and enjoying his best year in 2008, instead of building on this success Robert has suffered a serious career set-back. He is philosophical about the enforced break, and sees it as a chance to enjoy being around his young family instead of as a career-breaker.

Being a caddie, there is a real sense in Sweden of being part of the golf tour as a whole as opposed to being a necessary inconvenience to the authorities. It was the sage Zachrasson who pointed out that the scene in the clubhouse at Barseback was unique on tour: players, sponsors, caddies, members and players’ guests all mingling freely in the clubhouse. There are no barriers, no notions of being separate but equal, just a sense of individuals playing a role in the big circus. Despite our lot being improved dramatically world-wide in recent years, there is an unmistakable feeling of equality in Scandinavia for us bagmen.

I came across another local legend in sport, Sven Tumba, who was instrumental in popularising golf in the 1960s and 1970s. He organised the first Scandinavian Masters in 1970 and managed to get Sam Snead over to play an exhibition. He had been an international ice-hockey player, soccer player and skier, on top of his golfing prowess. So he was extremely influential in bringing newcomers to the then foreign game of golf.

I asked him what he thought of the modern golfer, to which he replied, without hesitating, that these talented young men all take too long and think too much instead of relying on instinct. I had met an army of coaches and Swedish Golf Federation trainers throughout the week while I followed the flight of divots down the range. It was difficult to see how the instinctive golf that the multi-talented Sven Tumba mentioned had much chance of survival.

Then again, with 38 natives in the field there is a strong case for the methodology of modern Swedish golf. A sprinkle of Tumba’s flare might add a natural balance to the theoretical thrust of the Scandinavian game.