Junior Daniel Svärd knows it could happen for the third time Sunday: He’ll walk off the 18th green of his final round at the Big Ten Championship, feeling pleased with his performance. He won’t know his score until a teammate or coach approaches him.
The teammate or coach will shake his hand, crack a smile and say, “Congratulations, you’ve just won the Big Ten Championship.”
He’ll be in disbelief until he signs his scorecard. But once it’s turned in, he’ll enshrine his name in the record book as the first golfer in Northwestern history to win three Big Ten Championships.
Svärd, NU’s star golfer and two-time defending Big Ten Champion, journeys to Baltimore with the No. 27-ranked Wildcats as they compete in the Big Ten Championship this weekend, hoping to win their second straight team championship.
“ It’s gonna be quite fun,” Svärd said. “ We’ll be defending, and that’ll be a new challenge, kind of a new environment we haven’t been in yet. So we’re all kind of looking forward to that.”
Defending the throne
NU’s win last year, a team 23-over 863 that was 15 strokes clear of the second-place finisher, Illinois, marked the first time a team not named Illinois had won the Big Ten Championship since 2014.
Amid windy conditions, Svärd shot a 1-over 211 to claim the individual title.
“ You go from being so focused and so immersed in handling the moment and staying calm to then just signing the scorecard and letting all the emotions out of you,” Svärd said of winning the Big Ten Championship. “It’s kind of a euphoric moment, and it’s extremely special.”
This season, the ’Cats have put together a successful campaign after a slow start to the season, when they failed to crack the top 10 in their first two events.
They took third place at their home event, the Windon Memorial Classic, before journeying to St. Andrews, Scotland, to participate in the St. Andrews Links Collegiate.
There, on the famed Old Course, NU topped current No. 26 Arizona in the match play championship. Senior Cameron Adam placed second in the stroke play portion of the tournament, shooting a 3-under 137 through two rounds.
Adam, sophomore Archie Finnie and coach David Inglis all hail from the Edinburgh, Scotland, area, about an hour’s drive from St. Andrews. Inglis said their friends and family were all in the area cheering on the ’Cats.
“(St. Andrews) is kind of the place that every golfer takes a pilgrimage to at some point in their life,” Inglis said. “So for us to be able to play a tournament there, with your teammates, live on the Golf Channel, and come away with the win — pretty special. I’ll remember that one for a long time.”
Adam and NU followed up their Scottish performance with a signature win at The Clerico in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to conclude their fall season.
Facing 30 to 40 mile per hour wind gusts all tournament, Adam shot a 3-under 207 to secure his first collegiate victory. Svärd, meanwhile, logged a 5-under 65, tied for his career low, in the final round to take third place.
“The whole idea behind the schedule we play is one, to be exposed to the best teams, the best courses and play against the best competition,” Inglis said. “But then also, geographically, we’ve gone coast to coast. We’ve gone to Scotland. We’ve played on all different types of grasses. … We want to expose these guys to different conditions, feeling like no matter where we get sent (for the postseason), we’ve seen those conditions, we’ve seen those teams.”
NU ripped off consecutive third-place finishes to conclude its regular season, reaching the podium at The Goodwin and at the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial.
Svärd finished as the co-champion at The Goodwin, shooting a 5-under 205 as he achieved his best finish of the season. He credited taking a different approach to his mindset as a success factor.
“ Something that I benefited from was just seeing it as a fun challenge,” Svärd said. “I don’t want to say not taking it seriously, but taking it a little bit more for what happened and taking the result with less importance and less weight on each shot, which really helped me in the long term, especially on the final day.”
This year’s Big Ten Championship will take place at the Baltimore Country Club in Baltimore. The coaching staff has coached a Big Ten Championship there, during the 2017-18 season, but the players have never golfed there as Wildcats.
Inglis feels confident in his lineup’s capabilities heading into the weekend.
“We’ve got four guys, three (Adam, Svärd and senior Ethan Tseng) that have proven they can win a championship as good as this one, and a fourth (sophomore Niall Shiels-Donegan) that hasn’t emerged as a winner in college yet, but it certainly wouldn’t surprise me,” Inglis said. “(Shiels-Donegan), he’s maybe our toughest, fiercest competitor, he really gets after it.”
Inglis also highlighted Finnie, who will be the fifth man for NU this weekend. The sophomore shot 67 during a round at the Chitengwa Memorial. Inglis said Finnie is “always good for throwing a great round in the mix.”
If the squad gets four golfers to play well, Inglis said, there’s a chance the ’Cats could take home the Big Ten Championship and make a deep run into the NCAA tournament.
“The exciting thing for us, and why I think we haven’t reached our full potential yet, is that I don’t think we’ve put a tournament together where all four of those guys played well at the same time,” Inglis said. “If we put all four together, I think we have a pretty elite team that could be a match for anyone.”
An Uppsala connection
Svärd grew up in Järfälla, Sweden, a suburb of the capital city, Stockholm. His father was a golfer who peaked at around a 5 or 6 handicap. Svärd’s neighbor, Axel, had a father who was quite interested in the sport, he said. Axel played golf, too.
Svärd and his neighbor were best friends growing up and spent most of their afternoons together on the golf course.
“ We bought the same golf clubs and we wanted to do pretty much everything on the golf course together and happened to pick up a talent for it quickly,” Svärd said.
Svärd’s competitive spirit manifested itself in his desire to outperform Axel, and eventually, he started playing competitively around age 13 or 14, he said.
He ended up going to Celsiusskolan, a high school in Uppsala, Sweden, where golf remained a primary focus.
Svärd’s decision to go abroad and play college golf — a decision he made as a sophomore in high school — was motivated by watching seniors go off to America. Svärd came across the Atlantic Ocean with an already stacked resume; he captained the Swedish squad at the 2021 European Boys’ Team championship and was a member of the Swedish national team in 2021.
As he underwent a recruiting process dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the ’Cats had a trick up their sleeve, turning to David Nyfjäll, a five-year ’Cat and Big Ten Champion who is now playing on professional European tours.
Nyfjäll, who went to the same high school as Svärd, spoke with the fledgling recruit, sharing stories about a developmental program with consistent success.
Though the two hadn’t spoken much before, but had played a round of golf together back home in Uppsala when they were younger, Nyfjäll sat down with Svärd to discuss the perks of the ’Cats program.
“ I tried to be helpful and transparent, but obviously I had nothing but good things to say,” Nyfjäll said. “So, I hope I persuaded him, and I guess it worked.”
Once Svärd accepted his offer and undertook his transcontinental journey, Nyfjäll was there to support him as he acclimated to living in the United States.
Nyfjäll, four years Svärd’s senior, only had one season of overlap with his Swedish counterpart.
From showing him how to open a U.S. bank account to sharing where to get groceries, Svärd credited Nyfjäll as a “huge benefit” as he adjusted to life in the Midwest.
“ I don’t think it’s measurable how much of a difference he made, just from the simple daily things and things that go way beyond practice,” Svärd said of Nyfjäll. “ He was a hell of a golfer, but also someone that you could just call for help in any situation and ask the simplest questions, because you’re not sure and you just want to hear someone say, ‘Hey, you’re not totally off here. You’re close.’”
Nyfjäll embraced a mentorship role, whether it was showing Svärd a new technique on the golf course or helping him with his homework.
“I could very much see myself in what he was experiencing, and how I felt the same way when I was a freshman. I’m super grateful for what the seniors did to help me when I was a freshman,” Nyfjäll said. “So, I just felt like I really wanted to do the same for him and show him around and tell him the ways and make sure he had a good experience. I really enjoyed having my little Swedish prodigy.”
Svärd, the “Swedish prodigy,” burst onto the scene during his debut season, earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors and shooting par in 22 of 35 rounds played. The 6-foot-5 golfer won the 2023 Big Ten Championship with a 3-under 139 over 36 holes during a rain-shortened tournament, then followed it up the next year with another victory.
In his third year with NU, Svärd sits ranked No. 67 in the nation by Clippd and holds a spot among the Big Ten’s best golfers. All eyes are on him heading into the weekend’s tournament.
’Cats on the prowl
Svärd knows he has a chance at making history this weekend. He embraces it.
If he wins his third straight Big Ten Championship, he’ll join a club of four golfers who have done the triple. And, if he wins the championship outright, he’ll be the first Big Ten men’s golfer in history to win three consecutive individual conference titles. Purdue’s Fred Wampler won three straight in 1948-50, but his 1949 championship was shared.
“ You always try and play like any other tournament, but it’s always gonna be at the back of my mind, to do something and achieve something that such a small handful of players have done,” Svärd said. “I think it’s something that I definitely cherish and especially now, before the tournament started, it’s something I really, really want to do. But, in the moment, I’m not going to think about it, hopefully, at all. Hopefully, I’ll just be so focused on golf it slips my mind completely.”
The team itself is fighting for a big achievement. With a first-place finish, it will win back-to-back Big Ten Championships for the first time since 1999-2001, when they won three straight.
The field features five teams ranked among the top 40 in the Clippd weekly rankings: No. 12 UCLA, No. 13 Illinois, NU, No. 36 Oregon and No. 37 Purdue.
“It’s going to be tough. We’re going to have to raise our game,” Inglis said. “We’re not talking about defending our title — we’re talking about winning another one. There’s nothing there for us to protect or defend. We’ve got to go out and win and take the next one.”
Inglis said the course is going to have a typical Big Ten Championship setup that the coaching staff will be familiar with, with the course surfaces being relatively similar to those around Chicago.
The final round of the championship will be aired on Big Ten Network on Sunday. If Svärd handles business on Friday and Saturday, he’ll be in prime position to step off the 18th green, see a teammate or coach and experience euphoria for the third time.
“Daniel’s got that star quality that when the lights are on him, it almost brings out the best of him, which is a trait that the best players seem to have,” Inglis said. “He really relishes the spotlight and the attention. I certainly wouldn’t bet against him.”
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Related Stories:
— Men’s Golf: Svärd co-champion as No. 34 Northwestern places third at The Goodwin
— Men’s Golf: Shiels-Donegan’s final round spurs Northwestern to third place at The Prestige
