Player Profiles: Jesper Parnevik

Jesper Parnevik

The son of Sweden’s most popular comedian and impressionist, Bo, Jesper Parnevik, is easily recognised by his trademark baseball cap with upturned peak and drainpipe trousers and the Swede brings his peculiar sense of style to South Africa for the first time since he teed it up in the 1993 Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City.

Parnevik rose to fame when he spent 38 weeks in the top 10 of the official world golf rankings in 2001. He represented Europe in three Ryder Cups (1997, 1999, 2002) and four Dunhill Cups and played for Sweden at the World Cup in 1994 and 1995. A four-time winner in Europe, Parnevik won five times on the PGA Tour between 1998 and 2001.  But shortly after beating Phil Mickelson and Davis Love III in a playoff to win the GTE Byron Nelson Classic in September 2001, disaster struck and the Swede had to undergo hip surgery.

For years Parnevik struggled to get back to his winning form. His slow climb back and his passionate effort to make the European Ryder Cup team in 2010 was derailed in 2009 when he had right hip surgery in July. Then, in 2010, he had just five starts when it was discovered that he had suffered a broken lumbar vertebrae. The Swede went back under the knife for back surgery in February.

But the irrepressible Parnevik is once again in ascendancy. Although he only started 10 events on the PGA Tour this year and only made three cuts, he dipped well below par in eight of those 13 rounds, including a scoring run of 70-65-70-68 at the Humana Challenge.

As the Ryder Cup history goes, Parnevik was the only player to ever receive a customized team cap with the Ryder Cup logo on the bottom of the bill instead of the front, so that it could be seen with the bill turned up, when he played for the European Ryder Cup team..

Parnevik, whose nick name on Tour is Spaceman, also debuted on the big screen when he played himself in a cameo role in the 2007 comedy, Who’s your Caddy. An allegedly thoughtful historian in his free time, and a man with varied tastes, he was recently asked with whom he’d like to have dinner. He quickly replied that it would have to be a choice between Albert Einstein and Elvis Presley. When told he could only have one, he shot back, “OK, Elvis Einstein.”

He has always been described, politely, as eclectic, but Parvenik certainly has made some fashion statements and has been known to change his outfits at the halfway stage of a tournament. In 2006, one of his new on-course inventions was a necktie worn under a vest. But his flamboyant sense of fashion was recognised and embraced by designer Johan Lindeberg, who designs all Parvenik’s apparel, including his disco style pants.

Parnevik, his wide Mia, live in Jupiter, Florida with their children Ida Josefin Peg (named after a tee peg), Penny (named after the coin he uses to mark his ball)., Pebble Beach Philippa (named after his favourite golf course) and Phoenix named after where he won his first US PGA Tour event). Off the golf course, Parnevik enjoys tennis, yoga, yachting, backgammon and is quite an accomplished bridge player and competent conjurer and magician.