Life as a professional golfer means a life of competition, not just with the people around you on the course every week, but also with yourself.
That constant search for perfection – on the driving range, on the putting green – that daily challenge to do each and every drill one level better than you did the day before.
That’s what gets Sanna Nuutinen out of bed every morning, whether it be at 3am to catch the latest red-eye flight to take her to the next tournament, or on a Sunday when there’s another chance to claim her maiden LET victory – that strive and endeavour to go one step further.
For her, it’s been a way of life for almost two decades, having begun practicing regularly at the age of eleven, with her competitive edge seeing her fall in love with the sport as the drive to reach the pinnacle of the world game began.
Even as a teenager, Nuutinen had the blueprint of her golfing career mapped out in her head, with a stint in the USA to study and play for Texas Christian University followed by a return to Europe and a switch into professional life.
Nothing else came close to the crunch of a driver off the tee, the ping of iron onto ball on the fairways, or the tenth straight putt finding its designated target for the Finn, and even after turning 30 earlier this year, it is very much the same story nowadays.
“My parents got me into golf when I was seven, and by the time I was eleven I started to play regular at the junior practices in the local club, as my dad used to be the instructor there,” Nuutinen began.
“I would say at first they made me go to practice, but it didn’t take long before I got the spark and I started to enjoy it. It wasn’t really the game itself, it was the competing, so I got really into it.
“I jumped straight into that and fell in love with trying to get better every day, and that’s why I’m still playing now because I still love seeing myself getting better, and that’s really rewarding for me.
“I knew what I wanted to do – I wanted to go to sports high school, then go to college to play college golf, then when I graduated college, I was going to turn pro, so it was pretty straight forward for me since I was a teenager – and I think I’ve lived the plan I made.”
After returning from the States, Nuutinen started to make a name for herself back at home, not just in her native Finland, but also on the European stage, with a first professional win coming in the 2016 LETAS event at the NordicTrack Open de Strasbourg.
It was an emotional moment for all the family in France with her parents in attendance, as the hours, the days, the years spent practicing and perfecting her game were starting to reap their rewards.
Two more wins on the Access Series have come since, but neither come close to the first time she held the trophy in her arms after ending life as an amateur.
“When I turned pro I knew I wasn’t ready, I knew I wasn’t going to win tournaments straight away, but I just saw the whole thing as a slow process,” Nuutinen explained.
“Winning my first professional event is one of the most special moments in my career, since then I’ve won two more which also felt great, but the first one is definitely the biggest one.
“I had my parents there – my dad was caddying for me and I had my mum watching so it made it more special.”
Those victories – including her most recent in the 2020 Flumserberg Ladies Open – have set the bar for Nuutinen, who currently finds herself second in the 2021 Race to Costa Del Sol after a succession of strong performances this year.
Five top-ten finishes in the first six events of the season saw her put a marker down to the rest of the field for the current campaign, with a third-placed finish at the Jabra Ladies Open followed up by a second place at the Big Green Egg Ladies Open in the Netherlands after an exhilarating final day battle with Steph Kyriacou.
And despite the ups and downs of a golfing season taking their toll, the Finn still seems to have an insatiable desire to take to the course, with that hunger for success never fading in her time on the professional circuit.
Look down any entry list from the last few years and there is every chance you will see Nuutinen’s name on there, she isn’t one to pick and choose when she plays – if there’s a competition going on, she’s there.
So much so that only two other players in the field can match her for time on the road in 2021, with Johanna Gustavsson and Agathe Sauzon also having 20 appearances in competitions this year to their name.
That drive to compete saw Nuutinen on the go for an incredible 13 weeks until the climax of the Lacoste Ladies Open de France last month, with a three month period that saw her perform admirably at both the AIG Women’s Open and the Tokyo Olympics, as well as claiming fourth-spot at the Didriksons Skafto Open.
With that time spent on course, at the range, in hotels, in airports, comes a lot of time in the company of the other players on tour, and the Finn counts herself lucky to have a number of compatriots around her as they travel from venue to venue.
“I would say I’ve been fortunate to see the world playing high-level amateur golf, high-level college golf and now high-level professional golf, the sport has taken me to places,” she said.
“But sometimes I absolutely hate the morning wake ups when you have a 6am flight to catch.
“You’ll travel all day and get on the course and you just feel terrible – and there’s no point swinging a golf club because you’re physically and mentally too tired – those days are the toughest, but there’s more good stuff than bad stuff in this life.
“This is my fifth season on Tour and I’ve played a lot on LETAS as well, so I’ve made a lot of friends here, and of course I’m really close with the Finnish girls – we travel together and share rooms and stuff like that.
“It really helps to know you’re not alone when you’re away – we’re like a little family, we even have this hashtag – #toursiskot – which means tour sisters, I don’t know who started it a few years ago but it’s a funny thing we do.”
To the outsider, the question that remains now is when will the Finn get her first LET win, with that inaugural piece of silverware dangling invitingly in front of her fingers throughout the season.
The aforementioned tussle with Kyriacou in the Netherlands was the closest Nuutinen has come this year to success, with the duo level with two holes left to play at Rosendaelsche Golf Club, until a two-shot swing on the 17th saw the pendulum swing in the Australian’s favour.
For a lesser character that defeat may have dismantled a season, with the lure of victory within a whisker only to be cruelly taken away, but the 30-year-old has a more philosophical view towards the sport, no doubt aided by a Sports Psychology degree she achieved while studying in America.
Nuutinen continues: “It’s fun to go out there and try to win, because you’re only trying to win so the mentality is not what do you have to lose or are you going to make the cut, so you’re never looking behind but looking at which backs you need to catch, so I love that!
“In this game there are so many varieties – you play a different course every week, sometimes the weather changes, sometimes you play a course where you have to hit it long sometimes you have to play a lot of wedges, so there’s always so much that changes.
“But I don’t think I’m ever going to be 100% happy, but when I see that I’m improving or things are a little bit better I get a feeling of accomplishment, that’s the happiness for me, I’m always striving to be better.
“To be honest it’s not even about winning a golf tournament, because what then? I won a tournament, then I want to win another one, nothing changes.
“If I win a tournament what happens next week? Do I just go and sit at home and not practice? No. Everything stays the same, and then what next? Let’s win more.”
It’s plain to see that Nuutinen has the mind of a perfectionist – if something isn’t up to scratch it gets practiced and practiced and practiced until it is, and if it still doesn’t work then it’s ripped up and started again.
In the short term it might not always bring the results, but the 30-year-old has long term goals to work towards, and if it takes a little bit longer than planned to get there she’s more than happy to ride out whatever might be thrown her way in the meantime.
That mantra was tested to the extremities this year, after being agonisingly close to being part of the 2021 Solheim Cup team and joining compatriot Matilda Castren as the first Finnish players to ever make the grade for the most prestigious tournament in women’s golf.
Alas, a tough final day at the AIG Women’s Open saw her drop from fourth to T26 after a final round 76 (+4) in tough conditions at Carnoustie, and as she slipped down the leaderboard the Solheim dream also slipped from her grasp.
But rather than lose sleep over what might have been this summer, Nuutinen is already looking ahead to what can she do to earn herself a blue uniform to wear in Finca Cortesín in 2023, for this is the beginning of a new journey rather than the end of an old one.
“I was fourth heading into the last day, so I was thinking that if I finish in the top five or top ten in a Major Championship that tells me that I’m good enough for the team and Europe is going to need me,” she recalls.
“But the back nine didn’t go to plan and I dropped out of the rankings, so it wasn’t meant to be. If my game was good enough I would have been there but currently it’s not, so I just have to keep doing my stuff and I’ll get there next time.
“It would have been a bonus for me because I wasn’t even thinking about it, but when you keep doing well week after week you start to realise you’ve got some game, it was good motivation as well to get so close.
“It motivates me now for the future and for Solheim again in two years’ time, now I know I’ve got a realistic chance to make the team, so I’m going to plan a little bit ahead for 2023.”
If Sanna Nuutinen has something as part of her plan, she usually makes it happen, and you can bet there won’t be many as hungry as her to make it happen in two years’ time.
