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<\/a><\/p>\nThe ANWA is only seven years old, still too young to leave a legacy of haunting to any one nation like Australia or Ireland suffered for so long in the Masters until Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy exorcised their national (and personal) demons.<\/p>\n
But if there\u2019s one country that craves crowning a champion at Augusta above all the others, it may be Sweden. The home nation of Augusta National member S\u00f6renstam is serious about developing ensuing generations of champion women\u2019s golfers, and having to watch winners from America, England, Spain and Japan lift trophies at Augusta National has to inspire a little envy.<\/p>\n
Maybe this year \u2013 unusually as the only Swede in the 2026 field \u2013 \u00d6rtengren can do what Ingrid Lindblad, Beatrice Wallin, Linn Grant, Andrea Lignell, Nora Sundberg and Louise Rydqvist could not and win the ANWA. Lindblad finished runner-up to Anna Davis in 2022 and third as the No. 1 women\u2019s amateur in 2024 when Lottie Woad won. Lignell finished third in 2023 when Stanford\u2019s Rose Zhang won, so the Swedes have been knocking hard on the door every year only to fall short.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is the biggest kind of amateur tournament there is, and it\u2019s been a dream ever since they announced it to win it.\u201d \u2013 Meja \u00d6rtengren<\/p>\n
How much would it mean for \u00d6rtengren to break through?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would mean a lot,\u201d \u00d6rtengren said after shooting her second straight 5-under 67 on Thursday at Champions Retreat to put herself in the final pairing on Saturday at Augusta National with 36-hole leader Asterisk Talley. \u201cI think this is the biggest kind of amateur tournament there is, and it\u2019s been a dream ever since they announced it to win it. I also think that seeing the Swedish girls before me doing well on this stage is a little bit of a confidence boost. I know how they practice, and I see them a lot back in Sweden, so that definitely helps.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u00d6rtengren takes a Thursday stroll to No. 6. Logan Whitton, Augusta National via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u00d6rtengren has done alright herself, making the cut in her 2022 debut and again last year, finishing T12 and T14, respectively. And she knows how to win, having captured a Ladies European Tour event in Sweden last August to join Woad as an amateur winner on the professional European circuit.<\/p>\n
Golf is pretty huge in Sweden despite its location closer to the Arctic Circle than most golfing nations. More than 500,000 registered golfers make it one of the biggest golfing countries relative to population in continental Europe. Its national teams run by the Swedish Golf Federation have become a model for other nations in developing talent, including the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite big. It\u2019s getting bigger and bigger,\u201d said \u00d6rtengren, who still chooses skiing and skating when she goes home from college. \u201cThe last couple of years there\u2019s been kind of a little boom with young people starting to play golf. It\u2019s been more of, like, elderly people playing before, but now it\u2019s starting to be, like, a junior sport, which is really fun. I love to see young girls playing in Sweden. Annika is definitely the biggest kind of supporter of women\u2019s golf as well. So it\u2019s really great to see her, being from Sweden.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says there\u2019s no real equivalent in the U.S., particularly in women\u2019s golf, to what S\u00f6renstam means to the game in Sweden.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of people in the U.S. you can look up to, but from Sweden it\u2019s very obvious that Annika has done so much and also is giving back so much to golf in Sweden right now,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very fortunate to have her in Sweden right now, but there is a lot of, like, younger players coming up right now from Sweden who the younger players are looking up to more.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/26LW4_3237.jpg\")
\u00d6rtengren connects on the fifth hole in the second round. Logan Whitton, Courtesy Augusta National<\/p>\n
Maybe \u00d6rtengren (10-under) can be that one to inspire a new generation should she prevail in what\u2019s shaping up as a three-woman race with Talley (11-under) and Colombia\u2019s Mar\u00eda Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00edn (10-under).<\/p>\n
She\u2019s prepared to handle the pressure of potentially competing under the gaze of her Hall of Fame hero and has the experience needed to cope with the challenges Augusta National presents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard Andrea [Revuelta, her Stanford teammate who is tied for fourth at 6-under] say yesterday that this course gets a little bit less intimidating every time you play it, and I definitely agree with that,\u201d \u00d6rtengren said. \u201cI think I was very young and maybe a little bit naive the first time I played here. \u2026 But I think this year I\u2019ve settled down a little bit being more comfortable with my game.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom the tournament rounds [at Augusta National] I think I\u2019ve learned that you need to have a lot of patience out there and be disciplined with your approaches. It can get away from you quite easily if you hit bad shots into the greens, but also you can get a lot of opportunities if you hit the right spots at Augusta. So I think that will be the most important thing, staying disciplined from the fairway and also knowing where the right and bad spots are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it Sweden\u2019s turn?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be great,\u201d \u00d6rtengren said.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 2026 Global Golf Post LLC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meja \u00d6rtengren seeks to become the first Swede to win the Augusta National Women\u2019s Amateur. Logan Whitton, Augusta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[179096,114084,179097,5904,179098,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-511878","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-augusta-natioinal","9":"tag-augusta-national-womens-amateur","10":"tag-champions-retreat-golf-club","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-meja-ortengren","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2268894662.jpg\")
Meja \u00d6rtengren seeks to become the first Swede to win the Augusta National Women\u2019s Amateur. Logan Whitton, Augusta National via Getty Images<\/p>\n