} Tapio Pulkkanen (born 21 May 1990) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

professional golfer A professional golfer is somebody who receives payments or financial rewards in the sport of golf that are directly related to their skill or reputation. A person who earns money by teaching or playing golf is traditionally considered a "golf pr ...

, who plays on the

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fift ...

. He won the

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Nordic Golf League The Nordic Golf League is one of the four PGA European Tour-recognised third-tier men's professional golf tours that are known as the Satellite Tours. The top five players on the rankings list at the end of each season earn a place on the second t ...

and the

2017 Challenge Tour The 2017 Challenge Tour is a series of professional golf tournaments collectively known as the Challenge Tour. The Challenge Tour is Europe's official developmental tour and is organised by the PGA European Tour. It was introduced in 1986 and was ...

Order of Merit. He is noted for wearing a

trilby A trilby is a narrow-brimmed type of hat. The trilby was once viewed as the rich man's favored hat; it is sometimes called the "brown trilby" in Britain Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. Barnes & Noble. and ...

hat.

Early years

Pulkkanen was born in

Kotka Kotka (; ; la, Aquilopolis) is a city in the southern part of the Kymenlaakso province on the Gulf of Finland. Kotka is a major port and industrial city and also a diverse school and cultural city, which was formerly part of the old Kymi parish. ...

, 130 kilometres east of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

in southern Finland. Introduced to the game by his brother, he began playing golf at age 9 at Kymen Golf on the island of Mussalö outside Kotka. At 12 years old, he made his first hole-in-one. At 14 years of age, he quit soccer, to concentrate on golf. He has described that he had a group of boys to practice and compete with at his home club and at the same time, in contrast to a team sport, was responsible for his own game.

Amateur career

At age 16, Pulkkanen represented his country abroad for the first time, at the

European Young Masters The European Young Masters is a European amateur mixed team golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, ...

in Austria. The year after, he played for Finland at the

European Boys' Team Championship The European Boys' Team Championship (Jean-Louis Dupont Trophy) is a European amateur team golf championship for men up to 18 organized by the European Golf Association. The inaugural event was held in 1980 and it has been played annually since. S ...

in Denmark. His last year as a junior, he won the Finnish Junior Championship. He also won the Finnish Championship twice. During his amateur years, Pulkkanen represented Finland at the

European Amateur Team Championship The European Amateur Team Championship is a European amateur team golf championship for men organised by the European Golf Association which was introduced in 1959. The championship was played in odd-numbered years from 1959 to 2007 and has been ...

three times and at the

Eisenhower Trophy The Eisenhower Trophy (World Men's Amateur Team Championships) is the biennial World Amateur Team Championship for men organized by the International Golf Federation. Since the tournament was first played in 1958, it is named after Dwight D. Eisen ...

twice. At the 2011

, Pulkkanen finished tied 7th individually in the stroke-play competition, against a 120-man field, which included future European Tour winners

Thomas Pieters Thomas Pieters (born 27 January 1992) is a Belgium, Belgian professional golfer who currently plays on the European Tour. Early life Pieters was born in Geel, Belgium in 1992. He started playing golf at the age of five, learning the game at the ...

Alexander Lévy Alexander Lévy (; born 1 August 1990) is a French professional golfer who currently plays on the European Tour. Lévy won the French Amateur Championship in 2009, and the French International Amateur Championship the next year. Turning pro in ...

Adrián Otaegui } Adrián Otaegui Jaúregui (born 21 November 1992) is a Spanish professional golfer from San Sebastián who currently plays on the European Tour and also the LIV Golf Invitational Series. He has won four times on the European Tour. Amateur care ...

and Andy Sullivan. The Finnish team won their last game against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

to finish 7th in the championship. In

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, still an amateur, he won a professional tournament on the

, the Finnish Open at Vuosaari Golf. Pulkkanen's best ranking on the

World Amateur Golf Ranking The World Amateur Golf Ranking for men was introduced by The R&A, the governing body of the sport of golf outside the United States and Mexico, on 23 January 2007. It is based on the results of over 2,600 amateur tournaments per year (and amateurs p ...

was 46th.

Professional career

Pulkkanen turned professional in early 2013 and was runner-up in his first tournament on the

Challenge Tour The Challenge Tour is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European Tour and, as with on the main European Tour and the European Senior Tour, some of the events are played outside Europe. History The ...

, the

Challenge de Madrid The Challenge de Madrid was a golf tournament on the Challenge Tour. It was played for the first time in April 2013 at the El Encín Golf Hotel, Alcala de Henares in Madrid, Spain. François Calmels François Calmels (born 11 December 1981) i ...

in April. The remainder of 2013 and 2014 were disappointing with a best finish of 34th place. Pulkkanen played on the

, won five events and headed the Order Of Merit. The return to the Challenge Tour in 2016 was again a disappointment with a best finish of 30th place. His 2017 Challenge Tour season started with a second place in the Turkish Airlines Challenge, followed up with another runner-up finish in the

D+D Real Czech Challenge The D+D Real Czech Challenge is a golf tournament on the Challenge Tour played in the Czech Republic. From 2012 to 2018, and from 2021 it was played at the Golf&Spa Kunětická Hora in Dříteč. It moved to the Kaskáda Golf Resort, near Kuřim ...

. Later in the year he had his first win, taking the

Kazakhstan Open The Kazakhstan Open was a men's professional golf tournament on the Challenge Tour, the official developmental tour of the European Tour. First played in 2005, it was held at the Nurtau Golf Club in Almaty, Kazakhstan for the first four editions b ...

after a playoff with

Chase Koepka Chase Koepka (born January 30, 1994) is an American professional golfer who plays for LIV Golf. He is the younger brother of Brooks Koepka, who is also a professional golfer. His great uncle is former Major League Baseball player Dick Groat. Ko ...

. He finished first in the

Order of Merit to earn his European Tour card for

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. In December 2017, Pulkkanen was tied for third in the

Joburg Open The Joburg Open is a men's professional golf tournament that is held in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is an event on the Southern Africa-based Sunshine Tour and co-sanctioned by the European Tour, which attracts a larger prize fund and stronger ...

, level with

Shaun Norris Shaun Daryl Norris, OAM (born 2 April 1985) is an Australian wheelchair basketball player. He was a member of the Rollers team that competed at the 2020 Summer Paralympics, his fifth Games. Personal Norris is from the Perth suburb of Banksia ...

. The event was part of the Open Qualifying Series, with three places available to the

2018 Open Championship The 2018 Open Championship was the 147th Open Championship, and was held from 19–22 July 2018 at Carnoustie Golf Links in Angus, Scotland. It was the eighth Open Championship to be played at Carnoustie. Playing conditions were unusual as a re ...

. Norris received the entry because he had a higher

world ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of ...

, 192 to Pulkkanen's 197. Later in the 2017–18 European Tour season, Pulkkanen earned his biggest paycheck at the

Alfred Dunhill Links Championship The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is one of the richest golf tournaments on the European Tour. It is played in September, on three different links courses, centred on the "home of golf", St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. The tournament is a pr ...

at the three championship courses of

Carnoustie Carnoustie (; sco, Carnoustie, gd, Càrn Ùstaidh) is a town and former police burgh in the council area of Angus, Scotland. It is at the mouth of the Barry Burn on the North Sea coast. In the 2011 census, Carnoustie had a population of 11,3 ...

Kingsbarns Kingsbarns is a village and parish in Scotland lies near the eastern coast of Fife, in an area known as the East Neuk, southeast of St Andrews and north of Crail. The name derives from the area being the location of the barns used to store ...

and St Andrews Old Course in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, finishing 4th for €208,728. Pulkkanen is coached by Tommi Nousiainen and his agent is Johan Elliot at Sportyard International in

Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropoli ...

. His main equipment sponsor is Callaway.

Professional wins (9)

Challenge Tour wins (1)

Challenge Tour playoff record (1–0)

Nordic Golf League wins (8)

Team appearances

Amateur *

(representing Finland): 2007, 2008 *

(representing Finland):

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2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

(representing Finland):

St Andrews Trophy The St Andrews Trophy is a biennial men's team golf tournament contested between teams of amateur golfers representing Great Britain & Ireland and the Continent of Europe. It takes its name from St Andrews in Scotland. It was first played in 1 ...

(representing the Continent of Europe): 2012 (winners)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pulkkanen, Tapio Finnish male golfers European Tour golfers Sportspeople from Kymenlaakso People from Kotka 1990 births Living people 21st-century Finnish people