} Tapio Pulkkanen (born 21 May 1990) is a Finnish

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 titled as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons, and legally the PGA European Tour or the European Tour Group, is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European ...

. He won the

2015 2015 was designated by the United Nations as: * International Year of Light * International Year of Soil __TOC__ Events January * January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...

Nordic Golf League The Nordic Golf League is one of the third-tier men's professional golf tours, recognised by the European Tour, also known as the Satellite Tours. The top five players on the Order of Merit at the end of each season earn status to play on the seco ...

and the

2017 Challenge Tour The 2017 Challenge Tour was the 29th season of the Challenge Tour, the official development tour to the European Tour. Schedule The following table lists official events during the 2017 season. Rankings The rankings were titled as the Road ...

Order of Merit. He is known 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 UK, BritainBernhard Roetzel, Roetzel, Bernhard (1999). ''Gentleman's Guide to Grooming and Style''. B ...

hat.

Early years

Pulkkanen was born in

Kotka Kotka (; ) is a town in Finland, located on the southeastern coast of the country at the mouth of the Kymi River. The population of Kotka is approximately , while the Kotka-Hamina sub-region, sub-region has a population of approximately . It is th ...

, 130 kilometres east of

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

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 championship for boys and girls under 16 organised by the European Golf Association The European Golf Association (EGA) is a non-profit organisation based in Epalinges, Switzerland ...

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 Eisenhower Trophy, 1958, it is nam ...

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 Belgian professional golfer who currently plays on the European Tour and LIV Golf. Early life Pieters was born in Geel, Belgium in 1992. He started playing golf at the age of five, learning the game at ...

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 i ...

Adrián Otaegui } Adrián Otaegui Jaúregui (born 21 November 1992) is a Spanish-Emirati professional golfer from San Sebastián who plays on the European Tour where he has won five times. He also played in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational Series. Amateur ca ...

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

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

to finish 7th in the championship. In

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

, 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 ...

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, currently titled as the HotelPlanner Tour for sponsorship reasons and also sometimes referred to as the European Challenge Tour, is the second-tier men's professional golf tour in Europe. It is operated by the PGA European To ...

, the Challenge de Madrid 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 The Turkish Airlines Challenge is a golf tournament on the Challenge Tour, played in Turkey. It was first played in 2010 when Charlie Ford triumphed in a sudden-death playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league a ...

, followed up with another runner-up finish in the

D+D Real Czech Challenge D, or d, is the fourth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History T ...

. 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. He finished first in the

Order of Merit to earn his European Tour card for

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

. 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 at the 2024 Paris Paralympics, his sixth Games. Early life Norris is from the Perth suburb of Banksia Grove, Western Au ...

. 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 res ...

. Norris received the entry because he had a higher

world ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, 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 ...

, 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 a golf tournament on the European Tour. It is played in September or October, on three different links courses, centered on the "home of golf", St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. The tournament is a pro-am, ...

at the three championship courses of

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

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 gr ...

and St Andrews Old Course in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, 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 city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. 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):

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

(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 19 ...

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

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pulkkanen, Tapio Finnish male golfers European Tour golfers Olympic golfers for Finland Golfers at the 2024 Summer Olympics Sportspeople from Kotka 1990 births Living people 21st-century Finnish sportsmen