The 2026 Husqvarna British Masters will be staged at The Belfry on the iconic Brabazon Course in England. In addition, Husqvarna will also be the official robotic mowing partner of the DP World Tour.

“Golf is the perfect stage to demonstrate the performance of Husqvarna’s robotic lawnmowers, already delivering world-class results at over 1,700 courses worldwide.

This partnership marks a shared commitment to reinvent golf course maintenance for a new era”, says Yvette Henshall-Bell, President Europe BU Husqvarna Forest & Garden Division, Husqvarna Group.

GREAT CHAMPIONS

First played in 1946, the British Masters has a distinguished history with past champions including Peter Thomson, Tony Jacklin, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam, Seve Ballesteros, Sir Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie and Sweden’s Alex Noren in the 2025 tournament.

Six-time major winner Sir Nick Faldo, himself a Husqvarna Brand Ambassador, will return as host of the Husqvarna British Masters in 2026.

“As a former Champion, I take great pride in hosting this iconic tournament and it’s about to enter an exciting new era with this new partnership.

I love Husqvarna’s products, and they will be out in full force at The Belfry next August to make sure the Brabazon Course is in perfect condition”, says Sir Nick Faldo.

As part of the agreement, Husqvarna also becomes an Official Marketing Partner of the 2026 DP World Tour, building on the successful partnership in 2025.

PARTNERSHIPS IN 2026

In 2026 Husqvarna will be the Official Tournament Partner to the British Masters and the Amgen Irish Open, Corporate Partner to the BMW International Open, KLM Open and FedEx Open de France.

With this elevated status, Husqvarna will showcase its products across DP World Tour channels throughout the season, and partner with green keepers and course managers to deliver consistent quality on the tournament courses.

Recently, at the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Porthcawl in Wales, 15 Husqvarna CEORA robotic mowers maintained all 18 fairways during the tournament, marking the first time robotic mowers have maintained fairways live on the world golf stage.

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Extremely happy. It was unbelievable week for me. I haven’t played like this for a long time. Kind of struggled — I didn’t struggle the first two days but I scored really well from maybe not the best of play. Then the last three days, I don’t think I’ve played like this for a long time.

So super happy and super happy to do it here in Britain. I seem to love British people and British courses. So it’s wonderful here.

Q. 2-under through the first three. How much was that the perfect start to settle any nerves you had going into today?

Especially on 2, everybody thinks I can’t hook the ball, but I hooked a little pitch in there stiff and I felt pretty proud of myself. It was a good start, and same on 3 with a birdie. It’s so much easier to start like that on a Sunday than to kind of fight and fight from behind.

Q. Obviously the bogey at 9, what did you say to yourself as you made the turn?

It was a mental mistake on the putt. Kind of like the drive on 18, wasn’t really focused enough, and you know, I didn’t trust my line on 9. Didn’t trust my line on 18. Then it’s easier, almost, to take the mistake, if it’s only technical mistake or a bad swing or something like that.

So I said to myself on 9, like, you know, you just have to keep working on it. That’s what I did every day on the putting green. You can’t be upset after. So just kind of acknowledge what’s wrong, and then work on that, yeah.

Q. Obviously you mentioned there a misalignment on 18. You had a two-shot lead coming down the last and not the drive you wanted into the trees. How nervous were you or what was your thought process on the final hole?

I was a little bit nervous. More tense than nervous, maybe. But also, there was no, I couldn’t see if I was two ahead or one ahead.

Then the wind — right now, there’s no wind. But it was kind of ten miles an hour into, and we’ve had always that downwind this whole week, and so the line kind of changes. I don’t know, it should have been a bit more aggressive line than I tried to take. Because if I just missed it a little, I was in the bunker. Sort of a mental mistake. I’m happy to get the job done, anyway.

25th in The Race to Dubai now and obviously exemptions that come with this win. How does this change your goals or your outlook for the rest of the season?

Yeah, I still have to play some over in the States after Wentworth. But I think it was great to do it. Also, my kids are coming to an age when they actually love golf and they watch me on TV. I try to say “hi” to Iris and Roy and my wife, Jennifer. It’s lovely that they can be a part of it and maybe they can — my boy wants to come out and watch me play, and it’s great.

Q. You missed seven months of Ryder Cup qualification through injury. Yesterday I suggested to you if you win here or next week or both, Luke Donald is going to be considering you and you dismissed me. What do you think now?

I still think it’s dismissed (laughs). Yeah, it would be great. But I’m more just happy to get this win. Like you said, first time in seven years, it feels great.

Q. After two rounds, you said you weren’t happy with your ball-striking. You got in touch with your coach and he gave you some advice. That vice obviously led to this victory. You owe him a very large dinner, don’t you?

I do. I’ve owed him for like 13 years. It was great just to get a little bit better setup. Just overall, a little bit cleaner swing, and it really paid off. I didn’t have to do my crazy practise swing, and it felt good.

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The six-time Major champion talks to Matt Nicholson about his move to Montana, the future of golf course design, hosting the British Masters, and why short courses are the next big thing

Sir Nick Faldo still has a lot on his plate. His playing days and long stints in the commentary booth with CBS may be behind him, but the man from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire has more than enough going on to keep him occupied.

On quiet days he’ll take the dogs for a long walk, and he’ll be very content. However, when he’s busy, he’s busy. Moving to the mountains in Montana to build a farm has been one project, but he has lots of others on the go.

For starters, there’s the design business. As well as an exciting new layout in Madeira, the six-time Major winner, who has designed award- winning golf courses on five continents and in 20 different countries, is behind several short course projects in America and in the UK.

He’s also the host of this year’s British Masters at The Belfry on 28 August-1 September. He might be busy, and there might be times when the dogs miss their master, but, as he tells us, he wouldn’t have it any other way…

Why did you decide to up sticks and move to Montana?

After Covid, we were about to build on Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Then we thought we wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle. We’d visited Montana a few times.

I used to go up there and fish with Huey Lewis. I had a project that was almost on the Canadian border, Wilderness Club. We went there for a couple of summers with the dogs and loved it.

We thought, ‘Why don’t we build ourselves a farm?’ That’s how it all started.

Do you enjoy the slower pace of life?

It’s nice for me, on some days, to just go, ‘What have I got to do?’ My only priority might be to go and walk the dogs. That’s nice, because when I’m busy, I’m busy.

We’ve also got more involved with the community. I’m an ambassador for a great club called Crazy Mountain over Livingston way.

I love it over that side. That’s the old Marlboro cigarette ranch. We’ve got our own – they call it town. We’ve got a genuine cowboy town, with the saloon, the jailhouse, the fire station, the brothel.

It’s very cool. It’s genuine – over a 100-year-old wooden building. We’re amongst 3,000 acres of gorgeous mountains. You’ve got rivers, you’ve got golf. Everyone enjoys the good things in life, which is nice.

What’s your design philosophy?

I’ve got a good eye and a good strategy – that was the way I played. I’ve seen all the great golf courses, and I’ve got a very good photographic memory.

I can visualise the [Alister] Mackenzie’s and the George Thomas’s. I love Colts and, in modern day, Pete Dye. You look at those and go, ‘Would I do that?’ That sort of thing – or you might be inspired by it.

I’m a big fan of trying to make it fit as naturally as possible.

How much of a challenge is that?

It’s tough sometimes. In Cambodia, for example, we had a thousand acres with four feet of movement. You’ve got to do a lot of dreaming and a lot of pumping sand. Or we get the opposite. In Vietnam, we had to blow up rock to create golf holes. You’ve got to have a good engineer who can understand it.

You can get all this dirt and rock. Where do you push it all? Or where do you get it all when it’s flat? It’s really an engineering feat. Luckily, I’ve got smart people who know how to do that!

Tell us about your new project in Madeira…

Madeira is one that we’re very excited about, what with the views in this little corner of the island. It’s very undulating. We’re going to make a lovely golf course with a little boutique hotel, about 100 rooms, so not huge.

Are there any specific projects you’re particularly fond of?

Laguna in Vietnam is a great site because of its variety. I guess the ultimate is to have as much variety as you can. Here, you start off through meadowlands, then rice fields, a bit of jungle, beach, down the river, through the rocks, back in the jungle, and then you finish the last four or five holes with huge blowouts of sand. You get a little bit of everything, which is very cool.

We always consider the history of the site. Putting something in is a bit of a trademark. For example, in Cambodia we’ve got buddhas and temples, a miniature scaled-down version of Angkor Wat on the golf course. We were inspired by that. This is the fun bit.

I always enjoy having no preconceived ideas when I go to a golf course, because you want to be inspired by what’s there. I think that’s important. We’ve got a few other ideas up our sleeve. It’s going to be fun. The design business is going very well.

What are some key trends you’re seeing in the golf course design industry?

The blowout look on bunkers is something they’re going heavily on. They can look fabulous, but for the average golfer who goes left and right, you’re making life more difficult.

If they hit a poor shot, they’re going to leave themselves 60-yard bunker shots all day long. There’s a fine balance between building a resort golf course and a pro golf course. That’s something we’re always mindful of.

How has the evolution of golf equipment impacted your designs?

Distance has exploded over the last ten years. The best example is Firestone, which we used to play in the World Series.

We would be hitting 2-, 3- and 4-irons into the par 4s. The 9th was a good drive, and you’d end up on the top of the hill. You’d have a 2-iron into this little green that was 210 yards out. Now they smash it over the hill and have a gap wedge.

I’d come back and tell my architects. It used to be 300 yards through the air – that was impressive. Then it went to 320. Now we’ve got quite a few guys who can do 340 through the air. When you design, you start thinking, ‘Where’s the golf ball going to end up?’ Making a strategy is very difficult.

If a drive goes 340, and pros can hit 240 with their 4 -iron, that’s 580. It has changed the game dramatically for course design.

How much different has it been designing the new short course at Chart Hills?

I’m very proud of it. I’ve been beating this drum for years. So many hotels don’t have room.

You say, how about 12, but they want a championship golf course. That drives me up the wall. People are recognising the fun playing short courses.

Building a 12 -hole golf course ticks all the environmental boxes: the water, construction costs, time. Time is the big thing now, where people must try and please everybody.

You’ve got a family but you want to disappear and play some golf. Eighteen is a long day, so I’m really pushing the 12 -hole concept as much as I can.

Your six-hole ‘Loop’ at Chart Hills is proof that golf can be fun in a shorter format…

Absolutely. I was able to draw inspiration from many of the great places and holes I’ve played at the likes of St Andrews, Muirfield Village, and Augusta.

It’s a great challenge for golfers of all abilities. We have our very own ‘Valley of Sin

It’s fantastic, unique. I think golf courses of this nature are only going to get more popular, and what we have at Chart Hills is very special. I’d encourage anyone to go and play it.

Are you working on other short course projects?

We’ve got a great project up at Big Sky. We’d like to do six holes for kids, and we’d like to do a nine-hole par-3 course.

Hopefully we can cart that one because you’re at 8,000 feet plus! Then maybe there’s a 12-hole course which could be serious. It’s quite a challenging project, but I think it could be ground breaking.

We’ve also got a little company I’m forming with Paul Jansen and my architects called ‘Golf in Small Spaces’. People love to have anything from a single green in their back garden all the way up to three, five, ten, 30 acres.

As we’ve seen, the popularity of them is fantastic.

The skill is to design where, if you’re brand new to golf you can roll it along the ground, and if you’re a decent golfer you can cut the corners and getting the ball to stop is a great challenge.

So I’m very excited about trying to build that side of golf.

What was it like to take on the role of host for the British Masters?

It’s a nice honour since I won that one. It’s something America has done so well over the years, with celebrities and the likes of Arnold [Palmer], Jack [Nicklaus] and Tiger [Woods].

I think our tour should do more of that. Seve would be a great one to honour, and probably Rory in the future.

All I’m trying to do is build awareness of the event, make it more British. I think that’s a fun thing.

I’ve requested that all the music to be played should be British bands. There should be no problem with a playlist on that! Little touches like that.

What’s been the most rewarding part?

Well I’m not playing. I’m there all week. I’m quite happy to give it time, get it to grow as best as
I can and make the fan experience as good as possible.

I’ve got some great ideas for the fans’ village. So we will see how we can just keep expanding it. I have my own pavilion, which is very cool, wonderful food. I love hosting people up there.

What do you think makes the British Masters stand out from other tournaments on the DP World Tour calendar?

The Belfry has a great central location. We can get good fans and create a very good atmosphere.

As I said, we can make it as British as possible. We have a good date, and in the future, we can encourage a few more top names to come and play.

It’s always a great challenge to play The Belfry, especially when you get a little bit of weather, a little bit of wind in there, and then the tricky finish. It’s always going to get a great champion.

The Faldo Series is also still going strong…

Well, that week we also host our Faldo Futures event. We have our grand final, which was a great success the first year.

We had about 1,600 participants, which was whittled down to about 120 youngsters. They loved it. We want to expand that, make that bigger and better.

 

 

 

 

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The winners of the regionals will play in The Faldo Futures Final at The Belfry during the British Masters week in August, hosted by Sir Nick Faldo.

ENCOURAGING THE YOUNGER GENERATION

Commenting on The Faldo Futures, Matthew Faldo, Tournament Director of The Faldo Series, said: “We’re delighted to be launching The Faldo Futures Tour for 2024. Encouraging the younger generation to participate in the sport is fundamental to its continued success and we’re very much looking forward to seeing hundreds of young people play golf, but more importantly have fun, during the first round.”

Golf clubs are now being invited to participate in the new tour by staging their own competition between March 22 and April 14. In addition to helping encourage participation of the sport among young people, clubs will receive support for their event including a digital competition platform, digital promotion pack, official Faldo Futures Venue logo, prizes for the winners and listing on The Faldo Series website.

The club will also benefit from the increased exposure by providing follow-up junior tuition opportunities and junior membership.

For more information on how to become a Faldo Futures venue for 2024, visit www.faldoseries.com/the-faldo-futures/.

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The European Tour is expected to announce a revised summer schedule that will feature at least five tournaments back-to-back in England and Wales, the most it has held succession in almost 40 years.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the hastily-assembled swing of UK-based tournaments will start with Betfred British Masters at Close House, which is being brought forward a week to July 23-26, before moving on to events at the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire, then Hanbury Manor in Hertfordshire, and finishing off with two back-to-back tournaments at Celtic Manor in Wales.

All four venues have on-site accommodation, offering the chance for the Tour to create a ‘healthy and safety bubble’ for players and officials. Unfortunately for fans, none of the events will have spectators, although all will be shown live on Sky Sports.

The British Masters will have a prize fund of €2m, while the others will offer €1m. It represents significant reduction in prize money from usual European Tour events, as last year’s British Masters had a prize fund of over €3.5m, but it is understood that the Tour will be having to partly fund the prize funds itself.

In all, there could be as many as 22 European Tour events before the end of the year, featuring multi-event stops in countries such as Portugal and Austria. The UK may also stage an ‘autumn swing’, taking in the BMW Championship at Wentworth, the Scottish Open at the Renaissance and the Dunhill Links at St Andrews. The European Tour has so far seen 21 of its tournaments either cancelled or postponed because of the pandemic.

The US PGA Championship is due to take place the same week as the Hanbury Manor event, but the majority on the European Tour will not qualify for the season’s first major, while many senior players, including Tommy Fleetwood and Lee Westwood, have already decided to skip the event, which is being held at Harding Park in San Francisco, because of travel quarantine restrictions in the US.

In other news, the European Tour has announced there will also be no European Tour Qualifying School this year and no promotion from the Challenge Tour, with playing rights from 2020 guaranteed for 2021.

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Fleetwood, will be following in the footsteps of fellow countrymen Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and most recently, Justin Rose, as the tournament host of the revived tournament, which was held at Walton Heath in Surrey last month.

Fleetwood will be very much the home town hero at Hillside, having grown up in Merseyside, and the current world No.10 is already excited at the prospect of playing the role of host when the British Masters moves to its new date in May.

“I can’t wait to host the British Masters in my home town,” said Fleetwood. “It will be such an honour and I’m so grateful to have been asked. I’m extremely proud to follow the great ambassadors of our game who have hosted this tournament. I am very confident that Southport will make everyone welcome and the north west of England, and its love of golf, will embrace this opportunity and show support to us all.”

The British Masters hosted by Tommy Fleetwood will mark the European Tour’s first visit to Hillside since 1982 when Tony Jacklin won the Sun Alliance PGA Championship – the precursor to the BMW PGA Championship – beating his fellow Ryder Cup Captain Bernhard Langer in a play-off. Hillside  also played host to the European Tour in its inaugural season in 1972, when Tommy Horton won the Piccadilly Medal, and the following year when former Tour Chairman Neil Coles won the PGA Match Play title. It was also utilised by the R&A as a Final Qualifying venue for the Open Championship from 2014 to 2017.

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