"YOU HAVE TO EMBRACE THE NERVES AND STRESS!

Fresh from an away Ryder Cup victory and retaining his PGA Tour card for 2026, Rasmus Hojgaard discusses competitive sibling rivalry, Sunday afternoon pressure, making his Masters debut and more

- Interview Garrett Johnston Photography Getty Images

What is it like having your twin brother Nicolai out there with you on the PGA Tour, especially as you've both now secured your cards for the 2026 season?

It's really fun for us as twins out there.

We have some fun games we play in our practice rounds together. It's really nice here in the States to have someone to hang out with who I know well and we're enjoying our time together.

What kind of things do you like to do off the course?

We love to be boring [laughs]. We don't do anything crazy, but we love going to the gym together. We push each other and we love to challenge each other to get better. I think that goes a long way to keeping me motivated and challenged with my conditioning. We're twins and we know how to get the other one going, which makes it fun [laughs]. We love to go to Chipotle [fast food restaurant] here in the US after an evening workout or range session.

Have the two of you always been extremely competitive?

We spent so many hours as kids playing football, handball, table tennis and all those sports. We would find a way to ensure that everything we could possibly play became a competition between the two of us. Even racing to the car as kids, we would always try to see who could get to it first.

How did it feel to pip Rory Mcllroy to the Irish Open title last year in those crazy conditions at Royal County Down?

It felt absolutely amazing. Midway through the round I didn't really feel like I had much of a chance, to be honest. I was probably, if I remember correctly, four or five shots back of the lead at that stage. I was just plugging along, and I really wasn't thinking that much about winning at all.

I was trying to just put my best effort in and finish off as well as I could. I had no expectations. Then, all of a sudden, I got in that flow state where everything seemed to be happening by itself.