Professional career
Hanson played on the Swedish Golf Tour and the Challenge Tour in 1999 and 2000. In 2001, he played 25 tournaments on the European Tour and at the same time finished 12th on the 2001 Challenge Tour final Order of Merit, qualifying for the 2002 European Tour season.
His first win abroad as a professional came at the 2001 Gunther Hamburg Classics on the Challenge Tour, with a 23-under-par winning score of 265 at Treudelberg Golf Club, Germany.
His first European Tour win was the 2005 Open de España at San Roque Club, Sotogrande, Spain. He has since won four more titles on the European Tour. He consistently finished in the top-20 of the European Tour Order of Merit from 2007 to 2012. His best position on the Order of Merit occurred in 2012 when he placed 4th.
On 17 August 2008, Hanson became the third Swede to win a European Tour event on home soil, when he captured the SAS Masters at Arlandastad, for the first Swedish win in the tournament for ten years.
On 27 March 2012, Hanson accepted an invitation to join the PGA Tour for the remainder of 2012 with Special Temporary Membership status. [5]
Hanson recorded his best finish at a major championship in April 2012, at the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. After scoring a seven-under-par round of 65 in the third round, Hanson was the sole 54-hole leader at 9-under-par with a one stroke advantage heading into the final round. His final round, playing in the last group with Phil Mickelson, started badly with two bogeys in the opening three holes and he never recovered. On the par-3 12th hole, Hanson shanked his tee shot short of Rae's Creek, but came back strongly. He chipped to two feet to birdie the 15th, played his tee shot to four feet at the 16th and holed a 15-foot birdie putt at the last for a one-over-par round of 73. Hanson finished in a tie for third, two strokes behind tied leaders Bubba Watson and Louis Oosthuizen, who played off for the title, won by Watson. [6]
On 9 September 2012, Hanson won for the fifth time on the European Tour, taking victory at the KLM Open in The Netherlands. [7] He began the final round a shot outside of the lead and it had looked like his chances were over after a wayward tee shot on 16 left him trouble, but he managed to escape with a par to trail Pablo Larrazábal by a single stroke. Then, after Larrazábal bogeyed the 16th, Hanson prevailed by two strokes courtesy of a long-range eagle putt on the par-five 18th. The win was even more remarkable because Hanson almost withdrew from the event after his one-year-old son Tim was taken to hospital prior to the event starting. [8]
Making his second Ryder Cup appearance in 2012, Hanson played on the victorious European team against the United States at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, Illinois, in September. The European 14½–13½ triumph was by European media named the "Miracle at Medinah" and regarded as one of the best sporting comebacks of all time, since the U.S. team at one stage on Saturday led by 10–4. However, Hanson played only two matches and lost both. In the Sunday singles, he met Jason Dufner in the 9th match and lost, 2 up.
The month after, on 28 October 2012, Hanson received the biggest prize check of his career, €888,560, when he won the BMW Masters at Lake Malaren Golf Club, Shanghai, China, out-dueling world number one Rory McIlroy, when they played together in the last group of the last round. With the win, Hanson reached a career best 17th on the Official World Golf Ranking.
Hanson moved to Lake Nona, Orlando, Florida, to play on the PGA Tour in 2013, [9] but after being forced to withdraw before the last round of the 2013 Northern Trust Open in March, due to pain in his back and immediately being driven to a hospital in Los Angeles, the rest of his career has been continuously interrupted by a disc herniation injury. In 2017, he moved back to Sweden with his wife and two children. [10] He played the 2017 European Tour with a medical exemption and through 2020 still held 36th position on the European Tour career money list.
In late 2021, Hanson announced that he would be retiring from professional golf. He made his last appearance on tour at the 2022 Volvo Car Scandinavian Mixed. [11] [12]
Sweden 
