Linn Grant is ranked as the world's fifth best amateur player and was present when Sweden won the team EC this year for the third time in a row.

But now the Scanian is really shining on the biggest golf scene, the traditional Major US Open.

Grant has started the competition at the Champions Golf Club in Houston with two straight 69 rounds and is a total of four strokes below par.

Most of the far more meritorious competitors - including South Korean world setter Ko Jin-Young and a handful of former major winners - so far cannot match the game that Linn Grant has shown in Texas.

A huge surprise for most, but not for Grant himself.

- I if anyone should know what I can do, I think, she says with reasonably cocky self-confidence to Viaplay.

- I have followed my plan pretty well, I have just tried to play as easily as possible.

Three behind Shibuno

After two rounds, the Swede is alone second, three strokes behind the Japanese Hinako Shibuno who won the British Open last year.

Now games in the leader ball await in this year's audience-free 75th edition of the US Open.

In fact, Linn Grant - raised at Rya GK outside Helsingborg and now a college student at Arizona State University - played a big way in a similar way already as an 18-year-old major debutant in the US Open, in the summer of 2018. At that time she was four halfway into the competition, just for to then fold together really during the final laps and finish 57th.

Now Grant, who has her father John as a caddy, hopes that she is better prepared for what awaits.

- Then when I went out on the third lap, it was a bit like a shock.

All of a sudden I realized that there were a lot of cameras everywhere, there were a lot of people and I got a little stressed in that situation.

It was a good lesson both for now and future competitions.

Ten Swedes

As many as ten Swedes are taking part in this year's US Open - a new record - and seven of them will continue to play this weekend.

And it is the young amateurs who really succeed.

Closest behind Grant are two teammates from the European Championship gold team: 20-year-old Ingrid Lindblad shares 14th place in a sub-par and 21-year-old Maja Stark shares 20th place in par.

Of the blue and yellow pros, Linnea Ström, Pernilla Lindberg and Anna Nordqvist are the best, all +2 and in a shared 36th place.

The US Open is postponed from June to December due to the corona situation and the prize pool is the largest in women's golf, where the winner receives a check for one million dollars (just over eight million kronor).

Amateurs may not receive prize money, but Linn Grant can take comfort in the fact that she can write golf history if she continues her impressive game this weekend.

By the way, Swedish golf history has been written before in the US Open.

It was here that Liselotte Neumann took Sweden's first major title ever in 1988 and Annika Sörenstam has won three times, most recently in 2006, which is the only European victory since the turn of the millennium.