Joost Luiten

Early life

Luiten was born in Bleiswijk and started playing golf at 6 years old at Golf Centrum Rotterdam. As an amateur, he won the 2005 Spanish Amateur Open Championship and German Amateur Open Championship; he represented his country in the winning team of the 2006 Eisenhower Trophy and was selected in the same year for the Palmer Cup.

Professional career

After a failed bid for a tour card at Qualifying School he started his professional career on the EPD Tour where he claimed second place twice in just four starts. Because he was not in possession of a tour card Luiten was solely dependent on invites to play on the Challenge Tour.

He received one for the Tusker Kenya Open where he birdied the 72nd hole for a share of tenth place. This was enough to earn himself a start in the next tournament where he finished third. On his way to show how to make perfect use of a single invite Luiten went on to win in France, his third start of the season. In his first six events of 2007, he won two of them. On his way to winning the Vodafone Challenge he shot a 61 (-11) in the final round, the lowest final round total by a tournament winner.

After finishing sixth in the 2007 Challenge Tour rankings he received a European Tour card for 2008 and claimed two top 10 spots before injury curtailed his season.

Luiten was a member of the 2006 Dutch team that won the Eisenhower Trophy after he played his last five holes in six under par.

Luiten finished second at the KLM Open, a European Tour event, in 2007 and has been the highest ranked Dutch golfer in the Official World Golf Rankings. In January 2008 he reached the top 100 in the rankings.

Luiten's 2009 season was hampered by a wrist injury that kept him out more than a year and he played the start of 2010 on a minor medical exemption. He regained his European Tour card for the rest of 2010 and finished the season 28th on the Order of Merit.

In November 2011, Luiten won his first tournament on the European Tour with a victory in the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia, which also gave him his highest world ranking position to that point, at 66. He finished in the top 30 of the Order of Merit for the second consecutive year, ranked 24th.

Luiten won for the second time on the European Tour in June 2013 at the Lyoness Open in Austria. He took a three stroke advantage into the final round and shot a one-under-par 71 to finish two ahead of Thomas Bjørn. He became only the second player from the Netherlands to record multiple European Tour victories, after Robert-Jan Derksen.

In 2014, Luiten won the Wales Open and finished third at the Volvo Golf Champions, sixth at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, fourth at the Open de España, third at the Lyoness Open and third at the Volvo World Match Play Championship. By 24 November, he reached 28th in the Official World Golf Ranking, a high point so far. He also played in the United States, finishing 13th at the WGC-Cadillac Championship and 26th at the Masters Tournament and PGA Championship.

In the first half of 2016 Luiten collected eight top-10 finishes in 15 events, with second places in consecutive weeks at the Open de España and Shenzhen International. In August he represented Netherlands at the 2016 Summer Olympics, finishing tied for the 27th place. The following month, he went on to win for the second time the KLM Open, matching the course record with an 8-under par 63 on the final round.

Amateur wins (4)

European Tour wins (5)

¹ Co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour

European Tour playoff record (1–0)

Asian Tour wins (1)

¹ Co-sanctioned by the European Tour

Results in major championships

CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied for place

Summary

Results in World Golf Championships

Results not in chronological order prior to 2015.

DNP = Did not play
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied

Team appearances

Amateur

Professional