Denmark natives Rasmus and Nicolai Højgaard are twin brothers, but they weren’t always best friends.
In their first junior golf tournament at age 10, Nicolai four-putted the final hole for double bogey to lose the event to Rasmus, and the dramatic finish inspired a long-running protocol where the lowest-scoring brother would get the front seat on the ride home. The twins had a rule that they’d never punch each other in the face – but that didn’t preclude physicality or general bickering. On one such car ride: “Ras goes in the back and he says to me, ‘Nico, don’t think you’ve got the throne now,’” Nicolai recalled in a Golf.com “Warming Up” video posted this year. “He was so pissed.”
“It was difficult for our parents when one played well and one didn’t,” Rasmus added to PGATOUR.COM last month. “Do they go up to the guy that played well first, or the guy that played not-so-well? We had a few rules in the family, and I think it helped us quite a bit. Obviously back then we were immature, and over the years we’ve managed to support each other more than being jealous.”
Although the brotherly bickering hasn’t gone anywhere, the mutual support now runs deep. The 24-year-old twins had mostly contrasting schedules in 2024 – Nicolai on the PGA TOUR and Rasmus on the DP World Tour – and Nicolai closely monitored Rasmus’ progress throughout the long, winding DP World Tour campaign. When Rasmus secured his first PGA TOUR card at No. 1 on the DP World Tour Eligibility Ranking (the top 10 players on the Race to Dubai, not otherwise exempt, earned TOUR membership), nobody was happier than his twin brother. Rasmus in turn was excited to reunite. “Traveling around with Nicolai,” he said last fall of what most excited him for the season ahead. The twins now rent a place together in south Florida and are frequent practice-round competitors – their first two Tuesday games this season were tied, they told Golf.com.
This week brings a new game, as the Højgaard brothers will play together at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the PGA TOUR’s lone two-man team event. In a far cry from their junior years in Denmark, constantly vying to one-up each other, they’ll depend on each other and chase their first PGA TOUR title together. It’s a key juncture in the season, as Rasmus enters the week at No. 104 on the season-long FedExCup standings, with Nicolai at No. 116 – and there’s no better time to improve their FedExCup positioning in tandem.
The Højgaards grew up around golf – their parents operated a pro shop in Billund, Denmark, where they’d spend long summer days – but they weren’t always certain they’d pursue the game at the highest level. The twins equally enjoyed handball, the country’s second most popular sport behind soccer (Denmark took 2024 Olympic gold in handball). But as they progressed in both sports, it became clear they each needed to pick one. Rasmus suffered a collarbone injury playing handball at age 15, which pushed him toward golf. “I thought, ‘This is not for me,’ Rasmus recalled. “From then on, I was just focused on golf.” Nicolai – the older brother by a minute or two – reached the same decision.
The twins have ascended in golf on similar timelines. Rasmus won his first of five DP World Tour victories at age 18, becoming the third-youngest winner in the circuit’s history, and Nicolai captured his first of three titles at age 20. Nicolai earned PGA TOUR Special Temporary Membership in April 2023, at age 22, and made his Ryder Cup debut for the European Team that fall (Rasmus was on-site as a cart driver). Rasmus earned his TOUR card at age 23. Last week, they became the first twins to compete in the same Masters. Rasmus stands No. 57 on the Official World Golf Ranking, 31 spots ahead of Nicolai, who led the 2024 Masters midway through the third round before finishing T16. And their careers have ample runway ahead.
The Højgaards are barely distinguishable by look – they arrived at a joint Masters press conference last week in matching khaki green pullovers. Yet when it comes to golf, their approaches are far from carbon copies. Rasmus conceptualizes the game more by feel than his brother, focusing on rhythm rather than numbers in his warm-up routine (Nicolai frequently used the moniker “Rasmus the artist” in the Golf.com video). Rasmus admires his brother’s approach play; Nicolai admires his brother’s putting prowess. Nicolai plays a spinnier golf ball; Rasmus’ swing is more conducive to creating spin. Rasmus has stronger legs; Nicolai’s upper body is stronger. The aesthetic of Rasmus’ swing hasn’t changed much since age 10, while Nicolai’s has undergone several iterations.
Their golf-related differences trace to childhood, where their parents kept them apart at times to encourage individual thinking.
“Growing up as twins is obviously very different, because we get compared in everything we do, and I think right from the start, our parents agreed that they would always dress us differently and keep us apart as much as possible,” Rasmus told PGATOUR.COM, “so that we’re not just becoming this one personality. “I think that was a good thing for us early on in school; we went to different classes, and we still had the same friend group, but just trying to develop a little bit on our own. So I think in a way, that’s been very good for us.”
Still, the twins share ample similarities on and off the course. They both have dogs, play tennis and listen to the band Oasis (they plan to attend an Oasis reunion concert at Wembley Stadium this summer). They love Italian food. They both won on the DP World Tour before age 21. And they share a seriousness in how they approach their chosen profession.
The twins’ father, Ole, is a pilot, having flown commercially for many years (including in Japan) and now for private operator Blackbird Air. Ole Højgaard works through a checklist before each flight, an example his sons have used in their golf development. Playing a golf tournament and flying a plane are not comparable, in a physical sense, but there are emotional lessons to take.
“That discipline he has in a situation where something happens is the same as on the golf course,” Nicolai told PGATOUR.COM. “When there’s a problem, you’ve got to remain calm. … The first thing you do is you open the book, what’s the checklist, and then just do it correctly each time instead of stressing and making an irrational or a rushed decision.
“I think when you look at golf, I think that’s a very good picture to create when you’re out there on the golf course and you’re like, ‘This is the time where you probably need to look at a checklist and take it one step at a time,’ and I think we both have learned a lot from him. We are still very much in the learning development of doing it on a golf course.”
This ethos served Rasmus well as he bounced back from the first big-picture disappointment of his young career, which ran in parallel to one of his brother’s greatest triumphs.
Two autumns ago, Rasmus was in great position to earn his TOUR card via the DP World Tour Eligibility Ranking (the first year with 10 TOUR cards offered via the DP World Tour), but he was passed in the closing moments by France’s Matthieu Pavon, who closed with four consecutive birdies at the DP World Tour Championship to finish T5 and surpass Rasmus in the top 10 (Rasmus finished the week tied for 11th, whereas Nicolai captured his third DP World Tour title by two strokes over Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland and Matt Wallace).
It was a bittersweet turn of events for Rasmus, who finished at No. 11 on the standings (27 points behind Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune). But he used the setback as fuel. His 2024 DP World Tour season included a memorable victory at the Amgen Irish Open in September, one stroke ahead of native son Rory McIlroy, and he entered the DP World Tour Championship far clear of any top-10 bubble jeopardy. With his No. 1 finish on the DP World Tour Eligibility Ranking, Rasmus qualified for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Genesis Invitational and THE PLAYERS Championship – a cornucopia of big-ticket starts to begin his first season as a PGA TOUR member.
Rasmus’ victory in Ireland included a hole-out from a greenside bunker at the 17th hole Sunday after failing to find the green with a wedge. The patrons included his twin brother, who was disgusted by the errant approach shot at a crucial moment. That dismay was short-lived, though, as Rasmus dramatically holed out for birdie from the bunker – and proceeded to birdie No. 18.
That victory propelled Rasmus to the PGA TOUR, and to this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans – where the Højgaard twins, once unable to stand each other, might be the closest-knit team of all.