After a slow morning with some sleeping in I met up with my friend Henric Davidsson. He lives up in the little village Roquebrun just outside Monaco. He likes playing golf so we went out to Terre Blanche GC to play a round. Got some pics before we went from where he lives and of the view the people living there are spoiled with. Unreal!

Above is the village of Roquebrun pictured from the tiny road winding up to the village.

The way to Terre Blanche GC is pretty nice so the drive doesn’t feel as long as it is…

They love the road tolls in France…feels like you have to stop all the time to throws some money in. But, when we were heading out to this awesome course, we didn’t care if it cost us a few Euro…it’s worth it!

Henric did an awesome job as a photographer/filmer today. I just made a video with some swings and nice scenery but I’m not able to post it on the blog yet. Tomorrow I’ll get it up!

Went back to the athlete’s gym in the football stadium to try to get the blood pressure test done so I could finally work out in there. Met the guy in charge and a test wasn’t necessary but some identification and proof of that I was actually participating in a sport was needed. Now I can officially train there…feels nice! Took some pics of the hallway of the gym where you can see a lot of great athletes who have worked out in there.

See you tomorrow!

Followed my plan today for the first time ever…Went up early to not get stuck in traffic and to practice some putting with the dew on the greens. Went well. I think I focus better on the golf course in the morning and late afternoon. I used to love the team training we had at my home course, Haninge GK, when I was little. It was always in the evening so the parents could drive us. We picked balls on the range on the way down to the bottom where we could hit of the grass. When we were done hitting, we picked up all the balls from the range and we got rewarded with cinnamon rolls and soft drinks. Good times!  It has something to do with the light in the morning and the evening. In the middle of the day, it’s too bright and there are also a lot of people practicing so it’s hard to do the drills you want to do. Here is a few pics from this morning…

After an awesome day on the course with no clouds and 30 degrees I wanted to hit the beach but it ended up being to late to get a tan…haven’t tanned my body since I was 12 i think. Pretty white.

Decided for the gym instead where I can get something accomplished. Went all the way there with the bus to only get rejected at the door since I haven’t given the gym crew a blood pressure test…the guy who does the testing wasn’t there. I’ll try again tomorrow. Took the bus back furious because I really wanted to work out. Came to think about my old gym just above my apartment so took the bus there. Still mad. Saw that the bus I was in was ”Bus of the year 2004”. That made the whole trip meaningful and I was happy again!:)

Like writing the blog when people think it’s fun to read! Thanks for the comments! Makes me happy! Love golf and to write about it is fun as well! 

See you and have fun!

Started off the best way possible…

When I was fully loaded with food and energy from Entourage I was ready for a gym session! Went to a gym where all the athletes that live in Monaco train. It’s located  in the football stadium and it was the best gym I’ve seen here. It doesn’t have much competitions since the gyms here are either full of stupid machines and treadmills or they are the size of my apartment which is not very big so all the equipment is usually taken. But it was fun there with all the athletes working out. Got a deja vu of college. Let’s just say that we golfers weren’t the strongest athletes in the college work out room…Met some Swedish skiers in there, Markus Larsson and Jens Byggmark.

Straight home for some lunch and more Entourage…it feels like a meal without Entourage is not a real meal…sad maybe but I like the show!

This is the best putting mat ever! You don’t have to mow it and it’s fast!

Did some walking around in Monaco as well…looked for good things to photograph and tried not to get carried away taking pictures of cars and boats. The thing is that I’m not a good photographer and my camera is not up to pro standard but I did my best…

Need to go to bed early…gonna try to get out to the course when it’s still dew on the greens to learn how much the putts break…

Happy times!

Later!

Just watched Ronaldo score some goals for Real Madrid! He is good! It looks like he is getting more humble as well…Had a great pizza in Roquebrun and watched the game with my buddy Henrik! Roquebrun is the coolest little city just outside Monaco up in the hills. It’s really old and there are no cars in the city, or let’s call it a village. Great view over Monaco at night and during the day!

Had a good day on the course. Saw Robert Karlsson is training again after his break. Good that he is back! I hope he starts off where he left! 

Practice was fun although it would be fun to have some buddies to play with. It’s good to practice by yourself sometimes because you get a lot done but when you start speaking to yourself it has gone too far:) Robert is leaving tomorrow for Seve Trophy. If I would have played better earlier I would have travelled with him but it’s nice to train here as well.

There are two courses at Terre Blanche GC. One is long and awesome and the other is short and awesome! Played the short one today and I think there should be a lot more short courses built for the amatuers. How much fun is it to play for a 18 hcp player when only using the woods. They never get to touch the shorter clubs when they play. Why not have 400 meter par 5’s, 260 meter par 4’s and 110 meter par 3’s. The courses can be long and brutal for us pros but not for amatuers who are suppose to only enjoy the game. For us it’s enjoyable with challenges and it’s fun for the crowd to see how we handle the tough courses. Since playing the short course today, I got to practice my wedges, which I need to do.  I played ”worse ball” again and it got me. Thought I played pretty good but when I just for a second lost my focus and concentration, I made a bogey. It’s so easy for instance to hit the first shot good and then mess up on your second shot. But, to always hit two balls and pick the worst one (”worse ball”) will make you better as a player, I can almost guarantee that! Here are some pictures from today.

Just have to show some cool art that they have at Terre Blanche GC. Looks pretty nice I think, specially the body sculpture in the spa.

Falling asleep while writing might mean that I should go to bed…:) Seep well everybody!

Ciao

I like watching some youtube stuff and it’s nice to see how the best do it! So, here are some videos of the guys I think are or was the most impressive in the world! 

Alexander Karelin- toughest guy on the planet probably and he trained unbelievable hard.

Tiger Woods- just incredible. Have idolized him since he came on tour and now it’s hard not to just stand and watch him when we play the same tournaments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz47-PtrAyw

Roger Federer- moves like no other and the best tennis player of all time. Nothing more to say!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DDQwLZJMgI

Ben Hogan- to overcome everything he was put up against is very impressive. The best swing of all times and one of the best of all time.

Göran Kropp- I really want the determination he had! The things he did, people still think are impossible to do.

See you later:)

Got up early and I’m so glad I did! The weather was still weird but it was nice driving to the course in the dark and seeing the mist in the trees when it was getting lighter.

After an hour drive I finally got to the course but it was a little wet! It’s a great course with 36 holes and allt the practice facilities imaginable. With all the due on the green it made it easy to see the lines the balls were taking. Looks like a spider web around the hole.

After the morning practice I did some nice playing exercises which I find hard to motivate myself to do…once again, I like practicing quantity but today I did 18 holes quality with ”worse ball” for 9 holes and a short game deal for 9 holes. Felt like my caddie Colin would have been proud of me…quality, quality, quality:)

The course is situated up in the hills or small mountains straight up from Cannes and the views are stunning!

Hope all is good with you guys!!!

See you!

It was very weird flying in to Nice airport when it was raining! It’s always sunny and such a nice view from the airplane when flying in over the water and landing on a little half island just outside the city. But not today. We could barely see out of the windows because of the low clouds and heavy rain. It felt good though coming down here and I’m looking forward to 9 days of good training!

I was going to go straight to the course but since it took 2 hours to get the rental car and it was raining cats and dogs (slight exaggeration) I went straight to Monaco. And straight to the gym at the Monte Carlo Country Club, host of the Rolex Masters tennis tournament in the spring every year. It’s the first clay tournament for the ATP players. I remember watching Robin Söderling loosing his first match of the tournament there this year. But, since then he hasn’t lost many matches this year!!!

The whole complex of the Monte Carlo Country Club breaths luxury and tradition. The locker room looks very posh and very old. The gym though, was new and fresh and overlooking the water. Therefore the price, 24 Euros for one session…I need to find another gym!

I suck at making plans for my golf training…need to get more structured. Don’t know how to do it! Any suggestions or advices? Tried so many times to plan my days and weeks and years, but everytime I fail to follow them. I get boored of knowing what I’m gonna do the next day! Maybe it’s good to not plan ahead. Although, I want to make sure I practice the right amount and enough on all areas of the game. It’s so much easier to plan for the physical or the mental training.

All I know is that I wake up in the morning and feel excited to go practice and play golf. Maybe that’s all that matters.

Tomorrow it’s gonna be good weather. I just hate practicing in the rain…it’s hard to get good quality practice. 

These are the cars you need in Monaco when you are looking for parking spots:)

Have a good night!

Another tough day in the gym. Stamina in the morning and I was so much more motivated today. When that lactic acid comes I just close my eyes and think of something sweet that I want to happen and it feels a lot easier. The strength training was nice to in the afternoon with some new exercises. Training a lot helps me to eat, sleep and recover better since I know that it will make the sessions easier. Nothing worse to come to a session tired,hungry or dehydrated and not be able to do your best.

Saw some of the re-cap from the US Open tennis final and Federer looked so strong in the beginning but couldn´t take another title this time. Del Potro was too strong! Federer though, has to be almost super human. He doesn´t look as strong as he really is and he moves like a cat and doesn´t even sweat after a match. I have heard how much Robin Söderling trains and I would love to see Federer work out. Speaking of work outs, does anybody have any video of Alexander Karelin (the wrestler) working out. I´ve seen photos of him and he looks like the strongest athlete ever.

Tomorrow starts my golf training down in Monaco. Going to combine it with gym training and my new breathing/focusing CD I got. Need to get better at focusing on the course and not get distracted or loose my confidence during the tournament. This CD will help me, I hope. It feels great to have some new stuff to work on. It´s easy for me to get caught in beating balls and just trying to find something that works for the moment. My training needs to be more structured so I can develop my game at a steady pace. Not bouncing up and down and just looking for short cuts or quick fixes.

See you later and tomorrow I´m gonna get some sweet pictures of Terre Blanche GC. It´s an awesome place up in the mountains above Cannes in France.

Totally done after a hard training day yesterday at the UCSP Gym in Stockholm. The morning session was terrible! Intervals on the bike and then intervals on the rowing machine. I´m the worst at motivating myself for these exercises. I hate the feeling when the lactic acid sips into your muscles. I don´t mind pushing myself on strength exerices but stamina ones are tougher, but, I feel great after these tough sessions. It feels like I´ve done something productive and that I improved on one of my weaknesses. Going to work on the same thing tomorrow so we´ll see if my motivation is better and the results can improve. 

The afternoon session was more to my liking. Bar and other free weight exercises and most of them from 6-10 repetitions. Chin-ups always gets me though…feel like I want to puke after. After the session I tried one of the best things I´ve ever tried! A breathing/focusing exercise which I´m going to start using regurarly and if it´s as good as I think, I will tell you about it later!

Today was golfing day at Bro Hof Slott GC and the course was in great shape! Thought I wasn´t going to be able to swing today beacause I´m so sore from yesterday. But, it sometimes it feels like I get rid of my overswing when I´m sore, can´t wind up as much…I know some guys on tour try to get as sore as possible for the tournament days so they can feel their bodies better and maybe swing a little shorter and more controlled. Other players might feel the opposite. I like feeling like I´ve done something the day before when I play but not sore so I can´t wind up fully.

See you later and enjoy the training:)

It´s been a great training day today! Love coming out to Haninge GK and see the boys and practice with them…Patrik ”Myggan” Nilsson, my former golf coach, is now the head of the athletic side of the club and has a lot to do with the development of the golf course. He has, together with all the other guys involved, done a great job with the course and it´s in the best shape I´ve ever seen it! It´s nice to see improvement like that, especially when you care about the place. Me and my friend Kristoffer ”Kotte” Broberg always have a chipping contest, ”the 21 game”. Usually we have a serious game and it´s very important and the looser feels awful and wants to get revenge right away just to be able to sleep well at night. Today, we had too much to talk about to even count the score. Weird but fun!!! Everybody seems to have a nick-name at our course…I guess it´s like that south of the city:)

This is Kotte who loves chipping!…

Sometimes we practice chipping from the green to get a more crisp hit on the ball and to pick it clean because taking a divot in the green is not very apprecitated:) After practicing of the green, it seems really easy chipping from the fringe.

This is the hut I spent most of my time at Haninge GK the last few years. I love it in there, with the mirrors and the sweet mat to hit from. Now, they have a nice grass tee box outside but I still go in there to hit balls. It´s great when it´s raining outside too!

After lunch it was time to hit the gym…Pierre Johansson is down in Austria with the other golfers he trains. I went to the UCSP gym in the city to do some stuff. Robin Söderling´s coach Ali Ghelem runs the place and they got all the best stuff in there. Have done a lot of testing in there before and they specialize in golf and tennis…so it works out great!

Since I started working out harder my swing feels so much better so I´m just gonna keep doing it! Nothing is better then feeling good over the ball! I want that feeling more often.

See you later!!!