Golf is all about being in control of your ball. If you have control, it’s the best game in the world. If you don’t, it can be a very cruel game. Specially, if you play at St:Andrews where the ground is rock hard and very slopy. You need to curve it into the wind to cotrol the bounces. You need to put the ball in the right spots for the best lines into the pins. If you are able to do it, St:Andrews can seem easy. If you don’t, it’s a very frustrating course. I’ve never been able to master it. Every time I play it, I walk off very frustrated just beacuse I couldn’t control the ball. And today my putting was terrible which doesn’t help at all. 74 shots (+2) and a miss cut is not what I wanted, but it is what it is. I need to improve, and the best thing is I know what I need to improve. Putting, shortgame and ball control. If I attempt a fade, hitting a draw will not make me succeed. I need to get better.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Madrid for another tournament. It feels great getting back on the course. I want revenge, not for getting beaten by a lot of players but mostly to prove to myself that I can play this game. I can’t stand sitting here writing about golf and feel that I couldn’t do better than I did today. It’s such a nice game and I want to enjoy it, every time I play. Every! How nice would that be!?

Marco van Basten was awesome to play with. We didn’t play as well as we wanted as a team but we had fun and I learnt a lot of things from him after bothering him with hundreds of questions about everything. I love hearing from superstars how they thought and trained during their prime times. It gives me so much motivation and also great advice to use. Marco taught me to be more selfish out there and not care as much about what happens around me. He said; ”if you can get it accomplished by being friendly that’s great, but if that doesn’t work, get it accomplished some other way”. Keep in mind, Marco is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. 

Here are some pics from this week…These pics reminds me that this was a great week, even after not playing as well as I wanted. 

St:Andrews 12th

Chipping contest with Magnus

Our house entrance

Ondulated ground at St:Andrews

Warm up at Kingsbarns

Photo shoot in the gym for my caddie Colin Byrne’s new book 

Such a nice view from inside the house

These are my new buddies in Leven, the Dowies brothers! They look pretty strong and are the nicest guys. I need to beef up until next year when I see them again hopefully for The Open.

Now it’s time to relax and prepare for next week…Awesome with some more golf in good weather this time:)

Later!

Play was cancelled today due to high winds. The balls weren’t still on the green, not even on the greens. Maybe not even in the bunkers when all the sand blow out of them. Never seen the wind that strong! I fell over a few times on the range when the wind was in my back. A lot of people says that hitting balls in strong left to right wind is very bad for your swing and makes more harm than good. I would say the opposite. It makes you have good balance, work out a good strong draw and it’s good to test your fade as well. If your fade is too week, it will just slide off the earth but a good fade just goes a little with the wind. After hitting two buckets of balls practicing different shots, me and Magnus A Carlsson had a shortgame contest on the practice green and he beat me. Still pissed off about that but it was great fun in the strong wind. The wind just grabs the ball and it can be really tough to get it close even from an easy lie. Here are some photos from today.

Pierre carrying his tools.

After a few ping pong games, we hit the Dowies Gym and Fitness. The coolest gym in Leven. My caddie Colin and a photographer friend of him came with us to get some material for Colin’s new book he will release this winter. He wanted to get an insight of what we do in the gym and compare how golfers train today to how they trained 20 years ago when he started caddying. The Dowie brothers showed up and they are the nicest guys! Their gym is fully equipped and we all go there to work out while we are here and will be back again for the 2010 Open Championship at St:Andrews.

Hit some balls on the beach outside the house…I couldn’t even look up as either the sand or the water from the ocean hit my eyes. I love watching the sea. It makes me relax. The wind is still picking up in strength late in the afternoon.

PS. An incredible thing just happened, Johan Edfors beat Alvaro Quiros left-handed in ping-pong. 

Later!

Carnoustie showed a nicer side today with no wind and no rain. The weather forecast couldn’t have been more wrong as they forecasted heavy rain all day. I started a bit slow with no real chances for birdies. I was pleased with even par for the first nine holes. I wasn’t hitting the ball good and Marco van Basten looked over at me and told me to have confidence in my game. Confidence is the most important thing, he added. As he is my idol, I listened to him and tried to just swing with confidence. Went on a run from then on with four birdies in a row and Marco was happy with me as a teammate again:) Finished with pars in for a 4 under 68 which I’m very happy with. Improved my putting from yesterday by 10 putts. 

Marco van Basten is the most humble superstar I’ve ever met. Haven’t met many superstars but seen them on tv. He is a little shy and makes everyone around him feel great. I asked him how he felt after making all those incredible goals in his career and he just said that those things just happen! It’s kind of like when somebody makes a hole-in-one. It just happens, he added. It’s seems like he doesn’t put himself up on a pedestal and I like that. 

Confidence is something he said he got later in his career. He started playing with older boys and had to outsmart them on the pitch when he wasn’t as big as they were. I’ve always struggled with my confidence on the course. Always believed in myself and dreamt big but I’ve had many doubts and I still do. For example today, I was really unsure of myself on the course and only after making those birdies, I could play freely without much doubt. Marco said that always believe in yourself, no matter how bad you are performing. Easier said than done, but you can learn to do it I guess. 

Tomorrow’s forecast is high winds gusting up to 60 mph. If that’s true, we can’t play golf. Hope it’s not that windy. I like wind, but not when the balls roll of the greens. We are playing at St:Andrews tomorrow and we’ll see how that goes. 

Sleep well and see you later!

Started with left over steak from yesterday…first time I’ve had steak for breakfast. It was nice. I’ve been trying this non carb diet to get enough protein in me, so this breakfast felt perfect! Then off to Kingsbarns to play the first round of Dunhill Links Championship. Started good but didn’t get anything going and finished with an even par round. Happy with a few things and dissapointed with a few. Need to hit the iron shots closer to have better looks for birdies. 

Feels so different playing these hard links courses after practicing on a fairly soft course in France the last two weeks. I have to adapt to hitting low shots when needed and curve the ball to master the wind. Last two weeks was more target golf and and the ball stopped directly on the green, which it doesn’t do here. 

Playing with Marco van Basten today was great! He is such a nice and humble guy! He almost made a hole-in-one on a par 4 today. He hit it to 1 foot on the 6th and made an easy eagle. That helped our team score and I think we are middle of the pack in the rankings. Got him to sign some stuff after the round and my caddie thought I was really embarrasing for asking him. He was the best football player in the world, you gotta ask him for an autograph!