Thanks a lot for all the input about my coming website and Alex Noren Junior Open. Love the idea of that the winner gets to come out on tour with me! I would have loved that when I was younger!!! The best thing in the world to me is to hit a good golf shot, the second thing is to help somebody else hit a good golf shot! They are such nice feelings. I don’t know if I’m the best coach but at least I know some stuff. 

I didn’t hit it great today so I was on the range a long time working on my ”take-away”  to get the right path in the backswing. It got a lot better and I have all day tomorrow to get it better as well. I usually get it a bit shut at the top of the backswing and not enough loft on the club which casues me to either hook the ball or the ball slides of the clubface and goes out right. I don’t like either of those shots:) 

Last week was such a long week with all the weather delays and the hot temperature. My game wasn’t great so I had to battle constantly and I was very pleased with finishing 3 under par. My college coach once told me to NEVER EVER GIVE UP, no matter what happens. I have always thought of him when it goes against me and I don’t feel great on the course and he has helped me a lot by having said that to me. And, then when it feels good, you will be better off. Have you guys ever seen Tiger give up? I don’t think so. That’s why he is such an amazing player! He gives his all in every tournament, and for some reason he doesn’t win one week, at least he has tried his best.  

Please continue to give some advice and suggestions on how to make my website good and also my tournament. You guys help out a lot and it would be a lot of fun to give the juniors a great week this summer! 

Trying to upload pictures from today but it seems to not work at the minute…Get back with those soon!

Bye the way! The trick shot videos I got from you are all great! Some serious shots you guys can play and some cool ball bouncing! The winner will get my 60 degree wedge and 2nd and 3rd place will also get some good stuff sent to you! You guys have until the 5th of November to send the videos into the comment boxes underneath each blog. The comment box says ”Kommentarer” which is comments in Swedish:) You can post the videos underneath any blog post. I’ll send the prizes as soon as I get to Sweden after Dubai. I have two prizes in mind for 2nd and 3rd place but maybe you guys have any suggestions of what you would like…???

Talk later:)

 

Just trying to get some work this morning before heading out to practice. Have a few questions maybe you can help me with.

I’m trying to get my new website working but I want to get it right before putting it up. I have a few things I want to include, for example this blog, photos, videos, a guest book, training and playing tips, and maybe some other things as well. Do you have any suggestions what could be good to have on it? My brother is helping me out with the structure of it and he thought it would be good to have a spot where whoever wants to can send videos of their swings just like some of you do to this blog. And then add a comment box underneath where people can comment and teachers or myself or others can give advice how do improve the swings. I would like it myself to have that on there. Maybe it would be good to have a little extra blog for my trainers and coaches where they can post some stuff on how we practice and what their views are on things. Maybe get some other players to wirte some stuff about how life on tour is. What do you think? I think it would be great to make it a little more interesting for you than just things about me. 

Alex Noren Junior Open is coming up in the summer and I know I’ve asked before but do you have any suggestions about how to make that tournament as good as possible for the juniors? We are trying to make it a fun and interesting week for them and prepare Haninge Golf Club as well as possible. But there as so many different things you can do around the tournament. First, we need to move the date to make sure I can be there. Right now, it’s the same week as The Open and there are chances for me to qualify for that and I would love to be able to attend both tournaments. We are working on that and see how it will go. But any suggestions are very welcomed regarding anything about the tournament!

It was a little bit of a shock coming over here to Shanghai with a temperature of 12 degrees celsius yesterday compared to the 37 degrees in Singapore the day before. I was looking forward to a little cooler weather but not that cold! It looks like it will get warmer during the tournament so it’ll be nice. Feel really excited for this week!

Time to get up and get some breakfast!

See you later!!! 

Just got to Shanghai and I’m reflecting over last week’s tournament. I’m gonna show you the difference in the clubs I used in the last round of Singapore and the clubs I used in the last round of Portugal two weeks before. Portugal played very short and Singapore played very long.

Portugal

1. par 4 driver, wedge 

2. par 4 hybrid, 52 degree wedge 

3. par 5 driver, hybrid to green 

4. par 4 driver, lob wedge 

5. par 5 driver, threewood to green 

6. par 3 5 iron 

7. par 4 driver, 9 iron 

8. par 3 8 iron 

9. par 4 driver, 9 iron 

10. par  4 driver, lob wedge 

11. par 4 driver, lob wedge 

12. par 5 driver, 5 iron to green 

13. par  3 7 iron 

14. par 4 driver, lob wedge 

15. par 4 driver, lob wedge 

16. par 3 5 iron 

17. par 5 driver, 4 iron to green 

18. par 4 driver, 9 iron 

———————————————————————————

par: 72, my score: 62

Singapore

1. par 4 threewood, 8 iron 

2. par 3 9 iron 

3. par 4 hybrid, 4 iron 

4. par 5 hybrid, hybrid to green 

5. par  4 driver, 8 iron 

6. par 4 threewood, 8 iron 

7. par 5 driver, 4 iron to green trap 

8. par  3 5 iron 

9. par  4 threewood, 5 iron 

10. par 4 hybrid, 9 iron 

11. par 4 hybrid, 8 iron 

12. par 4 threewood, hybrid 

13. par 4 hybrid, 4 iron 

14. par 3 5 iron 

15. par 4 hybrid, 6 iron 

16. par 4 hybrid, 6 iron 

17. par 3 7 iron 

18. par 5 driver, driver to green 

——————————————————————————–

par: 71, my score: 70

The course at Singapore made you play very defensive off the tee and then forced you to hit long irons into the greens. As you can see, I didn’t hit a wedge all day. We are not used to this kind of courses in Europe. We play more open courses where you can bomb driver and then hit a wedge into the green, just like we did in Portugal. I learnt so much more in Singapore than I did in Portugal. I wish we could play more courses like the one in Singapore. Maybe even longer when you can hit more drivers of the tees. It will make me more prepaired for majors. I really would like to play well in majors so I have to come up with good ways of training and it would also help out a lot if we play more tough courses like the one in Singapore. 

After the round yesterday, I had a lot of time to kill before catching my flight to Shanghai so we played some more golf;)

And then this…

…I told you earlier that Singapore was a little different…

And now it’s HSBC which is gonna be awesome! it’s such a good field and I’ve only heard good things about the course. Tiger and Mickelson are both playing. I watched Mickelson last week on the range and I think he is such a cool player to watch. He looks so gifted and talanted. Off course he has trained more than almost everybody else but he just looks like he is borned with that club in his hands. I love watching Tiger too! He has that look in his eyes that says I’m here to win and nothing else. It’s incredible to see him live. 

I’m gonna keep on working on my game this week. Going for a workout and some range training today and try to get some sleep before the real practice begins tomorrow. Hope all is good with you and see you tomorrow. 

Bye 

 

– Play has been suspended three times already due to thunder and lightning. Looks like a monday finish.

– When most of us players go to the pool in shorts and t-shirt, Jiménez has his straw hat, a Cohiba (same brand as his cigars) shirt, a cigar in his mouth, a fitting beach bag and short flower pattern shorts. He takes every ocassion seriously and dresses the part. He is a living legend.

– The course is playing quite tough. A lot of long irons into the greens as expexted. Daniel Chopra is leading after two days at 7 under par. Nicely done!

– I’ve never had this much ice-cream in two days. Should be a crime to put ice-cream on a buffé table. It feels like you have to take some to get enough value for your money.

– This is a bad place if you want to get a tan. There is about 1 hour of sun every morning before the big dark clouds come in. 

– I’m playing with Shigeki Maruyama and he is playing with yellow golf balls. ”Im playing a weird ball”, he said when showing the ball to us on the first tee. It feels a little bit like playing with my mom:)

See you!

Tournament BBQ yesterday at the hotel…love free food!

Impressive dress with a built-in table:)

Barclays Singapore Open in ice. Melted so quickly.

Somebody said this was Singapore’s best band. Hope that somebody was seriously wrong!:)

Shot 70 (+1) today and was really pleased with that. It’s not an easy course and I didn’t hit many fariways. Started off playing good but the long game got worse throughout the round. The short game saved my score though and I was pleased to finsih under par. Had some work to do on the range after. There are a lot of things I want to change in my swing and I will take care of them over the winter break with my coach but I still need to work on a few of them now. Don’t know if that’s the best thing to do but it feels like it at the moment so I’m gonna go with that feeling.

There are mainly two things I want to fix in my swing. The first is to get over more on my right side at the top of the backswing. The second is to not drop the club inside on the downswing. It sounds easy to do, but I have tried for a few years now and it’s getting better but it takes some time, that’s for sure. We’ll see how many years I got left until it’s good:) But, I love having stuff to work on. 

A funny thing in Asia is that the more it rains, the more players are practicing. It’s too hot if the sun is out. It was pooring here, but it felt so good so I kept going.

Aussie Rick Kulacz on the bus with his mini-club! 

Play was suspended due to this heavy rain. It kept going for a while and flooded some of the greens but I was at the hotel so I didn’t mind;) Nothing is better than swimming in the rain!

Tropical.

Some more technique grinding in the room now. Only a few more years…;) Come on!!!

See you later!

Yesterday’s photos. 

Such a nice bunker and then you see one of the ugliest things there is…

This is right besides the 6th hole. Kinda cool to see how it works. Since there are hundreds of ships waiting to get into port, I can now understand that it takes ages for shipments to arrive.

Green one side of the plastic lining and fringe on the other. I think this is to keep different grasses away from each other. 

It looks like they spend more time trimming the walkways to the fairways here then other courses spend cutting their greens.

The 18th hole. Looks good I think and it’s a great finishing hole. Just reachable.

11th hole. This is one of the few holes not close to the water but I think it’s the most beautiful hole on the course. Kinda looks like Augusta with the flowers. 

The fans are great. Too bad they took them away for the tournament.

The rollercoaster just besides the 13th hole. Weird:)

All the ships waiting to get into port.

 

Was going to upload a bunch of pictures from today. Had a lot of time to photograph during the pro-am and I found so many weird things about this course and it’s surroundings. It’s one of the best courses, specially condition wise, we play all year but there are so many weird things about it. But, I can’t upload the pics due to some computer failure. I try again tomorrow. 

One very very weird thing about this course is that it’s long, it can play very long if the pins are placed at the back of the long greens, but you can only hit driver twice. The fairways cut in or there are bunkers placed at around 230-240 meters from every tee box. It’s really weird, never seen this before. Since you can’t hit it far from the tee, you have a lot of long irons left into the greens. A usual hole is hybrid of the tee and then a 5 iron to the green. Normally on tour, we hit mostly drives off the tees and have wedges or short irons left. The last few courses we have played have all been short with low scoring and now this course plays long and scores are usually high. The winning score here last time was around par I heard. So, I don’t know what to expect tomorrow. I’m a little nervous I have to say. We’ll see how it goes. I can only do my best, if that’s not enough, I have to train and try again huh!?

Hope all is good with you!!!

Bye

Woke up at 2.30 am today as jet lag was kicking in. Couldn’t go back to sleep so it was perfect to catch the 5.30 am bus to the course. We wanted to get the practice round done early when there are not many players on the course. I like taking a lot of time around the greens during a practice round to get as accustomed with them as possible. 

Just me and the water supplier guy were on the bus:)

The whole locker room to myself.

The range is one of the best I’ve been on. The turf is short and pure and the tee box is perfectly flat. 

Here you can see the clouds building up early. After 15 holes, practice was suspended due to thunder and lightning. 

3rd hole going down towards the river. At this time it was around 25 degrees. From then on, it got very hot.

It’s the most unusual setting for a golf course, I like it though!

I don’t think I have ever seen a golf course in such great condition. Every blade of grass is perfectly manicured. The course plays fairly long since the fairways are narrow and the ruff cuts in on a lot of holes around driver distance, so you have to be a little defensive off the tee. 

The 4th hole is a nice par 5 going over water on both 1st and 2nd shot.

I got a lot of work done early and could head back to the hotel for a gym session and some relax time. It’s so hot here so my plan is to practice less but with good quality and then try to get a lot of rest at the hotel so I can stay fresh throughout the whole week. We’ll see how it goes. I can’t wait for the tournament to start on thursday!

Coffe time now to get some energy for the gym…Then it’s nap time:)

See you!

 

 

I’ve always wondered where the best place for golf is. I was jealous of the American guys in college who could play all year round. But, is it only positive to have that opportunity? In Sweden we can’t do that. We used to go all out during the summers and play as much as we could and then do other sports in the winter. We also practiced golf inside in big tents to keep the swings in shape. The courses wouldn’t be playable until the beginning of May. 

Still, we have a lot of good golfers in Sweden. But, there are a lot of good golfers everwhere in the world. I think the quality of courses play a big role. We don’t have any male Swedish major winners and I think the main reason for that is beacuse we are not used to palying on ”major tough courses”. We now have one or maybe two courses that could be tough enough to practice at to understand how tough a major set-up course is. But then, they have to prepare the course for a couple of months before to make it a good test. Bro Hof is a great course and you can make it as tough as any other course there is but that’s probably the only course in Sweden which is tough enough. Australia and America have courses that are brutally difficult any day of the year. They are in great shape all year as well. We need to shapen up Swedish courses to develop Swedish major winners I think, because we have enough players that can play and compete for the majors, that’s for sure. We just havent reach to the top yet. During my four years in college, I played at least 10 courses that had or will host major championships and they were great tests and made me understand what I needed to work on in my game to have a chance to play them. I was so surprised of how hard they were. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. 

Here in Asia, I don’t understand how they practice as much as they do. It’s so hot! I practiced for a few hours today and then I couldn’t stand it. I guess you get used to it but it’s impressive if you can put in a whole day of practice here in this heat. 

I’ll try to spend more time in the gym this week and less on the driving range to spare some energy for the tournament. The course looks in great shape and it looks like a great test as well. Trying to get out on the course at dawn tomorrow for a practice round by myself before most players get there and before the heat is unbarable. 

Sentosa Golf Club

 

 

Last day to enter the ”lob wedge competition” described in the previous blog post is the 5th of November. There will be prices for 2nd and 3rd place finishes as well. 

Alex