Pro-Am today was slow as always…sounds like I don’t like them but I actually like playing them since you get a good look at the course and it’s fun when your partners are cool. Since I didn’t have a fair chance to play the course yesterday it was nice to see it today. They have had some trouble with the weather here in Madrid so it doesn’t look as nice as it can but the greens are in good shape. Our Pro-Am team happened to win today and it was meant for me to stick around for a late dinner and price giving tonight but just I got out of it! Hate late dinners. Rather be on the internet and chilling in the room.

My game was a little bit better today. Got some work done after the round. Hate not hitting it as well as I like. Such a bad feeling. But, on the other hand. If I’m improving from year to year I’m on the right track. It felt so good in Switzerland hitting wise and now it’s not quite the same. But the worst thing is to try to find an old feeling. I need to improve and move forward. If I want to win again, I need to get better than I was in Switzerland. Jeez, I want to win again. It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had. Just got some new motivation. Need to watch some good swings of Ben Hogan on the internet and some motivation videos of Alexander Karelin…

Improvement in hotel room from Switzerland at least:)

Got a nice swing video in a comment on the blog…was great to see the motivation of a young player who wants to get better. If you guys have any videos of your swing, it would be fun to watch and maybe I can help a little. 

Later!

Had a rough last 24 hours with no luck. First, a lot of waiting for the flights to Madrid. Then, the last flight got delayed an an hour and a half, which made us land after midnight. Then, I was the only player on the flight who didn’t get the golf bag. No big deal I thought, wrong!!! The cue for the lost baggage desk was super long and I was off course last in line. Then, finally in the car on the way to the hotel, the driver had no idea where the hotel was and had to cruise around the hole city to find it. Not what you want to happen 2 a’clock in the morning. But after a sweet night snack, it was all good…I love this job but the travel can sometime gets really boring and draining.

No clubs on the course but after borrowing some I could finally practice. Needed to get rid of my nast hook from last week. I tried to hit fades from a shut club face to sort it out and it became better and better. No hook anymore and strong flights. I hate seeing the ball fall of the earth left. Rather see it slide a little to the right, but with a strong trajectory. 

Then we hit the gym and it’s weird how they charge so differently everywhere you go. In Monaco I paid 24 Euros for a session. Last week in Scotland they charged 3,50 Euros and here in Madrid it’s back to being superexpensive again with 25 Euros. Crazy prices, but when traveling, that’s how it is sometimes.

Worked some with my putting coach Stan Utley who is over from Phoenix to work with some players and also to play in the tournament. He has won on the PGA Tour a while back and now wiping off the dust from the clubs again. I hope he plays well, he is such a nice guy and a great coach. 

Got a question from a guy in Australia who wondered about college in America. I went to Oklahoma State University and really liked the whole experience. A lot of my friends liked the college system as well but some didn’t. It’s all about the place you go to. If it fits in with what you want to do. An important factor is how much time you want to put into studying, golfing, working out and into other training. There are all kinds of colleges and coaches and there is a college for everyone. You just have to find the right one. I can guide you a little bit if you have questions. Otherwise, there are people who work with finding out the right college for you. 

Now, it’s relax time and I love the fast internet in the room! It’s almost more important than the speed of the greens on the course…almost:)

Later!

Just uploaded a video from last weeks tournament!

Later!

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!

 

As my caddie was walking around Carnoustie, I did a photo shoot for Golf World Magazine at St:Andrews. Took some swing pics and was trying to tell them what I try to do in my swing. There are a lot of things and it will take a while I tried to explain:) The photographer was really good at getting the pics he wanted and we were done in just 15 min. Normally this stuff takes forever!

Best photographer ever!

Tee shot at the 14th 

Ruud Gullit joined after a few holes and he was a very interesting guy. It was weird playing with him after watching him on TV so many times!

Colin on the back nine heading towards the town…

The ”Hell bunker” is not very friendly…

”Hell bunker”

The beach outside the house. When the sun is shining in Scotland it’s one of the best countries in the world!

Really tired again after yesterdays work out. Hope the soreness will be gone by tomorrow morning…we’ll see:) 

I’m gonna team up with Marco van Basten this tournament! It’s like a dream come trough for me. I loved watching him when I was little! Me and my friends had a AC Milan club and he was the man!!! He was voted the best player in the World by FIFA in 1992. I’m a little nervous to play with him and I will embarass myself on the first tee asking for an autograph! But I don’t care:)

Pierre is about to give me a massage, sometimes he is a great guy!!!

Later!

Totally dead when I woke up this morning! Pierre absolutely killed me yesterday during our work out. We have a plan we follow for each tournament. We go really hard on monday and tuesday, easy on wednesday and thursday. Hard on friday and easy on saturday. Relax sunday. This make me feel really sore on wednesday and a little sore on thursday morning but it doesn’t affect my game negatively. Then I feel great friday and pumped up for the weekend after the harder work out friday night. 

Found a great gym today! Two brothers own the ”Dowies Gym and Fitness” in Leven, Scotland and they both look like they have lifted a kilo or two in their lives. 

Some pics from today when we played Kingsbarns GC…

Kingsbarns 3rd hole

Colin Byrne looking strong…

Looks old but the club house at Kingsbarns GC is fairly new

Nice to chill here after a tough day on the links

So glad I’m inside!

Good view by the entrance to our house this week

Chef Kenneth on a roll in the kitchen!

Tomorrow we are playing the Old Course at St:Andrews in the afternoon. I want to play really late so we can see the sun lowering and the shadows getting longer. The light is so nice in the evening at St:Andrews. Got a ”swing photo shoot” with the magazine Golf World in the morning so I have to swing my best!:)

Sleep well!!!

After a not so great morning with a little destroyed rental car and sweaty and stressed on the airplane, I landed in Edinburgh. I felt great after sleeping on both flights. The only question now was if we should have better insurance on our rental in Scotland than I had in Monaco. We got better insurance, a GPS, a bigger car and two drivers on the record. Pierre, my physio, drove the first bit on the tiny roads here in Scotland. He was brilliant in the left lane and I wasn’t even nervous. 

Finally at Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St:Andrews, the home of golf! Felt great to drive past the old club house and see that wide fairway combining the 1st and the 18th hole. The weather was how it should be, cloudy and a few drops falling from the sky. After a few hours finding out exactly what equipment I should go with our mission was accomplished on the course today. My coach Pete Cowen showed up and surprised me with a framed picture of Ben Hogan, my idol, as a gift for my win first win a few weeks ago. Pete signed the back of it and I know exactly where it’s gonna hang:) 

A few pics from today…

Dark town but it’s still Mecca for golf.

Pierre is always happy…He loves coming out to tournaments and work us hard in the gym!

Working hard in the Callaway truck!

In Swedish colours as well!

We will have some serious games here. 

Our manager kept her promise! The weights were here when we arrived! 

Now comes the sweetest time of the week…watching the new episode of Entourage! Love mondays!

See you tomorrow