Jonas Blixt Q&A

Interview originally appeared in the Gamola Golf blog and has bee re-published with permission

Swedish golfing star, Jonas Blixt visited one the UK's most popular golf retailers, Gamola Golf ahead of both the Scottish Open and The Open Championship at Hoylake. Here is a Q&A he did in store.

Question: Tell us a bit about what you do for a job.

Jonas: The boring part about my job is that’s it’s kind of the same thing week after week (heckles from the crowd!), but then I wouldn’t change what i do for a living for anything. I get to travel the world and play different courses all year long. You have good days and bad days but thats golf. The hardest part is the travel going between tournaments

Q: Tell us a bit about the next two weeks. Is the Scottish open in prep for the Open next week?

Jonas: Its always fun to come back here and I’ve played a lot of links golf in the past. The Scottish Open was my first pro event; it was at Loch Lomond then and we came here with some mates.

I played Royal Aberdeen in 2004 in the Scottish Amateur. It’s a cool golf course and I wish I could play this sort of golf all the time.

Next week is obviously the Open, so thats a big one. I’m looking forward to playing there.

Q: You’ve obviously been out to the course today (Royal Aberdeen) practising. How did you find it?

Jonas: Its pretty dry out there, but the rough isn’t too bad. At least you can find the ball! It was a little windy out there.

Q: You had a good result in the Masters this year, finishing 2nd. Tell us a little bit about the experience.

Jonas: It was everything i thought it would be. The masters is pretty cool! There are lot of special people playing there. I played a couple of weeks before the tournament and there were a couple of american superstar footballers there. It’s like walking on egg shells all the time.

The course is amazing. Everything is perfect and stunning. They sure spend a lot of money there.

Q: How does your bag set up change between regular tournaments and the masters and other majors?

Jonas: It doesn’t change much. I usually carry a 2-iron for the majors, because it is harder to hit the fairways so I want a club that will go out about 230 yards.

Q: You went through the American college system. Did you find that beneficial?

Jonas: Yeah, huge. I don’t know what the weather is like in Aberdeen, but back home in Sweden, i can only play golf 6 months of the year. Going to the US was great, as I could play all year round and everything is set up for the elite sportsman, from sponsors, coaches and driving ranges to allow you to get better. It made a huge difference.

I played hockey at home until I was 18 and figured that I was too small to play hockey for a living.

Q: I know you do a lot of work on your fitness in golf. How important it is to your game.

Jonas: I wish I did a lot more. When you go into the gym to do the exercises you get a lot of weird looks, as i try to separate the body parts as much as possible to get more flexible and longer. Being fit is important so that you don’t start to tire by the end of the round. Having a caddy helps with that!

If you don’t do anything in the gym you will have a lot of back pains and injuries. You can see a lot of the larger guys getting treatment at the ends of the rounds.

I always get up 3 hours before a round of golf and then get to the course and do some stretches, eat and then put in some practise.

Q: Do you always eat healthy?

Jonas: I try, but it’s difficult when you are always on the road. When you eat out in restaurants all the time, I do try to eat healthy, but when you are always eating with your caddy who likes burgers and chips all the time, it’s not easy!

Q: How do you cope being away from home?

Jonas: I try not to think about it. It is the thing that really sucks. Being away from home and those I love is hard. But I do get to do what ever I want all the time. When my mum is watching my golf, she is always looking out for me and telling me to put my shirt on when she thinks its too cold. You would think I was too old for that!

Owen from Golfshake.com asked via email: How do you use stats in your game?

Jonas: Some stats are important to keep track of in order to find out my strengths and weaknesses within the game, and to find the areas where I need to put a bit more work and time into to improve on. You can’t get to hung up on the stats when in a tournament though. It’s the score that counts then.

You can see the full transcript and pictures from the event on the Gamola Golf  - Click Here