Soderling's Post

[jimlosaltos]

In case you are interested, here is Robin Soderling's post. He's healthy now, it was tough.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCWV9XBD...0-46C420946783

Update: Tried again and today the forum software is being more cooperative, so here's Robin's post. filedata/fetch?id=89568&d=1594399638&type=thumb

[jimlosaltos]

Also, in the interests of equal time, I might point out that Soderling owns one of only two forehands to have beaten Rafa at Roland Garros, and it definitely is NOT a Type III <g>. It's the take way back and crank it, type.

filedata/fetch?id=89565&d=1594399458&type=thumb

[don_budge]

"Golf is not a Game of Perfect"...Dr. Bob Rotella

Robin should have taken me up on my offer to help him. When I first started writing on this forum one of my first posts was a letter that I had written to his father regarding his service motion. I had been down to the clay court tournament in Bästad and watched Robin lose in the finals by double faulting on match point. A cardinal sin...but sure it can happen. What a deflating experience that had to have been though. I certainly empathise with his statement and it is getting some traction here in Sweden. Two people have brought it up to me...the head of infectious diseases here at the local hospital who is my golfing partner and his son who happens to be a very good friend of mine and is the golf professional at one of the local courses here in Sweden.

For the last couple of years I have put on a full onslaught program trying to recapture my golf game. At sixty-six years old I can only say that the effort I am putting into it is extra extraordinary. Physical conditioning during the off season and during the season as well although somewhat tailored back due to finite energy. Practicing on all facets of the game trying to find the perfection that I know is inside of me...somewhere. It is elusive though and now I am the point that I remember many years ago when I took up the game where breaking 80 is the line of demarcation. Shooting 80 like I did yesterday is like kissing your sister if you know what I mean. Just an expression as I do have three sisters. But breaking eighty on any given day is where I want to be and anything over is somewhat disappointing. My handicap is down to 4.5 at this point and my performance is narrowing in its inconsistency but I have a long, long ways to go. The thing is at my age I know I don't have all of the time in the world so I keep the pressure on. If I fail...I just go back and go to work. Harder. Always pressing harder.

So if a golf discussion is annoying to you on a tennis forum I can understand. At one point in life I told my self that I would never be caught dead playing golf but I sort of hedged on that and said I would never play until I was an old man. So guess what...at forty years old I took my first lesson and went to work everyday trying to reach perfection. The problem is...golf is not a game of perfect. The perfect title for a book on golf however and aptly written by one Dr. Bob Rotella. I just completed reading this book as an exercise in my mental approach to the game as the effort and my inability to reach the level of perfection that I want to be at has been mentally challenging...as Robin expresses in his famous statement now.

It was one week ago Friday that I was playing a round with three fellow Swedes on my home club that I had somewhat of a "freak out" as one of my playing partners said. I had par on the first two holes and had driven perfectly into the fairway on the third. The third had been a hell hole for me and has had some sort of spell on me. While driving nicely into the fairway I have found the front bunker on several occasions and this bunker is particularly devilish. The front of is is made of wooden slats where one might expect to find grass or at least layers of sod. Some idiot thought it would be clever to design something so dangerous that if you failed to hit a good bunker shot it will come right back at you. Needless to say the sand game is the absolute chink in my armour as I make my comeback in the golfing world. I failed to get the ball out on three tries and finished with a quadruple bogey for an eight. Mentally my mind was not able to process this level of failure and emotionally I lost contact with reality for the immediate time after finishing the hole. I walked off the hole with my bag in the direction of the parking lot without saying a word and went behind a building trying to somehow process what had just happened. By the time the guys were on the next tee I joined them somewhat shakily and managed to make a par on a par three. The next two holes are rather difficult but I managed to par them as well. I finished the front nine with a 43 and that was with four of the shots over par being from hole number three. What happened on the back nine was equally perplexing though in quite the opposite direction...I managed to shoot one under par 35 for a round of 78 which is quite in my comfort zone.

I told both Lars and his son Andreas about my nightmare hole and also mentioned that I had been studying the book "Golf is not a Game of Perfect". Trying to find the way forwards. Lars, the doctor, generously offered to work with me in the bunker and we did so one night after playing this week. He got me started with some fundamentals. Hitting out of sand is not so difficult but you absolutely must understand the technique and physics of hitting out of the sand. You don't actually make contact with the ball as much as you hit the sand. Andreas is just superb out of the sand and he gave me a tutorial this morning and I watched him demonstrate just beautiful high balls landing on the green like a butterfly with sore feet. Andreas engaged me on some of the finer points in more detail and now I resist the urge to go back to the club to practice out all of the 60 some bunkers on the course. I'm somewhat driven...just like Robing Söderling.

This kind of approach to golf or tennis is not for the feint of heart. You have to have the stomach for it first of all. Perfection is an elusive state for flawed creatures such as ourselves. Both Andreas and Lars brought up the Robin Söderling statement in our discussion to the mental approach to the game. I am surely trying to find a healthy way of approaching this quest in both the physical, mental and emotional realms in my goldmine...my noodle. Andreas brought up something that Roger Federer supposedly said that he didn't expect to play perfect and he never does. Like the book..."Golf is not a Game of Perfect" Roger realizes that it is the rare day when he feels perfect and then it is about finding a way to win being less than perfect. I believe in this with all of my heart and remember one of the thresholds that I reached in my competitive days of playing tennis was that when I wasn't at my best...and I could be far away from my best you find a way to win.

There has to be a healthy way to approach games like tennis and golf. So much of the game is mental and as Robin found out it can be a dangerous way to live. There is nobody to fall back on other than yourself. No wonder that I have chosen Roger Federer as the "Living Proof" of my tennis teaching paradigm. Tennis and golf share some really interesting aspects of the games with each other. So much so that I say that tennis is golf on the run. Both games test you on levels that you would never have been aware of if you hadn't learned to play the game and play it in the pursuit of perfection. Normal people do not have the stomach for it. It's a lonely road. Not for the feint of heart as Robin Söderling found out.

Dr. Bob Rotella would be the antithesis of Dr. Brian Gordon. Two sides of the same coin. I recommend the book to non golfers and anyone in a quest of perfection. It is always about performance and what you can learn from it. Thanks for posting this thread jimlosaltos. It struck me close to home here in Sweden. I actually live about 15 miles from Robin Söderlings home in Tibro as the crow flies. He is an interesting character...to say the least. The CRANK forehand...a good way of putting it.

[stotty]

Also, in the interests of equal time, I might point out that Soderling owns one of only two forehands to have beaten Rafa at Roland Garros, and it definitely is NOT a Type III <g>. It's the take way back and crank it, type.

filedata/fetch?id=89565&d=1594399458&type=thumb

Robin's remarkable win over Rafa will go down in tennis folklore. His forehand was monstrous that day. Robin could crank up and hit a shoulder-high forehand like no-one else. Rafa's own forehand in their RG showdown fell short time and time again and plopped up right into Robin' wheelhouse. The rest, as they say, is history.

It was a shame to lose Robin because he was dangerous and feared no one.

I get tired of hearing about half the planet's mental health issues. Not Robin's of course which were 100% genuine and understandable. Some of the things I have been through in my life have been pretty grim at times, but I have always just picked myself, dusted myself down and carried on. It's just life...not a mental health issue.

[jimlosaltos]

Robin's remarkable win over Rafa will go down in tennis folklore. His forehand was monstrous that day. Robin could crank up and hit a shoulder-high forehand like no-one else. Rafa's own forehand in their RG showdown fell short time and time again and plopped up right into Robin' wheelhouse. The rest, as they say, is history.

It was a shame to lose Robin because he was dangerous and feared no one.

I get tired of hearing about half the planet's mental health issues. Not Robin's of course which were 100% genuine and understandable. Some of the things I have been through in my life have been pretty grim at times, but I have always just picked myself, dusted myself down and carried on. It's just life...not a mental health issue.

Remember when that same forehand beat Fed in a downpour at Roland Garros? They were playing in mud not on clay, and Robin had enough power to hit through the muck.

[stotty]

Remember when that same forehand beat Fed in a downpour at Roland Garros? They were playing in mud not on clay, and Robin had enough power to hit through the muck.

I do remember that match too. Robin had a 'particular' forehand...great a doing a particular kind of job. And like I said before, he was dangerous and feared no one. Tragic to lose a player like that in an era where most are subordinates.

[doctorhl]

"Golf is not a Game of Perfect"...Dr. Bob Rotella

Robin should have taken me up on my offer to help him. When I first started writing on this forum one of my first posts was a letter that I had written to his father regarding his service motion. I had been down to the clay court tournament in Bästad and watched Robin lose in the finals by double faulting on match point. A cardinal sin...but sure it can happen. What a deflating experience that had to have been though. I certainly empathise with his statement and it is getting some traction here in Sweden. Two people have brought it up to me...the head of infectious diseases here at the local hospital who is my golfing partner and his son who happens to be a very good friend of mine and is the golf professional at one of the local courses here in Sweden.

For the last couple of years I have put on a full onslaught program trying to recapture my golf game. At sixty-six years old I can only say that the effort I am putting into it is extra extraordinary. Physical conditioning during the off season and during the season as well although somewhat tailored back due to finite energy. Practicing on all facets of the game trying to find the perfection that I know is inside of me...somewhere. It is elusive though and now I am the point that I remember many years ago when I took up the game where breaking 80 is the line of demarcation. Shooting 80 like I did yesterday is like kissing your sister if you know what I mean. Just an expression as I do have three sisters. But breaking eighty on any given day is where I want to be and anything over is somewhat disappointing. My handicap is down to 4.5 at this point and my performance is narrowing in its inconsistency but I have a long, long ways to go. The thing is at my age I know I don't have all of the time in the world so I keep the pressure on. If I fail...I just go back and go to work. Harder. Always pressing harder.

So if a golf discussion is annoying to you on a tennis forum I can understand. At one point in life I told my self that I would never be caught dead playing golf but I sort of hedged on that and said I would never play until I was an old man. So guess what...at forty years old I took my first lesson and went to work everyday trying to reach perfection. The problem is...golf is not a game of perfect. The perfect title for a book on golf however and aptly written by one Dr. Bob Rotella. I just completed reading this book as an exercise in my mental approach to the game as the effort and my inability to reach the level of perfection that I want to be at has been mentally challenging...as Robin expresses in his famous statement now.

It was one week ago Friday that I was playing a round with three fellow Swedes on my home club that I had somewhat of a "freak out" as one of my playing partners said. I had par on the first two holes and had driven perfectly into the fairway on the third. The third had been a hell hole for me and has had some sort of spell on me. While driving nicely into the fairway I have found the front bunker on several occasions and this bunker is particularly devilish. The front of is is made of wooden slats where one might expect to find grass or at least layers of sod. Some idiot thought it would be clever to design something so dangerous that if you failed to hit a good bunker shot it will come right back at you. Needless to say the sand game is the absolute chink in my armour as I make my comeback in the golfing world. I failed to get the ball out on three tries and finished with a quadruple bogey for an eight. Mentally my mind was not able to process this level of failure and emotionally I lost contact with reality for the immediate time after finishing the hole. I walked off the hole with my bag in the direction of the parking lot without saying a word and went behind a building trying to somehow process what had just happened. By the time the guys were on the next tee I joined them somewhat shakily and managed to make a par on a par three. The next two holes are rather difficult but I managed to par them as well. I finished the front nine with a 43 and that was with four of the shots over par being from hole number three. What happened on the back nine was equally perplexing though in quite the opposite direction...I managed to shoot one under par 35 for a round of 78 which is quite in my comfort zone.

I told both Lars and his son Andreas about my nightmare hole and also mentioned that I had been studying the book "Golf is not a Game of Perfect". Trying to find the way forwards. Lars, the doctor, generously offered to work with me in the bunker and we did so one night after playing this week. He got me started with some fundamentals. Hitting out of sand is not so difficult but you absolutely must understand the technique and physics of hitting out of the sand. You don't actually make contact with the ball as much as you hit the sand. Andreas is just superb out of the sand and he gave me a tutorial this morning and I watched him demonstrate just beautiful high balls landing on the green like a butterfly with sore feet. Andreas engaged me on some of the finer points in more detail and now I resist the urge to go back to the club to practice out all of the 60 some bunkers on the course. I'm somewhat driven...just like Robing Söderling.

This kind of approach to golf or tennis is not for the feint of heart. You have to have the stomach for it first of all. Perfection is an elusive state for flawed creatures such as ourselves. Both Andreas and Lars brought up the Robin Söderling statement in our discussion to the mental approach to the game. I am surely trying to find a healthy way of approaching this quest in both the physical, mental and emotional realms in my goldmine...my noodle. Andreas brought up something that Roger Federer supposedly said that he didn't expect to play perfect and he never does. Like the book..."Golf is not a Game of Perfect" Roger realizes that it is the rare day when he feels perfect and then it is about finding a way to win being less than perfect. I believe in this with all of my heart and remember one of the thresholds that I reached in my competitive days of playing tennis was that when I wasn't at my best...and I could be far away from my best you find a way to win.

There has to be a healthy way to approach games like tennis and golf. So much of the game is mental and as Robin found out it can be a dangerous way to live. There is nobody to fall back on other than yourself. No wonder that I have chosen Roger Federer as the "Living Proof" of my tennis teaching paradigm. Tennis and golf share some really interesting aspects of the games with each other. So much so that I say that tennis is golf on the run. Both games test you on levels that you would never have been aware of if you hadn't learned to play the game and play it in the pursuit of perfection. Normal people do not have the stomach for it. It's a lonely road. Not for the feint of heart as Robin Söderling found out.

Dr. Bob Rotella would be the antithesis of Dr. Brian Gordon. Two sides of the same coin. I recommend the book to non golfers and anyone in a quest of perfection. It is always about performance and what you can learn from it. Thanks for posting this thread jimlosaltos. It struck me close to home here in Sweden. I actually live about 15 miles from Robin Söderlings home in Tibro as the crow flies. He is an interesting character...to say the least. The CRANK forehand...a good way of putting it.

Interesting! Perfection in golf is a score of 18 or 72 straight points won in a 3 set tennis win. Golf has 18 opportunities to obsess about pausing and resetting an accumulating individual score. A 7-6, 6-7, 7-6 tennis match and 6-0, 6-0, tennis match have 39 and 12 game opportunities, respectively, to obsess about a final outcome against an opponent. Do you analyze your performance from a golf score of 18 or judge yourself off of 18 par opportunities? In tennis, losing 24 points straight only results in a score of 1-0, but you have an opponent directly influencing your performance. Technique, shot selection, conditioning, strategy, etc. are variables that are all modified in relation to the method one chooses to evaluate and, subsequently, refine their “in-the-moment” match performance. Practice is tailored to meet those methods. The great performers( and their coaches), obviously know which variables to focus on. Ironically, some of my best( and worst) golf and tennis performances were under the influence of alcohol which eliminated obsessing over choosing variables to focus on,

[don_budge]

Interesting! Perfection in golf is a score of 18 or 72 straight points won in a 3 set tennis win. Golf has 18 opportunities to obsess about pausing and resetting an accumulating individual score. A 7-6, 6-7, 7-6 tennis match and 6-0, 6-0, tennis match have 39 and 12 game opportunities, respectively, to obsess about a final outcome against an opponent. Do you analyze your performance from a golf score of 18 or judge yourself off of 18 par opportunities? In tennis, losing 24 points straight only results in a score of 1-0, but you have an opponent directly influencing your performance. Technique, shot selection, conditioning, strategy, etc. are variables that are all modified in relation to the method one chooses to evaluate and, subsequently, refine their “in-the-moment” match performance. Practice is tailored to meet those methods. The great performers( and their coaches), obviously know which variables to focus on. Ironically, some of my best( and worst) golf and tennis performances were under the influence of alcohol which eliminated obsessing over choosing variables to focus on,

Curiously enough...the mental mindsets in both games are extremely important and both emphasise staying in the moment. You cannot get a lead on your opponent in tennis and expect to coast home. You cannot start writing your acceptance speech if you wipe him off the court in the first set. You have to get the horse in the barn. The same is true for golf...a good front nine is insurance of nothing. You have to stay in the moment on a shot by shot basis.

Shot one over par on the front today and found myself getting a bit defensive with my swing. Sure enough...five over on the back. This happens in tennis too. Ever get ahead of your opponent and find it difficult to "hit out"? These are nerve wracking propositions. It sort of drove Söderling a bit nuts as it does everyone. Interesting that alcohol might take the edge off somewhat. Helps to loosen up.

[klacr]

Perfection.
One of the 7 reasons why athletes fail.
One of my Stanford University Masters Program Research Projects discovered 7 reasons. Great to hear Robin discuss this. I miss him. Big Thumper of a ball striker. His strength of character shows in this as he is willing to show his vulnerability. That's more impressive that how hard a man can hit a ball.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Delray Beach
SETS Consulting

[hockeyscout]

Some of the things I have been through in my life have been pretty grim at times, but I have always just picked myself, dusted myself down and carried on. It's just life...not a mental health issue.

Very interesting - I agree with you on this one.