Mianne Bagger is a touring professional golfer playing predominantly on the Ladies European Tour (LET) and also on the Australian Ladies Professional Golf tour (ALPG). This site contains information in relation to Mianne's progress on tour and also some personal information about Mianne and her life.
I often have people asking me how it's going on tour with the various tournaments I'm playing and I don't realise how many people are interested in following my progress. It can be difficult to reply to all the emails so I've decided to start a bit of a 'blog' covering my travels. I'll update it mostly while I'm playing tournaments (as long as I have internet connection of course!) and will keep the blog running on this page for the time being.
17 June: Germany, Holland and Portugal
Part II: (..part I down below.)
It was nice to have a better week in Germany, not just with the result, but with my game, and ball striking showing some promise. An interesting fact for my final 3 rounds in Germany (3 rounds of par) was that it included an eagle and 13 birdies!!! ...so, all the good stuff is there, now I've just got to keep the rest of it 'clean'! :) Apart from that, we had a nice stay in Munich for the week and the tournament was a great success. The amount of spectators that came out was fantastic and set quite a precedent for other tournaments to follow.
...here's a bit of trivia for you (I just came to think of it) ...on Monday, when I travelled to Germany (from Switzerland), I was in 4 countries and 4 airports, in one day! It's not something you can say too often, and I don't think it's anything you'd want to be able to say too often! It started at 4:30 in the morning when I was driven from Locarno, Switzerland, to Milan airport (Italy). Then flew to Copenhagen for a connecting flight to Berlin, and then later on to Munich! I finally got to the hotel at about 10pm ....nothing like a 16hr travelling day!
The following week was Holland where we played Eindhoven, the same as the previous year. Eindhoven is about 2 hours drive from Amsterdam and everyone there keeps getting more enthusiastic about the event, each year we come back. It's great to see. It also showed with the increased numbers of spectators that came out for the week. The members there are all very generous in giving us private accommodation for the week, and I stayed with the same lovely family I stayed with last year, which was actually in Belgium. Only 30 mins drive away.
In Holland I continued with my drills on the range and took to the course without expectations for the week. The goal was to play golf, and focus on one or two swing thoughts that I wanted to achieve for the week. It turned out to be some of my best ball striking for the season so far and with a bit of an up-and-down week, it ended with rounds of -1, -1 and par. I felt it was a little unfortunate on the last day where I hit 14 greens but just could not hole a putt. aahhh dear!! ....one day it will all fall in to place on the same week, in the same round!
Sunday afternoon after the tournament I got to spend an afternoon in Amsterdam, to have a bit of a look around and have a relaxing dinner before flying to Portugal on Monday .....early! Who would have thought you would get good Thai food in Amsterdam?!
For our trip to Portugal I had gotten together with 5 other players (from Australia and the U.S.) where we shared a villa. We flew in to Sevilla airport in Spain, hired a couple of cars and drove to Tavira in Portugal (about 2 hours away). Finally ....some warmth and sunshine. Ha... AND and washing machine!! This event was held at Quinta da Ria golf course which was near the coast. A nice golf course with lots of bunkers and a few short par 5's. It was really quite a relaxing week where we could enjoy some sun and some much welcomed home cooking. (you really get tired of eating out day after day when you're travelling for weeks in a row. Time to dose up on good healthy food with fresh fruit and vegies.
As for the golf, well.... it started out well enough with quite a comfortable day of 3 under. A couple of soft bogies, but all in all, a good steady day with good ball striking and good putting. The leader after the first day was on -9, with a few others on -8 and -7, so plenty of players taking advantage of the short par 5's. The second day came as a bit of a surprise as I couldn't quite get anything going and again, putts just wouldn't drop. It's one thing that I can normally rely upon to save a day of poor ball striking, but when you miss a few greens and don't hole the putts, it doesn't take long for the score to add up. A day with no birdies and 5 bogies, saw me have a day off on the final day unfortunately. Oh well, a bit of practice and on to the next tournament.
I drove with the others to Sevilla on Monday morning and I spent a day there as I wasn't flying to Tenerife until Tuesday. What a beautiful city! Lot's of little narrow streets filled with cafe's and shops and numerous sites to see. A must is the cathedral which is quite breathtaking where you can take a walk up the bell tower to get a view over the whole town.
Well, it was another 5am start for Tuesday and off to the airport. I'm in Tenerife now and it's 'back to work'. I have some practice to do, and some drills to work on, so I'll get back to you all after the tournament. I'm also looking forward to a couple of weeks off before continuing with the next lot of events. Ciao
15 June: Germany, Holland and Portugal
Part I:
Well, after a relatively good start in Portugal, I find myself here with a day off on the weekend after a rather disappointing +5 in the second round! Just one of those days where the ball striking was a little 'off' (made worse by a '1' to a '3' club wind in the afternoon) and where I read my putts continually on the low side. ...meaning they all just ran by the edge of the cup, much to my frustration.
One of the good parts about this though is that I now get a chance to update this blog on my website. :) It's not always convenient with either time or internet access at tournaments, so my apologies for the delay in this update ("yeah yeah, so what's new!?" I hear you say. haha :) ). Well, now you get 3 weeks update on one!
Believe it or not, my game is really coming along and my ball striking has been making huge progress over the last month or so. (I'm pretty sure I mentioned in a previous blog about me working with new swing changes from late last year?). My coach (still Andrew Mowatt at Royal Fremantle GC in Perth, Australia) has given me some 'tools' to take away with me this year that I can use to work on when I'm practicing. By 'tools', I mean a series of drills I can do on the range which we liken to going to the gym ...so we call it 'golf gym'. (I know, incredibly original isn't it!?). They are excercises intended to familiarise the body with the desired movements you want to achieve in the golf swing. In that sense, they are not necessarily movements, or thoughts, that are to be used on the course to actually play golf with, but merely to practice repetetively on the range.
I will normally focus on one, maybe two, of the drills at one time, depending on what I feel might be needed at the time. They could vary from week to week and I will sometimes incorporate them in my pre shot routine, to keep the movements fresh while I'm playing. This has been the case the last few weeks where I had some good results in Germany and Holland and, well, at least in the first round in Portugal this week! :/
What has also helped is getting a new putter from ProFound Putters while I was in Switzerland. I have been a little skeptical about trying new putters, but this one felt so good, I was compelled to give it a try. I used it in Switzerland where I was quite happy with it, so I spent a lot of time practicing with it before playing in Germany the following week. That week was fantastic, on so many different levels. It was a nice course with great greens, and we even had Michelle Wie make a visit to play in the event ...much to many people's surprise as it was a last minute decision for her to come and play.
I played pretty well during the week and putted exceptionally well. For those interested in stats, I averaged about 27.5 putts per round for the week I think? It was still a bit of an up-and-down week, but it was nice to see some progress. ....end of Part I (gotta go do some practice now!)
26 May: The Ladies Swiss Open
Another 'learning' week for me on the golf course last week. This time I ended up having the weekend off and I guess it's as nice a place as any to have a couple of days of. We played a course near Lake Maggiore in Switzerland, 2 hours from Milan. It is just such a beautiful spot and I would highly recommend a visit there if you're ever in Switzerland.
The course is one of the best courses we play throughout the year and it was in perfect condition. It was unfortunate that the course was rained out over a couple of days, and the final days play was cancelled due to all night heavy rain. Suzanne Peterson from Norway won in fine style and there were record scores abound from various players, with 2 or 3 rounds of -9 and one of -10. I'll have to look forward to another visit next year.
I can feel I have to go through the process again of learning to play golf (that is to say, to actually play golf, rather than play swings and swing thoughts). It's quite a process to go through and it's probably one of the hardest things to teach someone I think? People can be taught to swing a golf club, and that can be in many varying forms, but to 'play golf' is mostly a personal journey I think. Others can maybe show you the way and give you ideas, but it's something you ultimately have to work out for yourself and is very much a personal journey ....or a journey of discorvery about 'self'. This is where golf becomes such a unique sport, which includes personal reflection and personal growth. It is no wonder there are so many books written about the game and all it's different facets.
Well ...off to Germany! ciao
12 May: Last week, in Turkey
After having a very tiring day of travelling back from Turkey (starting at 1:30am Monday morning!), I'm back in my room in Denmark and have a little time to give you an update on last weeks event. Well, not that there is a whole lot of exciting news, but here it is...
This was the first time an LET event was held in Turkey where golf is still relatively new. They seem to have plenty of golf courses around the place but I don't think it's been part of the 'culture' for that long. We made the trip down south to Antalya, near Belek and played at the National Golf Club. It's a fantastic tree lined course with plenty of water and hazards to keep it interesting.
On the first day I didn't really hit the ball overly well, but I kept it in play and putted well ...had 25 putts for the day. After coming in with what I thought would be a round somewhere near the cut-line (I shot +2), turned out that it was playing tough for everyone and +2 was top 10 for the day!
The reason for the high scores were for numerous reasons. Firstly the course was a little longer than most and having plenty of trees and water made it a very unforgiving course. If your game was a little bit off, you got penalised for it, which is the way it should be really! What caused most of the problems though were the very hard elevated greens. It was almost impossible to stop the ball on the greens and even landing near the front, usually meant the ball would bounce and roll through the back. If you landed the ball a metre or two short of the green though, the ball would just bounce up and stop, so it wasn't like you could play it like a links course. It meant the short game and putting had to be 'on' for the week, and if it wasn't, well the score just kept adding up.
The second day was met with more wind, particularly in the afternoon, and if the course wasn't tricky enough already...? It's funny, you go out thinking you're in a good position being in top 10 after the first day and you relax a little too much, and it can really come back and bite you. ...and it did! I had a horrifying day and ended up only just making the cut for the weekend. Quite a demoralising day now with plenty of work to do on the weekend. ...nuff said about day 2 I think! ;)
Trust in my new swing was realy getting a work-out this week, and having an unforgiving course to play was making it a very demanding week. We all know that the one thing we can't do while playing, is think about too many technical issues. Well, it can be a bit easier said than done when everything has been rearranged, so you just have to persist. I couldn't really get anything going over the weekend with my ball striking being a bit 'hit-n-miss' and birdie opportunities just sliding by the edge of the cup. All I felt I could do was forget about the result and keep working on finding the trust in the swing. Unfortunately it still took about 9 holes or so for that to happen each day, and by that time, some reasonable damage had already been done.
Oh well, I gave it a last chance on the final day, but again it took too long for the swing to settle in properly. I ended up with a couple of rounds of +5 for the weekend and a rather average finish for the week. There's always something positive to take out of each day and each event, and there was plenty of that this week as well. ...even if it was just the experience and learning. I know my ball striking is going to come good and the putts will eventually drop. ....practice, practice, practice.
First event in Spain:
I have been back in Europe for just over a week now and have played the first event of the season over here, in Spain. The event was held in Castellon near Barcelona at the Panoramica course. After spending 5 months or so, re-working my swing with my coach in Perth, Austtralia, I've been quite eager to get out on tour again to play the new season.
Sporting a new putter as well, I started the week in a bit of a roller coaster fashion shooting +2 in the first round with 5 birdies and four 3 putts. The putter seemed to be working fine, as long as I was over 2m from the hole! If I wasn't holing the longer putts, I was missing the ones coming back! hhmm, not so good. I put it down to lack of familiarity with the putter and need to give it time.
Well, as the week progressed, it didn't get much better. My ball striking was good for the most part, which I was very happy with, but the putting didn't improve much. I managed to keep a tidy round together for the second round at +1, and watched as I moved up the leader board as the afternoon groups got to play the windy part of the day. I went into the weekend in =23 place and ready to play some steady golf.
Yes, well, it seems there were other plans in store for me. After a rough start, losing 3 shots in 4 holes, I managed to get back to level par for the day only to get caught by the wind at the end of the round to finish with a triple bogey on 17 and a double up the last. All that good work undone on one hole. It's a little demoralising. Well, that was until Sunday!.... With steady rain throughout the morning, I just couldn't get my game going. Ball striking was terrible and putting still hadn't improved. All I could manage were pars with a steady flow of bogies thrown in. ....and that just kept going all day long! All in all a terrible weekend and end of the tournament for me.
I sit here in the apartment I've been living in for the week, going through my weekend wondering what the hell happened, but also lacking a bit of income. For anyone that thinks professional golf is a life of luxury hotels and fancy treatment, you should come and join us sometime. It's hard work most of the time and if you're not lucky enough to have sponsors behind you, life on tour can be very trying. I'm lucky that my family have always helped out where they can and I get some support from my home club in Denmark. There's also been a few generous individuals along the way who have helped make life on tour possible for me. Thank you to all of you.
I go back to Denmark tomorrow to spend the next 2 weeks practicing (weather permitting) and my next event will be in Turkey on the 8-11 May. Will keep you all up to date with how that goes ...and I think I'll be taking the old putter back out!! Thanks for dropping in. :)
