During the last year Mikko Korhonen has had to dig deep. The 43-year-old professional golfer has rearranged his priorities and tried to change his attitude towards his profession in order to avoid mental pitfalls in the future.
However, Korhonen approaches his return with slightly uncertain steps. How is the head holding up this time?
– Yes, it’s exciting. And it’s a little scary, admits the two-time winner of the European tour in Sportliv.
Mikko Korhonen’s golf career stopped like a wall a year ago in Rome.
While preparing for the second round of the competition, he felt so weak that he had to lie down in the dressing room. He feels bad and at the same time a strong feeling of pressure accumulated in his chest.
– It just got worse. I thought it was a heart attack or something.
– I thought I was going to die from this, Korhonen recalls.
After the paramedics confirmed that the pulse and other functions were fine, it became clear that it was a panic attack. During the following weeks, Korhonen received similar ones on several occasions.
Korhonen had occasionally felt slight dizziness on the golf course for several months, but had not recognized the warning signs.
Now the alternatives had been consumed, and the pursuit could no longer continue. The wall had hit and the golf career had to be put on hold. It was a place of long overtime.
Challenging balancing act with a bad conscience
When a person suffers from severe exhaustion like Mikko Korhonen, the background is often years of diminishing resources.
The puzzle of Korhonen’s performance-oriented life has seemed to be missing pieces. The resources have not been enough to function as he wants as a professional golfer and a family man.
– I have a bad conscience about everything. Not enough in any way. Hasn’t trained enough. It’s not good enough dude. Not a good enough husband, lists Korhonen and continues.
– I have gone ahead of my career. Of course, some kind of price is paid for it.
A professional golfer is on the road for a large part of the year, either on competitive trips or training camps. If you don’t fully invest in your career, it’s almost impossible to succeed in tough international competition.
If you do not get at least moderate places in the competitions, you will be left without prize money, in other words without salary.
The European tour is played on five different continents, and the players pay for their own travel.
In order for Korhonen not to go into the red financially, he has to win at least three hundred thousand euros per season – which he has succeeded in almost every time since the 2015 season, but never before.
The harsh reality of a professional golfer is that he does not have the same opportunities to participate in family life as a parent whose job does not require constant travel.
Korhonen lives in a new family and is the father of three children from a previous marriage. He feels that he has lived a consuming double life for years.
– There should be a circuit breaker here, states Korhonen and points to the main knob. With which you can switch to game mode and then to home mode. But at least now I don’t have such a breaker.
Korhonen feels that life is simpler and easier when he is on a business trip. Then he can fully focus on himself and golf.
When Korhonen is at home, he can’t focus only on his family. As a professional athlete, he cannot completely neglect training during those weeks.
– That may have been a pain point. I have experienced that others do not understand me. But at the same time, I understand that they can’t understand. Maybe I should understand them a little better.
– It takes a lot of balancing with this balance.
Korhonen realizes that mental support with all the balancing act and bad conscience would have been useful in the past. He has only received help now that his golf career has been on hiatus.
With mental coaches in the past, the focus has been on golf, never on life outside of it.
– Few go to talk or contact professionals before there are problems, but only when those problems come. And by then it’s kind of too late.
Trying to change his attitude
As a two-time winner of the European Tour, Mikko Korhonen is one of Finland’s most successful golfers. A surprising end to a handsome career in unpleasant circumstances last summer was not at all out of the question.
When Korhonen celebrated his 43rd birthday at the end of July, he hadn’t touched his golf clubs for a few months.
– There were quite mixed feelings. I wonder if I’ll ever play again. It was a very relevant option, he admits.
In September, Korhonen spent a relaxing week in Levi at his friend’s cottage. There he played his first rounds after a mental breakdown. Despite a four-month layoff, he played every round under par.
Playing felt quite good for a long time, but at the same time he realized that he did not want to return to the racing fields with the same attitude as before.
Korhonen admits that he has never fully understood what it means to do sports through joy.
– Good results can be achieved even through some kind of bullshit. I’ve always thought so.
– But you can’t be a twister by force anymore. It’s been done for enough years, it seems. That led to this point.
During the last year, he and his therapist have been trying to find a more positive approach to sports and life.
– Everything is not so serious. You should be a little more relaxed about everything in life, and try to remember that people are the most important, and not work or the fact that you are lifting some trophy somewhere.
Uncertainty at the threshold of return
Mikko Korhonen has planned to return to the European tour (now DP World Tour) at the end of May at the Belgian Soudal Open.
After his sick leave, he is eligible to participate in 14 races this season. In them, he must play at a high level in order to retain the right to play on the tour. Otherwise, you have to find speed through the significantly less glamorous Challengetour – if you’re motivated enough.
Korhonen has been training purposefully for his comeback since December.
Some days the training has gone so well that success in future competitions has seemed possible and even probable. On other days, the body’s old ailments have caused thoughts of giving up to surface.
The new uncertainty is how his head will handle the stress of racing and returning to the spotlight after more than a year off. Korhonen admits that he feels tension and even a certain kind of fear.
– But maybe it’s mainly the setting of goals and the expectations of others that scares me. However, I try to play just for myself. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore.
Regardless, Korhonen is not returning to competitive golf for fun. He returns to the tour only to struggle for wins and feels he still has something to give.
– Otherwise, I would have stopped there.