Carl Pettersson winning the Canadian Open wasn’t your standard PGA tournament victory.  In his post tournament interview he revealed some very interesting information on what were the keys to victory.  This including his night out drinking after barely making the cut in round two and gaining 30+ lbs; it now gives all the day to day gutted hackers some hope they can be good golfers.

Pettersson was very surprised that he won the tournament. After shooting a 2^nd round 71 he thought he had missed the cut, this would have been his 2^nd in a row following a missed cut at the Jon Deere two weeks ago. In the locker room following the round he spoke to fellow player Jay Williamson who suggested he goes out and have a couple of beers.

He went out and had more than just a few beers consuming seven to be exact.  The heavy set Swede usually doesn’t get fazed by consuming that amount of beer, but he didn’t want to take any chances and had his caddy drive him back to the hotel.

So with expectations very low for weekend play he shot an incredible 60, having a birdie putt lip out on 18 for a 59.  He almost went into the history books hung over, sort of like David Wells throwing his NO NO hung over.

And it’s not like he came out guns a blazing after bogeying the third hole dropping him further back at even par and almost last of all the players who made the cut in the field. Then it all turned around as Pettersson caught fire and made a few birdies closing out the front nine posting a 31.  The positive momentum continued onto the back nine as he went onto fire a 29, posting a final round of 60.

Even after firing the 60 and putting him at -11 on the tournament he still trailed Wilson by four strokes and was in the middle of the pack with 10 other golfers within 4-6 shots off the lead. Then he fired a 67 in the final round which led to a total -14 beating Dean Wilson by one stroke that shot a 72 surrendering his four stroke lead. This gave him his 4^th overall win worldwide and fourth on the PGA tour.

Pettersson as I am sure you saw on your television screen isn’t exactly a pillar of health, far from the athletic physique of Tiger Woods or many of the other golfers who stress fitness.  Due to his pudgy overweight build he received a very funny nickname from Cam Stewart a radio personality who hosts a show on Hardcore Sports Radio Channel 98 called Red Heat which features weekly golf segments.  He calls him the “Swedish meatball”.  And Cam absolutely loves Pettersson because he can relate to being overweight and drinking beer, I know he must have been very excited to see Pettersson win in his own backyard in Ontario, Canada.

The great thing about Pettersson is his personality; he’s never once shied down from his weight situation:

“I call myself a mutt; I’m not your typical Swede, as you know. I don’t have a 28-inch waist and I don’t eat bananas at the turn, stuff like that.”

Pettersson realized it wasn’t healthy to be overweight and wanted to change things.  This led to him going on a fitness regiment & diet last year resulting in losing 30 lbs.  The only problem with the weight loss was it affected his career negatively regressing by having his worst season on tour; this following a strong start to his career with tour victories in three of his first four years.

So he figured in order to get his swing and game back it was necessary to re-gain the weight.

“Obviously, I was a little overweight, I thought, well, I’ll get fit. So I actually lost 30 pounds—and my game completely left me. I guess the timing of the swing and everything was thrown out, and I really struggled in ’09. … I’d love to be fitter, but I’m not going to go down that road again. “

It may seem crazy that losing weight and getting in better shape could negatively affect one`s game. But it actually makes sense when you think about it. He`s practiced and played his entire life with an overweight frame and he learned how to be a world class golfer.  The second you change the complexion of your body it really can throw your timing off, it would take a long period of time to get used to the new swing and hand eye co-ordination.

Hopefully Pettersson hit the pub after the game pounding back a few pints and burgers I am sure it will help him stay on track and give him an even better chance to win his first major at the PGA in a few weeks.

Written by

Chad Margulius