Repeat after me…

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/08/2010 (5853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The law of averages is not one of the rules of golf but it’s going to be the story when defending CN Canadian Women’s Open champion Suzann Pettersen wins her next golf tournament.

There seems to be little risk in saying "when" and not "if."

The 29-year-old Norwegian is in a tough place to get to for 2010 — No. 5 on the LPGA Tour’s money list and third in the Rolex Rankings, both without having recorded a single victory.

Pettersen, who won the Open last August at Priddis Greens near Calgary, has won more than US$1.15 million this year in 13 starts. She’s finished in the top 10 nine times, and in the top five eight times, including last week’s tied-for-fourth at the Safeway Classic near Portland, Ore.

"All I can do is just keep plugging along and sooner rather than later I think it will come," she said of that elusive 2010 victory. "Hopefully I can give myself a chance again this week. I’ve been playing very good all year."

Pettersen knows how to win. She had five victories in 2007 alone.

And she’s undoubtedly got her eye on those tight world rankings, a very prominent subject on the LPGA Tour today.

"All you’re trying to do is win tournaments," Pettersen said. "If you win tournaments, the rest of it will be taken care of. Obviously glad to be in the position I’m at, together with five, six other players.

"The competition is tough and you need to play solid week in and week out. You can’t really afford any sloppy days on the golf course. It shows the depth of women’s golf right now."

After her first on-course look at St. Charles Country Club on Tuesday, she offered some hints about what’s in store at this week’s US$2.25 million championship.

"My first impression is that the fairways are running," Pettersen said.

She also said there’s a "subtle severeness" in the greens and that the fairways will be happy places to be.

"The rough is up," she said. "I mean, you’d better draw a good lie to be able to move the ball more than 120 yards."

Pettersen said last week she loves playing on old golf courses, and St. Charles certainly qualifies at 106 years.

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"Yeah, I grew up on an old course back home, Norway’s oldest golf course (Oslo Golfklubb)," she said. "I like that."

Like most of the top competitors, Pettersen also prefers a more difficult test. She even went so far as to say that the ultimate, extreme tests like the LPGA players experienced at this year’s U.S. Open at Oakmont are the best.

"I wish we played more courses like that," she said. "I think the creative difficulties and challenges were endless. Endless but fair. I would say it was fair but tough and it got the best of you in all ways. But I think I prefer to play harder and tougher golf courses because I think it separates the better ball-strikers from the mid- and average ones.

"You always have to be a good golfer to win tournaments but it will be more fun to play more golf courses like that more often."

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca