Suzann Pettersen has had what she calls a “fantastic” season in the LPGA, but she’s more than ready for a break next month. A mysterious hip ailment makes just walking the golf course painful.
Pettersen was back in Oslo this week, to oversee the “Suzann Junior Challenge,” organized at the Bogstad golf club. She braved some pouring rain and the constant pain to help encourage other young women to launch a golfing career.
“I want to give something back to golf in Norway,” she told news bureau NTB. “If it hadn’t been for the help and support I got, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
And that’s an impressive place: She’s been ranked as the world’s number-two player four times this year, and she has 11 victories as a pro. She’s still aiming to be number-one, but told NTB that “I think the season I’ve had has been just fantastic.”
She is plagued by pain, though, and has been since last winter. It hurts to walk and it hurts even more to swing. “I’m beginning to get quite tired of playing with pain,” she told newspaper Aftenposten. “It wears you down mentally.”
She just received another frustrating response from medical experts in London, who said they couldn’t figure out what’s causing the pain. She plans to see more doctors in the US, where she lives most of the year, “but the best advice I’ll get is probably that I should take it easy. And I will in September. After the next two tournaments I’ll get a nice long break.” (PicApp photo taken at the British Open two weeks ago.)
She has no plans, however, to take any lengthy hiatus from golf. “I’ll wait until I need amputation,” she joked. “But if I couldn’t manage to deliver good results on the golf course I probably wouldn’t continue.”
And she told Aftenposten that “everyone has some pain one place or another. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t struggle with some ailment.”
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
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