Former NC State men's golfer Carl Pettersson has always taken kindly to Muirfield Village, the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course in Dublin, Ohio, where the PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament is currently being played.
Pettersson, a two-time All-American during his time with the Wolfpack in the late 1990s, received a sponsor invite to play in this week's Memorial Tournament as a past champion of the event in 2006.
Self-coined the "Swedish redneck," Pettersson is a native of Sweden but moved to the United States as a teenager and attended Grimsley High in Greensboro (N.C.), junior college in Alabama and later NC State, where he finished his college career.
The 5-foot-11, 200-pounder turned pro in 2000 and has accumulated six tournament victories on the PGA Tour along with one on the European Tour.
Once ranked the No. 26 player in the world in 2006, Pettersson has fallen outside of the top 2,000 of the Offical World Golf Rankings after failing to make a cut on the PGA Tour since 2017.
However, at the Memorial on Thursday and Friday, Pettersson made the cut with room to spare after turning in a 36-hole score of even-par. Entering Saturday morning, he was tied for 31st with American golfer Scottie Scheffler, three strokes above the cut line of 3-over-par.
His inclusion at Muirfield Village this week marks the first tournament he's participated in thus far in the 2019-20 PGA Tour season. The last time he played a PGA Tour event was Oct. 25, 2018, in the Sanderson Farms Championship where he missed the cut at 12-over-par. His last made cut on Tour came on July 28, 2017, at the RBC Canadian Open where he finished tied for 70th at 3-under-par for the 72-hole tournament.
This week marks Pettersson's 16th time playing in the Memorial Tournament, a Tour stop he's grown quite comfortable with over his 20-year pro career. He's made the cut 10 times there, has placed Top 10 twice and won his second-career tournament at the event in 2006.
Here was what tournament host, 18-time major winner Jack Nicklaus, had to say of Pettersson's play at his summer event in 2006:
"I saw virtually every shot on television, and Carl definitely played the best golf today. I think there were some spectacular shots by other guys, and he was just Steady Eddie, he just absolutely did everything right.
"Every time he made a mistake, such as he got a bad break at nine, when the ball rolled back against the heavy grass, and left it about 12 feet short, and right in the center. And he hit it over the 11th green, chipped it in.
"At 15, he hits it left of the green, puts it where you absolutely shouldn't put it, and then the greens are soft enough that he can throw it up in the air and stop it on the green and makes a 15-footer. He did that quite a few times today. And that was obviously the difference between winning and losing. But he did it calmly, he drove the ball well and from watching all the players, he by far, played the most consistent.
"Adam Scott played very well today. He struggled with a few short putts. Phil played a lot of good holes, but played too many bad holes, too many bad tee shots. Zach played very well today, but didn't quite do the things he needed to do to be able to catch Carl. Your winner played the best golf, and that's what it boils down to at the end of the day."
Pettersson is scheduled to tee off at 11:10 a.m. and is paired with Scheffler on Saturday. Third round coverage of the Memorial Tournament can be seen on the Golf Channel from 12:30 p.m-3 p.m. ET and on CBS from 3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET Saturday.
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