Odd penalty costs Pettersson second place alone

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- Carl Pettersson grew to know more than he ever wanted to about Rule 13-4c, which he had not been sure of and which he certainly did not know that he had broken. He just decided to take his punishment and go on, turn over a new leaf, so to speak.

Pettersson was assessed a two-stroke penalty for a minuscule infraction on the first hole of the PGA Championship's final round Sunday. He was only three strokes out of the lead when he took a swing from a dry portion of a lateral water hazard. On his backswing, he brushed the grass behind the ball, which was fine.

But his club also happened to touch and move a leaf, which was a breach of 13-4c because a leaf is considered a loose impediment. "I guess the rule is there so you don't knock anything out of the way to make you be able to hit it [better]," said the golfer who was born in Sweden, spent his teenage and college years in North Carolina and recently became a U.S. citizen. "It's just one of those unfortunate things. I'm just going to take it on the chin, I guess. They said they looked at it a million times."

He was told immediately that rules officials were reviewing the tape and that they would get back to him. So Pettersson did not know if his par 4 on the hole would stand. He was given the bad news after he had teed off on No. 4 and used it as motivation to make the second of three consecutive birdies.

Ultimately, he finished at 4 under par, tied for third and one stroke behind the runner-up. "Yeah, it [stinks] for me. I would have finished second on my own," he said. "I obviously broke a rule there. I didn't realize it myself. I don't think it affected the outcome of the shot, but it's just one of those things. We have a lot of stupid rules in golf."

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