Oklahoma State University Athletics
Hultman's Humor Carries Him to Strong Freshman Season
June 21, 1999 | Cowboy Golf
May 10, 1999
STILLWATER, Okla. - Anders Hultman had just completed one of the best rounds of his collegiate career, and his teammates were making fun of him.
The OSU freshman was just minutes removed from a second-round 69 at the Big 12 Men's Golf Championship. But when he described his clubs as "state-of-the-line," the wisecracks started flowing from the other Cowboys' mouths. Didn't Hultman know that the phrase was "state-of-the-art" or "top-of-the-line"? Hadn't he worked hard on his English since moving to the U.S. from Gothenburg, Sweden?
"It's OK. I can take it," says Hultman with an ever-present smile. "I give it back to them, and I wouldn't expect anything less from my friends.
"Whatever you do, if you do it with humor, it will go much easier. I've always been that kind of guy, joking about everything. You gotta have humor."
Lately, Hultman's game has provided the light moments in a heavy-hearted stretch for the seventh-ranked Cowboys. He has moved up to No. 54 in the latest MasterCard Collegiate Golf Rankings by recording top-20 finishes in four of OSU's last five events.
He recorded the team's best individual finishes in disappointing showings at the ASU Thunderbird/Savane Invitational on April 17-18 -- Hultman finished 13th while OSU was ninth among 17 teams -- and at the conference tournament two weeks ago, helped by that second-round 69. Hultman was seventh to offset OSU's fourth-place finish, a performance that marked the first time OSU had ever failed to place third or higher in a conference tournament.
"I don't know what's happened late in the season, whether it's been a lot of schoolwork on everyone's mind or something else," says Hultman, now preparing for this weekend's Maxwell by Pontiac tournament in Ardmore, Okla. "I guess we kind of relaxed as a team. Everybody feels that they haven't played to their full potential, but I don't think they're worried about it. We know we have it inside us."
Some of that confidence stems from OSU's top performance of the season, when it won the Ping-Golfweek Preview at Hazeltine Country Club, the site of this year's NCAA Championship on June 2-5.
"I think we've still got a good shot at the national tournament," says Hultman. "We've proven we can win up there. We'll definitely go up there with the feeling that we can win it."
Hultman himself had an impressive tournament at the Preview, his collegiate debut. He finished ninth, marking his only top-10 finish of the year until the seventh-place showing at the Big 12 Tournament.
"I was over here in the summer playing in the Izzo Cup, which is Sweden vs. the United States," he says. "I played really well there, and I can honestly say that I felt like I could beat everyone there.
"When I came to the Preview, it was a tough course, and I tried to play as well as I could. When I looked at the scores, I was tied for ninth, and that wasn't such a big deal, I thought at the moment, because when you're ninth, there are eight guys ahead of you. I realized at the end of the season that Coach (Mike Holder) was satisfied with that, since there was some really good players there."
After his showing at the Preview, though, Hultman struggled, finishing no higher than 24th in the team's next five events. He says a typical freshman malady may have been to blame.
"I was homesick," he says. "I don't know if it affected my game, but I was definitely homesick. But now I like it here. School's out now, but I don't have any thoughts of going home until after the NCAAs."
Hultman says he had thoughts of leaving home for U.S. collegiate golf several years before finishing high school. Most European golfers with a professional golf ambition, he says, have the option of attending college in the U.S. or practicing in southern Europe.
"The benefits of the United States are much stronger," Hultman says. "You get to play good tournaments with good golfers, where if you go to southern Spain, you're just training in the winter."
A strong relationship between the Swedish National Team coach and OSU's coaching staff helped steer Hultman toward Stillwater. From the standpoint of American schools looking for a foreign prospect, Hultman was hard to miss, especially after a course-record 65 on the opening day of the Scandinavian Masters.
"That was something else, that day," Hultman recalls. "The next day, I was on the front page of a bunch of different magazines. That was exciting and fun. Maybe I didn't handle it well on the golf course, since my scores went up, but I really enjoyed it.
"During the round, I was just cruising along, hitting good shots, making a few putts here and there. When I came to No. 14 or 15 -- actually 5 or 6 since I had started on 10 -- I was 4-under, and I thought, 'Hey, this could be a good round.' I made an easy birdie on seven, which was my 16th, and then on 18, that was awesome.
"I was the last guy out there, and it was a par-5. I hit a really good drive, so I thought I could reach it in two, and I did. I hit a 5-iron on the green. When I walked up to the green, there were people all around, cheering and everything. Then I birdied it, and the carousel got started."
The Cowboys hope it keeps right on turning.
