home

jobs

	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

BUICK CLASSIC

June 9, 2004

Hal Sutton

HARRISON, NEW YORK

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: United States Ryder Cup Captain Hal Sutton, thank you for joining us for an update on the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Since a couple months ago, we talked for the first time, and here we are again. Maybe just talk about how the team is looking and shaping up.

HAL SUTTON: Jay Haas moved into the Top 10 this last week. I'm sure everybody saw that. I think the team is shaping up great. I talked to Fluff I recall year and Jim Furyk is getting very close to coming back and playing, and I'm excited about that. The more time he gets under his belt, the more chances that he has to be prepared the way we want him to be prepared, and I'm excited about the team.

Q. Is this too early now to start thinking about your -- who's going to fall out of the Top 10 and who your choices may be or are you already formulating that in your mind?

HAL SUTTON: It's going to change dramatically from this point forward. I mean, with three major championships and all the points that are available in those, I mean, I think it would be very premature for me to have anybody on my mind, so I don't. I'm just watching like y'all are.

Q. How is that process for you when you know it's going to change so much? You just described the mindset of that process, watching the standings each week and watching what everybody is doing?

HAL SUTTON: Well, yes, I am. This will tell you how I watch it. The first thing I said when I got here this morning was I wanted to see where Fred Couples was at on the list, and we had to call in and get it because he wasn't in the top 25, but Fred has been playing very well, and I wanted to see where he was setting.

I don't say that because I'm trying to put any pressure on Fred, either; that's how I'm watching what's going on.

Q. What number is Fred right now?

HAL SUTTON: 34 with 257.233 points.

Q. Are there any other guys out of that top 25 that you've got an eye on like that like Freddie?

HAL SUTTON: I'm watching every week. You know, one of the reasons why I guess I mentioned Freddie's name is I know he's been playing well and it just sure looked like he played well last week. There's a lot of the summer left and there's no telling where he'll go with that.

Q. Not in the Top 10, but the two captain's picks, from a criteria standpoint, if a player hasn't done everything possible to get into the team using the Top 10 points, is he really, without a legitimate reason, really someone you would look at as a captain's pick?

HAL SUTTON: When you say hasn't done everything, define that what means.

Q. If he hasn't played in a major or tried to qualify for a major if it's a qualification process.

HAL SUTTON: Well, doing everything might mean playing every week, and I think that can also be detrimental. If I can't see -- if there's not a way to see a plan involved in a player's strategy, you know, then if it just looked like he deserted us and went home, then that tells me that maybe he's not interested in playing in a Ryder Cup, so that's about as -- I know that's very general, but that's about as precise as I can be with that.

Q. If Jim Furyk makes the team and he's physically unable to play, does it go to the next person on the Top 10 list or do you get a third -- do you get another wild card pick?

HAL SUTTON: No, it goes to the next player on the list. It goes to the 11th player and then I would pick two people past that.

That's also premature to be thinking about because Jim is a professional, and I told Jim at TPC I'm going to lean on you. You know when you're right and when you're not, and you're a professional and you know when you're right, so you tell me if you're ready.

Jim is we think fairly secure on points. That's a very general remark, too, because as you see that asterisk mark beside Tiger Woods' name, mathematically speaking, he can't not make the team. But everybody else, even if it's a billion to one, Phil -- if everything they did fell into place, Phil could miss the team if he didn't do anything. I mean, that's a long shot, we all know that. In general somewhere in the 700- or 800-point range we think is pretty safe.

Q. Maybe being a little bit more specific on the line that Alex was talking about, John Daly opted not to try to qualify for the Open. What does that tell you or show you? Is there any element of disappointment there on your end? I know every player has his own reasons for doing things, but obviously it's a Ryder Cup year and that's a --

HAL SUTTON: Well, you know, if I lived on a limb like that, I'd be disappointed if somebody didn't make it into in to get fitted for their clothes at the Ryder Cup. I was up there last week for doing that, and I started the first day out thinking that way, and at the end of the week there were a couple of guys that didn't make it in there for various reasons who I happen to know how much it means to them to make the Ryder Cup team.

You know, I don't know what's going on personally in everybody's life and I don't know why they're making those decisions, so I'm not going to judge them by that standard basically.

Q. Would he fall under a category of a guy you know and how much it means for him to be on that team?

HAL SUTTON: John has indicated to me that he would love to make the team.

Q. Did he make it for his fitting?

HAL SUTTON: No.

Q. Maybe he plans on losing weight.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I know how hard that is to do (laughter). He may be planning on that.

Q. What do you like about the top let's say 12 players on the list as it stands now? You've got experience, you've got some new blood, you've got a little mixture of everything. Do you like that?

HAL SUTTON: Boy, you just answered my question. I like a mix of all of it. I like experience and I like youth. I like guys that have both, and this team has a lot of that makeup, you know. I'll tell you a classy story that happened last week. I went out on the range to try to secure a few guys to come in to be fitted for their uniforms last week, and Jay was down there and I walked down to congratulate him on his finish. I'm sure it was a disappointment to him because he would have liked to have won the PGA Senior, but I felt like it was a nice accomplishment and I told him how well I thought he played.

He said, there's something on a different note I wanted to talk to you about. I wanted to talk to you about the makings of what everybody thinks is a great story for a 50-year-old guy to make the Ryder Cup team. He said I want to tell you that I think experience is overrated, and regardless of your decision, you and I are going to be friends no matter what, and I don't want you to feel any pressure at all to consider me in any sort of way, so you just take that and put it in your memory banks and remember that.

I knew he was looking for some sort of response back rather than a nod, so I said, Jay, I'll put it like this. You've sure been playing well and beating a lot of guys that are on this list, so I'll leave it at that. But that's a classy thing to do. I don't think that would probably surprise anybody in this room. I think everybody thinks that Jay has that sort of class, and I thought it was worthy news myself.

Q. You were in the Ryder Cup at the Country Club, and before that there had been probably a pretty good separation before you were in a Ryder Cup before that. At that period of time, if you knew that you were not in the Top 10 but you were in 15 or 20th, would you do -- were you in the mindset at that point to try to do pretty much anything that was reasonably possible to earn your way onto that team even if it was a captain's pick?

HAL SUTTON: Well, yes, I was of that mind, but I'm a different individual. To me, the months leading into it kind of tell the story. They kind of suggest that you either do or don't want to be on the team or you are anxiously awaiting the challenge of winning the Ryder Cup. Those are the kind of guys that you can rely on and the guys that are secondary, that it's a secondary thought in their mind. I'm not sure how they're going to perform when it's called on them to do that.

You know, I'm not going to go into everybody, but I've had guys telling me what's going on in their career right now, that they wanted to kind of give me an explanation as to why it's going on and what's happening, and hey, I really want to make the team. There are guys saying that sort of stuff to me right now.

In particular, Scott Verplank. Bob Verde, when I got to Columbus last week, I saw Bob, and I said, is Scott here, and he said no, I don't think he's here, his feet are hurting him, and I didn't say anything about it. Well, Scott called me the next Monday and said, I don't want you to think I don't want to make the team. I want to play on the team. I was giving my feet a chance to get well. Scott wants to make that team.

Q. Have you had guys avoid you because they don't want to give you the appearance that they're flattering up to you?

HAL SUTTON: I'm sure all of those things are happening. I haven't really felt that, but in this sort of -- in this sort of format what we're doing in the Ryder Cup and the importance of it and everything else, I mean, there's probably people that don't want to give that sort of thing and then there's other guys that this is an opportunity they don't want to miss, and if it looks like something is awry that they want to give me a better understanding of and they've helped me have a better understanding of it.

I think we're going to see a lot of things over the next few months. My goal from the start has been to make sure that we don't get to the second week of September and everybody say, by the way, we are playing a Ryder Cup this week. I want everybody to be aware of it all throughout this process because I think it's a worthy cause to go out there and to try to win the cup back.

Q. Have you been using any of the past captains as sounding boards and discussing things with them about how they approach things?

HAL SUTTON: A few. I've got my own opinion. I've played under four captains so I watched things that they did that I thought were great and put into my arsenal and then I thought some things could have been done better and I want to make sure I avoid those pitfalls, too. Jackie, he's been a great sounding board for me, too. I talk to Jackie about what we're going to do. He was Ryder Cup captain, played on the Ryder Cup. He was Ryder Cup captain twice, I think, and he's a great sounding board. He's a very intelligent person.

Q. Is there going to be a way to get the team together at Oakland Hills?

HAL SUTTON: We're working on that. We're working on that. Just so everybody knows, Tiger Woods gave me a schedule quite a ways back, so we're trying to avoid all the pitfalls. I'm not sure we're going to do it and I'm not sure that that's necessarily important to do, either.

I mean, we could accomplish the same thing by having a gathering somewhere else. I mean, these guys are all professionals, most all of them have played Oakland Hills before and if we play it six weeks out, I don't know if that has any bearing on it or not. The greens won't be the same, so I don't want anybody to get tied up and locked into the notion that we should go to Oakland Hills ahead of time because that's not necessary. I'll be at Oakland Hills several times beforehand.

Q. When you first took this job, I think you talked about Tiger and how you felt like you would really work with him to understand what your beliefs were about the Ryder Cup and what the best way was to approach the Ryder Cup and how to play in the Ryder Cup. I don't know if that was your experience or whatever in regards to Tiger, but since then you've talked about Tiger throughout and how you felt like he was really taking a lead position on this Ryder Cup team. Can you talk about where you feel he is now in regards to the Ryder Cup?

HAL SUTTON: I think Tiger is -- he spent 45 minutes in the room with us last week, and I thought that was -- everything in a nutshell right there for him to come in and be fitted and spend 45 minutes talking about things. The vendors appreciated it, I know that. I think Tiger will be ready. The state of his game right now is that he's probably, to use his own words, doesn't have his A game and he's still finishing third. Very few people in the world -- most of us if we don't take our A game, we finish 50th, miss the cut even.

Q. Again talking about rosters, this early, do you at all look at what's transpiring on the European side, as well, and what they're talking about?

HAL SUTTON: Well, I do a little bit. I said hello to Miguel out there on the tee and told him how well he was playing and all that sort of stuff, but I'm focusing on the things that I might have some control over rather than the things that I have zero control over. You know, I think that's my counterpart, Mr. Langer's job, is to pay attention to what they're doing, and I'm trying to make sure I pay attention to our side.

Q. How many guys have been in for a fitting, can you tell us?

HAL SUTTON: You want an exact number?

Q. Yes. Can you tell us who?

HAL SUTTON: I won't do that. 20.

Q. 20 of the 25 or are there any guys below 25 that were fitted?

HAL SUTTON: There was one below 25 that we fitted, too. And I don't want anybody to harp on the fact that -- I mean, we knew going into it that it's impossible to do them all at one event. I felt like 20 was a pretty damn good number to walk away with after the first week. I mean, some weren't there to have physically done it, so I felt like that was a major accomplishment in itself.

Q. The European players have got into a debate about their own selection process. Do you think that's a negative for them and something that you can turn to your benefit?

HAL SUTTON: That I can turn to my benefit?

Q. Yeah, in the mind games that go on.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know that that's to our benefit. I certainly hope it's not to our benefit because I want to play the best team that they can put out there. I hope that all that shakes out to where they're happy with it and Bernhard shows up at Oakland Hills with what he thinks is his best team. Again, that kind of falls under that category that I'm going to try to control the things that I have maybe a small possibility of controlling and not worry about those that I can't.

Q. This isn't a Ryder Cup question per se but it's about one of the players. We were talking to Phil before about having won The Masters going into the Open. From your experience what's it like going into a major for the first time as a major champion, going to your next one after you've won a major?

HAL SUTTON: Well, you're viewing yourself in a different light. He's probably going to go into that a little more relaxed because he is a major champion now, and the monkey is off his back and he's preparing like a major champion, like he wants to win another, not like he wants to win the first one, not like everybody is wondering whether he will win the first one because that's all behind him now. Phil acts like a more relaxed person now.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Captain Sutton, thank you very much.

End of FastScripts.

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297