Q. Are you are you surprised the way the leaderboard ended up shaking out?
HAL SUTTON: I didn't expect Ernie to do what he did. You know, having stood on 18 now, I'll give you a little bit of an example. I think you'll see a lot of people short on that hole and if you don't see them short you will see them bail out to the right. The reason for that is everybody is going to try to pull enough club to make sure they get it back there with the urge to get the ball close to the hole is still there. So you end up pulling the right club to put it in the center of the green and then you come off of it a little bit trying to make sure, okay, I've got it enough, let's leave it on the front of the green.
I didn't hit as good of an iron shot as I would have liked to on 18, but if I erred, that's where I wanted to err. I had plenty of green. I don't want to sound like sour grapes but I had a bad break and it stopped right underneath the lip and I had to go to be aggressive with the bunker shot. I could not hit the flop shot that I wanted to hit.
But anyway, I played well. He putted the ball great this week. Probably if I had to say any one thing that kept me out of the top, was the putter.
Q. How closely were you watching the leaderboard today and what thoughts were going through your head with so many guys up there?
HAL SUTTON: Really, the first time that I paid much attention to the leaderboard was on 15 when I looked up and saw Ernie had dropped back to, I guess, 12-under at that point or whatever it was.
At that point I was 12-under, too. I said, hey, wait a minute, we're tied for the lead here now all of a sudden. So, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it, up until that point. I mean, occasionally if I happened to be just looking in that direction and showed it; I would look and see what it was but it didn't really matter on the front nine.
Q. When you walked up to the bunker at 18 and saw your lie, what was your first thought?
HAL SUTTON: We're going to have to make a putt. (Laughter.)
Q. Did you think you could get it anywhere near the green?
HAL SUTTON: Well, yeah. I mean, you know, there is that possibility that you could get it close to the hole but I knew I was going to be aggressive. I couldn't follow through with it. The club was just going to hit and stop and the ball was about that far behind on an embankment like that, so I knew I had to go straight up with it. You know, you've got to be aggressive with that shot. It came out of there better than I expected it to. I hit a good putt. I misread that putt. That putt was right on my line. You could tell probably by my expression that I expected it to peel off to the right and it didn't.
JOAN vT ALEXANDER: Thank you, Hal.
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