GENUITY CHAMPIONSHIP

March 3, 2001

Hal Sutton

HAL SUTTON: Any time you can get in the last group on Sunday that is a good thing, so I am excited about being there and looks like I am going to be playing with a couple of really good players so we will have some fun tomorrow.

HAL SUTTON: I thought the golf course played quite a bit tougher especially, the later in the day that you played. Today was a typical Florida day, doesn't blow much in the morning. The golf course starts out fairly soft, guys that get out early and play really well, they can catch up a lot and guys that are in the last few groups, they hold on. So the gap gets closed a lot... It happens a lot in Florida.

HAL SUTTON: I know at one point there we got to where we were, four shots up on the rest of the field. I don't know what he did, but I got in between clubs on 13, I made bogey there. Anybody can make bogey. I think it was playing 253 or something like that. The next hole I got in between clubs and pulled a bigger one of the two. The wind was left to right and into me and came off of it, and that is what happens, you are short right when that happens. Then the same thing happened to me on 15, I was in between clubs, I pulled a big one, and just soft peddled it through short right and that was a really good up and down at 15, so...

HAL SUTTON: Sounds like the weather is going to be bad. I like playing in the morning, though; so that will be good. I'd hate to be out there in what they are predicting.

HAL SUTTON: Well, yeah, I didn't like the way I finished. I hit it six feet at 17 and missed it too, so -- but I didn't play bad. You shoot 70 in the last group and wind is blowing pretty hard and it switched directions on us, and you know, I would have liked to have held on to those two, but Mike made two bogeys in a row himself, so I mean, it was out there to do.

HAL SUTTON: I think when you -- I think whenever there is wind and weather I think the more solid you hit it the better chance you have got. So I think if you are swinging at it good and hitting it solid that is going to help when the wind is blowing.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I had heard a lot of good things about the redesign after the, you know, the redesign after the redesign, in other words. But anyway, the golf course is very playable right now. And it is a like a lot of other golf courses in South Florida, when there is wind and it gets firm this golf course gets difficult. These greens get awfully fast down grain, so no, it is like -- those ^ bunker shots on 13, I thought I hit pretty good bunker shot on 13 flipped it up there pretty high, landed 15 feet short and it goes 30 feet. You know, that was when I hit it, I thought ,well. I am four, five feet by the hole, not 15, you know, and that is what happens when you get down grain here.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah. He is a good player, real good player. Nice guy, too. Good golf swing.

HAL SUTTON: No, I don't think we ever got paired against each other in The Presidents Cup.

HAL SUTTON: I don't have any idea. You know, probably they are like the rest of the young people in the world you know most of the lefthanders that I grew up with they were told to start playing right-handed. They probably bode up against the norm and said, I am going to play left-handed, I don't care what you say. That is probably what happened. You know when I was young there were several guys that were playing you know, we went out as 10, 11, 12 year olds and first thing the pro did was switch them around to play right-handed. So.....

HAL SUTTON: It looks good on TV. I hadn't been in the same group with him, so.... Davis is a good friend. He is a great player. I am excited that he is playing well. And I am glad that I am in the last group with him tomorrow. So.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know. I think it will probably be pretty exciting golf. My guess is both of them are playing pretty good and I think I am playing pretty good, so might be pretty exciting round to watch.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I hope it is the same as it has been the last few days. I am going to try key it up, hit it in the fairway, go play it from there. I don't see that you can play a whole lot differently just because you are in the last group. All of a sudden you wake up Sunday morning you say wow, I am in the last group. Well, nothing is any different, you are going to The 1st tee trying to play the same kind of golf. It is in our head that it is different because you know, all of a sudden we realize well, we are close to the lead or today is the final day they are going to tally our scores up and we are all going to play first, second, third and fourth. But you know, essentially we are still trying to do the same thing we have been trying to do the first three days.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I tell you what when we teed off, I had made -- I thought about it walking from the fitness trailer over to the locker room and I thought today is going to be a different day unless we reevaluate what our expectations for the day are, I just told myself anything 70 or less is going to be a really good score and just because you are not 5- or 6-under par out there, don't think you are not playing well. That is pretty much the mind set that I had trying to go out. Birdied 5, I hit a sand wedge in there about ten feet, made that. 6, man, I thought I hit a great 5-iron in there. Right at the flag. The wind got it and hit on top and came back in the bunker. I hit a bunker shot out about eight feet by, I missed it coming back. 7, I hit 6-iron in there about ten feet above the hole made it. 8, I hit a little bitty sand wedge from about 55 yards about six feet made that. 10, I hit it just over the green in two, just off the back edge I putted it from off the green and hit pretty good putt. It still went ten feet by, I made it coming back. 11 I hit a little 9-iron from 120 yards about a foot. Then 13, I hit it had in the left bunker, hit good bunker shot out but it went about 15 feet by missed it. 14, I hit 6-iron from 165 yards, should have hit a 7. That might have been the problem. Anyway I came off it, hit it to the right, had a tough chip shot, had the ridge going both ways. You miss it to the left it goes over the left, miss it to the right might go off the green, so, missed it to the left; knocked it about 15 feet by and missed it. That was it. Rest of them were pars.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah, hit 7-iron about six feet above the hole. One thing about looking I was looking right into the glare of the sun - the worst part about that is you see everything in the green, you see all the spike marks and I had one right in my line and it was down grain and I thought I just got barely got it on the left edge of that, and you know, I explained something you are familiar with there.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah.

HAL SUTTON: Drove it perfect had 165 yards, hit 6-iron on the left side of the green and 2-putt.

HAL SUTTON: Hitting wedges and nines early in the week. Today hit a little 6. Tee shot looked little different today than it has been looking.

HAL SUTTON: You know, it is a strange thing. Spalding told me about a year and a half ago they were going to give me balls with ears on them. And the damn thing listens occasionally, so I started talk to go it.

HAL SUTTON: (Laughs).

HAL SUTTON: So I better watch what I say.

HAL SUTTON: (Laughs).

HAL SUTTON: Do they?