GENUITY CHAMPIONSHIP

March 2, 2001

Hal Sutton

HAL SUTTON: Nice to see you guys in the press room. This is my first visit in here this year. (Laughter. ) Let's have three cheers for some heat. We have been in the cold. It is nice too sweat a little bit. I played good these first two days. Driven the ball well, hit good iron shots, played some good putts. I am looking forward to the weekend.

HAL SUTTON: No. But that's all right. I played good. We will just battle it out on the weekend. Whether you are leading after 36 or not --

HAL SUTTON: I am fairing okay with it this week.

HAL SUTTON: I like that a little better. That is all right. I do not want to have a poor mind set going into the weekend. I do not want to figure out why I should not be there, so...

HAL SUTTON: I am driving it awful straight, that is a good thing to do on this golf course, because it sets up kind of funny in the dog leg. I feel good better on this golf course when I am driving good.

HAL SUTTON: I have not putting very well. I drive nicely. Have not made many putts. The West Coast is tough. You play a lot of the golf courses, multiple courses, you are not putting on the same set of greens every day, all the greens are different; some are putting like putting through a gravel pit. If you get off to a poor start, not making anything, trying to make some putts, some times you feel like talking to yourself out there.

HAL SUTTON: I hate putting seaside poa greens. There is an awful lot of that on the West Coast.

HAL SUTTON: It is like the story, that you write in the morning, you think you will do your best job on it; then when somebody comes along, blowing everybody away basically, you think, man, this guy is a great journalist, writing unbelievable articles; he is selling print like nobody's business. If I want my print to sell, I better really pick up the pace. You thought you did a good job the first time. You had to reevaluate when someone else came along. I tried to put that into your own field so it would be easily understood.

HAL SUTTON: Come on, Doug, work with me a little bit.

HAL SUTTON: It is good. I feel good. My back feels good. My ankle does not hurt. Warm weather helps.

HAL SUTTON: I was concerned. Every time I turned around, it was something different happening. I got that tendonitis in my left ankle. I think that caused a lot of the other problems. In hindsight, I would have been better off if I took five or six weeks off right after I detected that tendonitis and let it heal; but I didn't.

HAL SUTTON: I think you better look for another job if you shoot par. That is good for the fans. People like to see a lot of birdies.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know. We will see. The USGA tends to try to correct whatever they feel like is wrong, you know. Southern Hills is a tough golf course. I think it is a really tough course. I think they made a lot of changes on it from what I heard.

HAL SUTTON: Yes. I mean, I don't know if I would combat the whole field, because of one guy's sterling play. That is a good point. Nobody else seemed to master Pebble Beach last year. They had it set up pretty good. Tiger, he played masterfully. Beat it pretty good.

HAL SUTTON: Good. Write this down. It is going to make our product better, all the guys need to work with it. Every system has a few flaws to begin with. When we get it all put together, we will like the end product.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know. Change is tough. You probably do not like change in your organization, when you get used to one thing, you know, then somebody shoots something else at you, you think, I do not need that right now. That is probably a lot of it. I think if we were not so narrow-minded, sometimes, you know, we looked at the big picture, we could see that that is where the whole world is headed and we better be geared up for it. The Tour -- sitting on the Policy Board makes you take a whole new look at what is going on, because you see how hard and how focused and direct the Tour is to try to keep us moving in the right direction as a whole to where we need to go. All of a sudden your personal wishes seem to understand what the Tour is trying to do. When you do not see all of that, you do not get an insider's look like that. All you ever concern yourself with is your own personal wishes, how everything is happening is affecting you and you only. Do you see what I am saying? That is what we have, a whole bunch of out here. It is not just the Tour, the whole world, it is a "me" society. Tell me what you can do for me, you know. I think we are lacking a lot of -- we need a lot more respect for the people that pave the way for us.

HAL SUTTON: I cannot figure that out. I don't know. To me, I think they are making more money than they ever made. Again, I will relate it to being narrow-minded. It will give us a better product, which will in turn sell for more money; which will play for more money, prize money, which in turn they will make more money, because they all work on commission. It does not take a rocket scientist to do the numbers. I think it is just short-sighted on their part. They do not want to work real hard. They got use to not working real hard.

HAL SUTTON: I told him, if I hear one word about it, I do not want to hear anything about it. They are making more money than they ever dreamed they would ever make. Just like I am. I am making more money than I ever dreamed I would make. We ought to thank our lucky stars than sit around and gripe.

HAL SUTTON: We sit around and can figure out every reason why not to do something, you know. I think -- I go to the practice tee every day, I will relate it this way, I go every day and there is always, if I think I need to do this, well, if I do this, this might happen, or, if I do this, this might happen, you know. That's as Floyd putts it, stinking thinking, you cannot practice your game. You have to do something because it will do this. You have to look at the positive side of it. We can figure out a lot of negative reasons not to support ShotLink. I think there is so many positive reasons to support it. We have to do a better job of training the volunteers. They will have to know when to ask, and ask at the right time. On the other hand, the caddies have to be a bit in tune. I know they will want to know what club it is, be aware, you know. But that does not take a lot of effort. I am for it, in case you cannot tell.

HAL SUTTON: Should have, would have could have. I should have birdied 10. I came off of it a little bit, hit it at the bunker which wasn't a bad spot to -- it stops on the downslope. It wasn't in the bunker, but in the deep grass on the downslope. I could have chipped it in the water from there. To me, that is, again, we are thinking about the negative side of it. All you can do - I played the hand the way it was dealt to me. That is what I came away with. You can get caught up. If that was my last three or four holes, yes, I might be a little bit upset about that; but there were a lot of holes left.

HAL SUTTON: Yes. I was playing good the two years before that. I mean, -- what happened at TPC last year did not cause me to think, wow, that was, you know -- I played several tournaments prior to TPC that I felt like I played just as good as at TPC. When you go against the acclaimed, you know, everybody says, that was great. But I played other tournaments where I felt like I played as well.

HAL SUTTON: Made the top 10, yes. I feel good.

HAL SUTTON: Better. I won't be quite as negative as I would have been in the past. I kind of convinced myself this last year, I might be able to have a little game at Augusta.

HAL SUTTON: Well, that one spot right there caused me to have a rot. But I leave it there. I have it there when I get there, I leave it there when I -- that golf course has been the albatross around my neck. I feel a lot better about going there this year than I ever have.

HAL SUTTON: My short game in the last few years has been a lot better than it ever has been. You have to have some short game in Augusta. You can play every shot perfect, and you can be a foot off sometimes there and have a 20-yard pitch shot. I mean, if it is going to be that fine a line, you better have a good short game, because you cannot control your irons that good all the time.

HAL SUTTON: I feel that was it. I had to be so precise with my irons, I asked too much of myself with my irons. Whenever I felt I could get the ball up and down, I did not put as much pressure on the iron shots there. As you know, you cannot short-side yourself on this golf course much. You short-side yourself, you will be in trouble. If you are shooting at the pins, you will short-side yourself, so...

HAL SUTTON: I just went through all that. Short game has a great deal to do with that. What went through my head before, I did not feel like my short game was adequate enough to hold me up when I played an iron shot where I felt I needed to play it. It did not -- it allowed me to play the percentage shot I needed to play. I was making enough putts, I felt like if I hit it over here 20 feet I would make one occasionally, that sort of stuff.

HAL SUTTON: You have to ask him. You all decide that sort of stuff, don't you.

HAL SUTTON: I think history said it had to be done in the same year. You all change your idea about this, if he wins it. And you all decide it is a Grand Slam. If you all do that, we need to make TPC a major. You all need to quit resisting that.

HAL SUTTON: Yes. Certainly. It is the toughest field in golf. I don't know why it should not be. Anyway that is a whole other story, isn't it.

HAL SUTTON: We can talk about that in a couple of weeks.