THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP

March 26, 2000

Hal Sutton

HAL SUTTON: Well, obviously I would have liked to have kept playing. Dangerous situation - it was good that they called it. I like living better than I do finishing the golf tournament. Lightning popping everywhere, I guess, that is what they were saying. Anyway, everything was going well. It was going the way I wanted. I was just playing my game.

HAL SUTTON: I was just sitting up in the locker room thinking about that. Yeah, we finished on Monday the year I won. I don't know if that has anything to do with anything, but it was nice to think about, anyway.

HAL SUTTON: Actually we played the whole 18 on Monday.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah, I hit some really good putts early on. Especially the putt at No. 1, I really thought that putt was in. Putt at No. 2 was about as good as I could hit. But you know the nice part about it was I didn't force anything to happen after that. I stayed in my game plan. It is easy when you know you are right on the verge. It is like I will turn it up one more level. Let's see if we can make it. All of a sudden, you make a mistake. I was able to fight that off. There is an urge to do that.

HAL SUTTON: It was big. I was walking up there, I thought: Man, that ball went in there with a little force. I hope it is not all the way against the back left. Got up there, I couldn't even stand in the bunker to hit the shot. I was way up above it. I am thinking: This could be big here, really turn around one way or the other. I just made sure that I stayed in the shot. There is that urge that, I mean, you feel like you are falling the whole time. I made sure that I stayed in the shot, and I just flushed it. And it came out with some really good spin on it, and it went about, I don't know, 10 or 12 feet by, which was a dream shot. I couldn't have dreamed it any closer than that. Made the putt. That was real big.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah, I felt like I -- we were familiar with what everything was doing at that time -- the firmness of the greens, the speed of the greens, you know. We are going to have to come out and regroup and think about other things tomorrow now.

HAL SUTTON: Well, as I said earlier, I would like to have not had the delay. But I didn't lay the plan out, and that is what we are going to have to do. As far as having a 3-shot lead, it is not going to affect the way I am going to do things. I am going to come back out tomorrow, try and do the things the same way I have been doing, that is driving in the fairway, hit good iron shots into the greens, and play smart golf.

HAL SUTTON: No, that was pretty -- was right at the top of the list, I think. You know, that was -- we were going into 9. Of course Tiger got the advantage when we get to a hole like 9. As long as -- I can reach in two, I feel like he has got a little bit of advantage, because at the same time I can get there too. But at 9, I just can't get to 9. And so I mean, for me if I hadn't gotten that up-and-down, that would have given him the momentum going into 9.

HAL SUTTON: I am 82 yards to the hole.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah, real bad -- up against the green there?

HAL SUTTON: Yeah. It was setting down in the grass. It is something, I was choked down on the shaft of the club too. You know, that was one of these things where I had to weigh the odds there. I mean, if I get aggressive with that chip to try make sure I get it up on the plateau, there is not much back there. And if it comes out with any speed, it could easily go over the green and into the back bunker. Then I have really played the bad shot. So I made up my mind if it crept up over the edge of that, it was just going to creep up over the edge of it. I was ready for the ball to come back. I was -- I felt like it probably would. Now, making the putt, I wasn't ready for that. It was on line. And I am glad that it went in the hole. But I was having to play a smart shot. I have had three shots around the greens, the second hole I hit that shot into the green there, and it goes, you know, I can't stand in the bunker on that shot; had not much of a play there. I have had three shots where I have hit it in the green where I didn't have such of a play.

HAL SUTTON: On 11, broke to the right about six inches.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know, 25 feet probably. 30.

HAL SUTTON: No. I hadn't heard any discussion about that really. We kind of do what we are told (laughter).

HAL SUTTON: Well, you know, Tiger hit a great chip shot where, from where he was at. Me making that putt in front of him makes his putt a whole lot harder. So that was very big.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I doubt anybody that was going to try to win this golf tournament would have said that it would have been easy if everything had been laid out just perfect for him. We don't come here looking for an easy way to win. I am not going to look for a way to say: Poor, pitiful me, too, because of all this. We have still got work to do, and I feel good about the way I am swinging at it and the way I am putting. So I am just going to try to stay focused on what is at hand.

HAL SUTTON: I mean, you are just going to have to if you are going to win this tournament, you are going to put some of these shots in some places that you are going to have to hit a spectacular shot from there.

HAL SUTTON: It is not going to matter. It is really not going to matter. Probably if I had a whole 18 to play, I'd probably like to see them harder and faster like that. But some of the holes that we have got left and some of where the pins are, it is going to be nice that the ball is going to hold.

HAL SUTTON: Well, it will be easier than driving it in the fairway on No. 1. (laughter). Tiger, he hit it in the rough there, and he barely got it on the front of the green. So he has got a long putt. And if I hit that shot in there close tomorrow, things are going to get a little bit difficult because he is not going to -- how fast that is or whatever else, I don't mind being where I am at right now.

HAL SUTTON: He wasn't measurably by me on 11. It was questionable who was out there. I had hit driver on two. He hit driver, by the way, too.

HAL SUTTON: This golf course makes you play all your shots, and it takes a driver out of your hand some, but it takes driver out of my hand some too. He played driver on 9; I played 3-wood on 9. So you know, again, this is not a Tiger Woods/Hal Sutton duel. I mean, I have said this about as many different ways as I can say this, and you all make it out what you all want to make it out to be. But the fact is, I am playing the golf course out there. I am not going to say anymore about it. That is what Tiger is doing too.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I don't think the mindset changes much on any tournament. I think if you are in the lead or you are around the lead and you are trying to win the golf tournament, you are trying to keep a focused mindset of trying to play the golf course and not trying to get into one-on-one type situation. So it is really -- golf is pretty simple. We are trying to play the shot that is present at that time. That one shot. That is all I am trying to do, and that is all anybody should be trying to do in order to play this game at the highest level. Whether you are TPC or whether you are in The Masters or U.S. Open or one of the lesser tournaments, you know.

HAL SUTTON: Well, no. Not really either. Again, we are still just trying to play the shot at hand and -- I am trying to keep this as about as simple as I can. There are a lot of different ways to try to figure out how to lose this thing, and I don't want to figure that out. I want to figure out how to win.

HAL SUTTON: The one I won here.

HAL SUTTON: I don't know. That is a good question. I don't remember.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah. I thought he would be in the van. He wasn't in the van. I don't know how he got in. So, you know, Tiger hit a couple of good putts that didn't go in too. This is a frustrating game. When you think you got it right where you want, it is not there, whatever else, and I don't know what to say about it.