THE HONDA CLASSIC

March 11, 1999

Hal Sutton

HAL SUTTON: Okay. Second hole, I hit a 6-iron about 40 feet, made that. The 5th hole I hit a 5-iron about 15 feet and made that. 6, I hit a 7-iron about three feet, made that. 9, I hit 2-iron into the green, the green-side bunker to the left, hit a really good bunker shot out, went 10 feet by and I made it coming back. 10, I made, let's see, I hit a 6-iron there about 8 feet. 13, I hit a 9-iron about 12 feet. 15, I made bogey, I hit a 4 iron underneath the lip of the bunker on the right-hand side. It was a long bunker shot under the lip. I didn't hit it close, I hit it about 15 feet out and missed it. 16, I hit a 4-iron into the green under the lip of the bunker, long bunker shot, hit a great bunker shot out about nine or 10 feet behind the hole, made that. 17, I hit a 6-iron about probably eight feet, made that. And then, 18, I hit an 8-iron about three feet.

HAL SUTTON: Right.

HAL SUTTON: I'd like to lay it off on injuries, but mostly injuries in the head up here, you know, the ones that aren't noticeable. Lack of confidence, too many swing changes that weren't working. Eventually lost somewhere in Jurassic Park.

HAL SUTTON: '92 and '93 I think was about as bad as I could -- I would want. I wouldn't want to return there, I know that.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I did several things. I went back to working with the guy I worked with when I was in college, Floyd Horgan.

HAL SUTTON: Floyd. And I did that about two years ago now and I just got a lot more of an understanding of the golf swing, that helped a lot. I went to see Jackie Burke and he helped me a lot with my short game. My short game has been really good, so I think it's -- I got three beautiful little girls at the house and a wife that loves me, you know, I look forward to getting up every day.

HAL SUTTON: I don't look back on it very much, but I think that is a detriment to anybody that they put that on, because that's -- he did things that, you know, the depth of the Tour now is so much deeper than when Jack was doing all the things that he was doing. And I don't mean to take away in any kind of way with what Jack did, but I mean, frankly speaking, there was probably not very many guys in the tournament that thought they could beat Jack when it came right down the stretch. And now there's not anybody that doesn't think they can beat the other somebody, so I mean that's why you've got what you've got on the PGA TOUR. That's why it is as exciting as it is. Just a lot of guys are capable of winning out here now.

HAL SUTTON: No, I didn't even put any merit in that. I mean obviously you want to try to live up to the -- to everybody else's expectations, I guess, when you're young, that's what you try to do. Everybody else puts those expectations on you. You know what happens is you just got a young man that comes out, he's just playing golf, doing what he loves, you know. He doesn't know how good he is, and all of a sudden he steps into the world of pro golf and he begins to establish himself and there's a lot of people in the whole world that thinks, man, he may be the next great player. Here is a young man that all he is doing is playing the game he loves, he doesn't need the added pressure. It's pretty hard not to read the paper. I feel for all the young guys that have that responsibility right now. I mean it's only a responsibility put on them by everybody else, it is not something they should carry on their own.

HAL SUTTON: I do in a lot of ways. I think -- well, I don't know. I don't want to get into that.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I don't want to get into it, how's that. I don't want to get into it.

HAL SUTTON: Well, I just think it is a large responsibility to place on anybody, you know. To say you want somebody to be like someone else, why? He wants to be himself. But most 23-year-olds aren't smart enough to say that, or -- wait a minute, let me rephrase that. It doesn't have anything to do with smart -- experienced enough. It's not easy to look at someone that's trying to put the responsibility of being the greatest player in the world and say, well, you know, I don't know if that's in my agenda right now, you know, I have got a family and -- or if they have a family, you know, they may like fishing a lot. I don't know what they like to do, you know, but for someone else that doesn't know you at all to put that responsibility on you, it's pretty difficult.

HAL SUTTON: Well, a lot. I think there's something about having children that makes you feel like you're supposed to be more responsible, you know. I try to make the most out of every hour that I'm out here to play because I don't like being away from home from them. So when I am here, I want to be utilizing all the hours; otherwise, I feel like I'm cheating them, so...

HAL SUTTON: Well, the twins are only 7-weeks-old right now, so we travel with our other little girl all the time, but now that there's three at 28-months-old or less, they're going to go to TPC their first week out.

HAL SUTTON: Sara and Sadie, S-A-R-A.

HAL SUTTON: Sadie.

HAL SUTTON: Yes. I knew they were going to be girls, too.

HAL SUTTON: What?

HAL SUTTON: Well, no. That doesn't have anything to do with it, but I'm happy with having -- God only gives little girls to special people, you know.

HAL SUTTON: Fortunately we have help. We've got a nice nurse, so we sleep.

HAL SUTTON: Yeah, I'd say this is a happier time in my life. Probably the happiest time in my life. Well, let me rephrase that, without a doubt the happiest time of my life.

HAL SUTTON: Like I compared it to Jurassic Park, you know. I just didn't know I was going to -- I didn't know if there could be a fairway wide enough for me at the time. I'd like to call myself a really good driver of the ball, but I'll tell you, those two years I fought my driver and I didn't know which direction it was going to go and I'd look out there at the widest fairways and figure out some way to make it narrower in my mind. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

HAL SUTTON: At that time, yeah, they did.

HAL SUTTON: You know what's really funny is, it is ironic you ask me that question. The second hole, that putt I made from about 40 feet, I hit a really good putt, but it was one of those kinds that are just dying on the edge of the hole, it is just getting there and it kind of dies on the side and it rocks over to the right side of the hole, sits there and just rocks back in. And I told my caddy after I walked off that green, I said, you know, it has been a long time since I have seen one of my putts lip in. I said that may be a good sign. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but it was a good feeling because most of mine, I'm looking at them lip out instead of lip in. So I felt it was a good turn.

HAL SUTTON: Well, it feels a lot different now. At that time early in my career I didn't know how good I was and I was trying to check out my game against everybody else's, you know. And then I did that and then I went through a lot of lean years there when I didn't play well. Like I mentioned earlier, I didn't know if I was ever going to get out of it or not, that's how poorly I was playing. And then to battle back, know, I'll be 41 next month, so to have the feeling that I have now when I get on the golf course is a good feeling for me.

HAL SUTTON: Sure you are. You got an answer you want; what is it?

HAL SUTTON: Well, you know, I don't know if it means anymore to me. Appreciation is a real good word, you know. When you are playing well you certainly can appreciate it a lot more, because I know that many nights I went back to my room and felt like I was the only person on the planet that was having problems, you know, after shooting my 78 or 79, you know. This is a pretty lonely world out here, you know. There's a lot of people around and all that kind of stuff and everybody wants to be your buddy when you're playing good, but, boy, it gets pretty darn lonely when things aren't going pretty good around here. All of a sudden no one wants to be your buddy, no one cares what you're doing, nobody -- when you go from one time -- when you read the paper, when you get there -- your name is mentioned every time when you get there as one of the guys favorite to win the tournament. Then you're never mentioned, so appreciation is a really good word. I don't take things very lightly anymore. When things are going a little bit rugged out there and I recognize I have got a problem and I need to work on it, I get pretty serious about working on it. I don't think, well, tomorrow it will be okay.

HAL SUTTON: No, but I was young and naive. I didn't think I had to work hard. I thought my game was pretty solid and it was going to be that way forever, you know.

HAL SUTTON: Yes.

HAL SUTTON: One thing that it does help with is the wind. The wind gets pretty swirly at Augusta and we'll be playing in the wind for the next three weeks probably, so there's really no comparison to golf courses, though. So I can't find any correlation there.

HAL SUTTON: We have gotten wet there a lot; haven't we? Yeah, maybe it won't rain on us this year, you know. I have seen the sun shining there and I have seen it raining, that's Florida; isn't it?

HAL SUTTON: You know, I got mixed emotions about this golf course. I think that Mark did a really good job on this golf course for the terrain that's here. It is pretty hard to make a lot of holes identifiable in your mind when you leave, you know, but one thing I do take my hat off to Mark is he made this golf course very playable. We can play 40, 50-mile-an-hour winds. You can't play well, but you can manage your ball around a golf course and, you know, he did a nice job by not putting island greens and all that kind of stuff in here.

HAL SUTTON: Well, yes and no. There's a lot of long holes out there, and the greens are really big, and it's pretty hard to get the ball close here, I think. I found it to be that way through the years. I didn't go low without making several good putts today. This was -- it was one of those 64s that if I hadn't made about three really good putts it would have just been a routine 67.