• NOW ON GOLFWEEKTV: Hate to be Rude: Tim Herron
Jeff Rude’s “I Hate To Be Rude” column appears on Golfweek.com on Friday, the same day as his video show of the same name.Hal Sutton, a 14-time winner who turned 50 in April, plays his first PGA Tour-sanctioned tournaments since early 2006 this week and next in Texas. Because he has played little golf period since serving as 2004 Ryder Cup captain, Sutton has little expectation entering the Champions Tour phase of his life.
This week’s Administaff Small Business Classic in Houston and next week’s AT&T Championship in San Antonio are tuneups for his 2009 season. More important is the change in his mindset. He left the game disillusioned, having witnessed a transition where he believes bomb-and-gouge is valued more than shotmaking. Recently he told me that working the ball is no longer necessary and that bombers can get by without a complete game.
But when he arrived in Houston the other day, there was more pep in his attitude. He used the word “excited” for a change.
“I’m excited to be out and see old friends, to get back into doing something that I at least at one time knew how to do,” the 1983 PGA Champion and two-time Players Championship winner said.
Sutton’s outlook underscores the vast difference between someone starting out on the PGA Tour versus the over-50 scene. It also speaks of age and maturity and accomplishment.
“I’m not going to live and die on every shot,” he said. “(When you’re younger), you’re living and dying with every shot, aspiring to be the best you can be. I don’t think at 50 there’s any need in crying ourselves to sleep because today was a bad day. I think my head is in a healthy spot. My kids have taught me how to be a little more patient.”
When he arrived in Houston, a reunion broke out. Bruce Fleisher told him when he walks on the range, he’d look at other players and say, “I know he can’t beat me, look how old he looks.” And his mentor, Houston golf legend Jack Burke Jr., advised him, “Don’t get caught up in playing till you’re 70 years old.”
Sutton couldn’t resist a comeback. “Jackie, what are you doing at 85, tell me? You’re running a club (Houston Champions).”
How Sutton fares as a senior is anyone’s guess. But certain is that his first practice round was something of an eye-opener.
“They keep telling me they’re making clubs and balls that go farther,” he said before drawing laughs. “Unfortunately, I can’t drive it in the same place I was driving it in 2001. I don’t know if it was because it was wet or what. I don’t know whose fault it was, but that’s an excuse. It’s always somebody else’s fault.”
• All right, Zach Johnson has turned into the Reggie Jackson of golf, less-stakes division. Being Mr. October in golf matters less than it does in baseball because, well, this is the Fall Series, not the World Series. That said, the Texas Open champion needs to bottle whatever he’s drinking because his scoring average in his last three PGA Tour rounds is 62.6. That is a testament not only to the track-meet portion of the schedule but Johnson’s ability to snap out of a slump, hit fairway after fairway and use one of the best short games in golf.
As PGA champion Mark Brooks once said, “You can’t hold back Tour players when they’re hitting approach shots inside of 150 yards from the fairway.”
• For the cynics who consider the Ryder Cup an exhibition that doesn’t matter nearly as much as major championships, consider the ongoing glow of Captain America, Paul Azinger. The victorious U.S. captain said the Ryder is “bigger than any major championship.”
Tiger Woods won’t agree. But maybe in time he might.
• A PGA Tour player, low-ranking at that, told me that if Barack Obama is elected president, he’ll have to pay 56 percent in income taxes. And you wonder why Tour players are close to 100 percent Republican?
• Do the math. Jim Furyk just hauled $600,000 out of Bermuda and the two-day PGA Grand Slam. At that percentage, he’d keep $264,000.
That’s enough to make a multi-logoed man cry.
• How concerned is Camp Ponte Vedra about America’s financial crisis? Well, the PGA Tour is fortunate that virtually all of its title sponsors are signed through 2010 and the vast majority through 2012, said PGA Tour executive vice president Ty Votaw.
Timing is everything. So the Tour is not putting on a sad face.
“When the deepest advertising recession since the Great Depression hit in 2001-02, we renewed 21 title sponsors and signed 18 new ones in a 20-month period,” Votaw said. “We’ll come through the trouble this time because we offer fundamental value–brand building, business-to-business opportunity, positive image, charity, international growth.”
• Tip recommendation of the week: If you’re having trouble making solid contact, check out
Suzy Whaley’s excellent instructional series on this Web site and watch the short bit about makng a square takeaway. The money quote: Feel as though you’re turning the back of your left shoulder back.
That figures to work for anyone from Joe Ogilvie to Joe the Plumber.
Posted: 10/17/2008
print
email
discuss
