People who can lay claim to beating Tiger Woods in his prime while playing head-to-head with him in the final round of one of golf’s top tournaments are indeed few and far between.
One of them helped kick off the Denver Golf Expo on Friday for its weekend run at the Denver Mart (I-25 and 58th Ave.).
Hal Sutton, who counts among his 14 PGA Tour victories the 2000 Players Championship, conducted an hour-long Q&A Friday with “In the Fairway” radio host Jerry Walters — and members of the audience.
To this day, Sutton counts the final 18 of the Players Championship 16 years ago — when he shot a 71 at TPC Sawgrass — as the best round of his career.
“I was head-to-head against Tiger and the whole world was saying I couldn’t beat him,” Sutton noted on Friday. “And I beat him head-to-head in the last round.”
Which was certainly no small feat at the time. After all, Woods had won a stunning 13 of his previous 21 tournaments. And this was in 2000, when Woods started the “Tiger Slam” by winning the U.S. Open, British Open and the PGA Championship before tacking on his second Masters in 2001. At the U.S. Open in 2000 at Pebble Beach, all Woods did was capture the title by 15 shots.
But less than three months earlier, Sutton took down Goliath by one stroke in arguably the fifth-most-important tournament in men’s golf.
At the time, “The media began to believe that Tiger was unbeatable,” Sutton recounted on Friday. “Whether he beat you or you beat yourself, the outcome was the same. Tiger was going to win and you were going to lose.
“When I went to TPC that week I knew I was playing great and I didn’t think there was anybody in the field that could beat me, including Tiger. I led the tournament from start to finish.
“Whenever I’d go into the media center when I’d get through playing, they’d tell me why I was supposed to lose. ‘You’re not going to win. Tiger is lurking back there and we all know he’s coming.’ It got to be old and I got tired listening to it. Finally the last day I got up (and said), ‘I began buying into what you guys are talking to me about until this morning when I got up off my knees from saying my prayers and realized I wasn’t praying to Tiger Woods. I knew I’d be OK. He’s just a man, just like me, but you all make him out to be a god. And he’s not.’ I ended up beating him that day.”
Given what Sutton accomplished, he seemed like a good person to ask about the state of the PGA Tour nowadays — when Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day are battling it out for the top spots in the world, with Rickie Fowler not far behind — compared to when Woods was the indisputably “the man”. Tiger, winner of 14 major championships, was ranked No. 1 in the world for a record 683 weeks.
“I think the Tour right now is in position to be really exciting to watch with a lot of good players,” Sutton said. “The Tour is better off right now is my point. … But I’ll throw one caveat into that: What if all of a sudden Tiger Woods was back on his game (and healthy)? There’s a lot of people that really like Tiger Woods, and there’s a lot of people who don’t. But the truth of the matter is, he adds a flare into the game that I think we miss a little bit right now.
“I played right along with Tiger and I was a Tiger Woods fan. I love the way he played the game. He played the game exciting. It was fun to be in the group with him because you didn’t know what to expect. You knew he was going to have the foot on the accelerator the whole time.
“And if Tiger came back right now and threw his name in the hat with those three or four or five players, it would be an exciting year. It’s not going to happen this year, I don’t think, but maybe it will down the road.”
Sutton also had interesting things to say about a couple of other subjects:
— On equipment having rendered many classic courses obsolete: “The USGA was supposed to be the police. We didn’t have any policemen there for a long time so you can imagine what happened in the game. The criminals took over. The criminals are the manufacturers because their (business) is the almighty dollar. When they didn’t slow them down, they went for speed, and speed equates to distance. They didn’t have any perimeters put on them so they kept pushing the envelope as far as they could push it. … The kids who swung the club 120 mph, they got really long and it made a lot of the golf courses obsolete. It cost the industry billions of dollars because everybody and their brother started changing their golf courses around to try to make sure they were up to standards today. Some people were spending $5 or $6 or $7 million changing golf courses, putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa so to speak. So we have no comparison from yesterday to today. So now the game is in a big uproar.”
— On the Ryder Cup (Sutton played on four U.S. teams and captained one): “The Ryder Cup is the greatest event in golf. I never felt pressure like I did at the Ryder Cup — the reason being because the world was watching. There’s 1,500 people in the media center. There’s more people in the media center for the Ryder Cup than there is for the Super Bowl. Every country in the world is there. It’s an exciting event and I look forward to it.”
— On the difference between current Tour players and those from his day (Sutton is 57 years old): “They’re better prepared (now). We didn’t know how good we were. I’ll never forget the first time I saw my swing on video. ‘That’s what it looks like?’ Now these kids have never had a week where they haven’t seen their swing on video. They’re able to monitor their swing much easier than I was able to. You’ve got things now that can (show) everything throughout every part of your golf swing. When I was growing up, I was limited to my imagination — and that’s the truth. Now we have less imagination. I think golfers from yesterday had more vivid imaginations than golfers today because they don’t have to utilize imagination today.”
Beside Sutton’s appearance, here are some of the notable tidbits from the Denver Golf Expo:
— CWGA Centennial, Junior Alliance Featured: Several of the local golf associations are participating in the Expo as they normally do, but they have a little something extra to chat about with those in attendace.
The CWGA is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, an event that will take center stage on Feb. 27 at the association’s annual meeting at the Inverness Hotel.
(Pictured at the CWGA booth Friday are, from left, Phyllis Jensen, Kate Moore and Nancy Wilson.)
Organizers recently taped a message for the annual meeting from World Golf Hall of Famer Judy Bell of Colorado Springs, the first female president of the USGA. Bell had planned to attend the annual meeting, but a leg injury will prevent that.
And the CGA and Colorado PGA, which this year are launching the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado in partnership with the CWGA, are rolling out the alliance publicly this week. Registration for the 70-plus events on the alliance schedule opened on Tuesday.
It’s been a busy week for all the state’s major associations this week, particularly the Colorado PGA, which co-hosted the G4 Summit at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs on Tuesday, then the Teaching and Coaching Summit Wednesday (also at The Broadmoor) before three days at the Denver Golf Expo Friday through Sunday.
— Rohrbaugh Taking Aim at 4 Straight: Doug Rohrbaugh of Carbondale no longer has any status on the PGA Tour Champions after competing in six events last year, but he still has big plans for 2016.
On Friday at the Expo, Rohrbaugh was helping man the booth for Ironbridge Golf Club, where he serves as director of golf.
Rohrbaugh plans to play a more Colorado-based tournament schedule this year, and the main event circled on his calendar is the Colorado PGA Professional Championship set for Sept. 12-14 at Cherry Creek Country Club.
Rohrbaugh has won the event the last three years, and one more this year will break a tie with Ken Krieger and Ron Vlosich as Rohrbaugh would become the first to “four-peat” in the Section’s top tournament.
“That’s my goal — four of those,” he said Friday. “That’s not been done.”
— On the Air: Among those on hand at the Expo on Friday was one of the radio sports talk shows from 760 AM. Colorado Sports Hall of Famer Dave Logan and Susie Wargin hosted the program. Among their guests was Colorado PGA executive director Eddie Ainsworth (above).
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DENVER GOLF EXPO HIGHLIGHTS, ESSENTIALS
What: 23rd annual Denver Golf Expo.
When: Friday through Sunday (Feb. 19-21).
Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sunday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Where: Denver Mart (58th Ave., just east of I-25).
Tickets:
Adults, $13; Seniors, $11; Military/Vets with I.D., $11; Kids 16 and Under, $3.
Available by CLICKING HERE, or at King Soopers or the Denver Mart during Expo days.
Scheduled Educational Seminars:
— Target-Proof Your Wedges 80 Yards and In (Stan Sayers, Colorado GC), Saturday 10-10:30 a.m.
— Key Changes in 2016 Rules of Golf (Alex Crall, CGA), Saturday noon-12:30 p.m.
— Move Well, Play Well (Dee Tidwell, Colorado Golf Fitness Club), Saturday 1-1:30 p.m.
— Unlocking the Secrets to Successful Putting (Jerry Walters, Trent Wearner Golf Academy), Saturday 2-2:30 p.m.
— Key Changes in 2016 Rules of Golf (Alex Crall, CGA), Sunday 10:15-10:45 a.m.
— Unlocking the Secrets to Successful Putting (Jerry Walters, Trent Wearner Golf Academy), Sunday 11-11:30 a.m.
— Target-Proof Your Wedges 80 Yards and In (Stan Sayers, Colorado GC), Sunday noon-12:30 p.m.
— How to Hit It Farther (Kelly Plaisier, Trent Wearner Golf Academy, Sunday 1-1:30 p.m.
CGA Used Club Sale: The CGA will hold its annual Used Club Sale (located just to the right of the entry area), with all the proceeds benefiting youth golf programs and initiatives in Colorado. The Used Club Sale has netted almost $60,000 for junior golf over the last four years combined.
Major Colorado Golf Organization Booths: CGA #1215; CWGA #1218; Colorado Golf Hall of Fame #1308; the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado #1330.
Junior Golf Central, including the Drive Chip & Putt activities, will be located at the west end of the Expo. The area where Colorado PGA professionals will give free 10-minute lessons to all interested Expo attendees is adjacent to Junior Golf Central.
For a full list of exhibitors, CLICK HERE.
For more information: CLICK HERE.
