Hal Sutton - "The Battle at Brookline" SHORT TRACK

Lee Trevino 0:07

Straight down the middle. It went straight down the middle.

Mike Gonzalez 0:13

Then it started to other memorable wins on the tour other than the big ones I mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Team wise, uh the 99 Ryder Cup was quite uh I don't think I ever had anything that I ever did that I felt like was more of an accomplishment than being part of that team.

Mike Gonzalez 0:33

That was a pretty intense environment too, you were in, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

It was. You know, there was a lot of I don't know how well y'all remember that, but that's where some of the younger guys on the team wanted to be paid to play, and there were several meetings leading up to that that uh were pretty contentious. And um so you know the emotions were running high, let's put it that way. And you know, everybody had talked about how great the team was, and you know, I was I it I'd been long removed from making a team. Uh it'd been 12 years since I'd been on a team, so I was so grateful that I was just able to be there. Yeah. And, you know, set aside, I mean, they I could have paid them to be part of the team instead of them paying me to be part of the team. And I had a different outlook than a lot of the other guys on the team. And you know, it was such a joy for me to be there and to be part of it, and Ben was such a joy to play for, and you know, Bruce and Bill Rogers and Bruce Litzke and what just I mean, that was a fun team to be part of. It was a great rider cop too, wasn't it? Boy, what a finish.

Mike Gonzalez 1:56

Yeah, that was the uh the the battle at uh at Brookline as it came to be known, 1999, when Ben Crenshaw uh famously said those words about having a g a good feeling about this the night before the the Sunday singles. And uh course uh Ben shared with us a little bit about uh how he came to really appreciate the history of the game at Brookline because of Womet and all the things that happened there, and then to have Justin Leonard make that putt on Ollie on that same 17th green that Ben tells all these old stories about was almost made your skin crawl. It was just uh quite special, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yeah, it was. It was uh being part of that team was you know, as a month before Payne got killed in the plane accident. Um just a lot of them you look back, a lot of emotional things happened that week. Um you know, Justin did not play good that week. And um I happened to play really good that week, and uh Jeff Maggart and I were playing together, and Ben come and we were supposed to take Friday afternoon off, and Ben comes to uh our Saturday afternoon off. And Ben came to me and he said, Look, man, he said, uh, we really need y'all to play this afternoon. He said, I was gonna let y'all off. Y'all are playing better than a lot of the other guys, and we need you to play. And I said, Man, put me in, coach. I'm ready. And Jeff Maggart said, I I don't feel like I can play and be ready to play tomorrow. And you know, I couldn't imagine that. Uh, you know, I love Jeff to death, but I can't imagine saying I can't play. And uh so Ben turned to me and he said, Who do you want to play with? And I said, I want you to put me out with pain. I said, He bleeds red, white, and blue. And Ben shook his head and he said, Payne's hitting it everywhere out there right now. And I said, Yeah. But I said, This afternoon is best ball, and he's got to go in there and play that shot, and he'll figure out a way to do it. And Ben looked at me and he said, He said, Hal, he said, Man, you're playing really good. He said, Justin has never won a point. He said, I think you can win him a point. And he said, he needs the confidence to do this. And I said, Well, if that's who you want me to play with, then put us out there. And we were playing Olafabel and uh Jimenez, and I can tell you the Spaniard, Spaniards are harder to beat than anybody because they go down with a ship, I'm telling you. And so anyway, we were one down going into 15, and it was the only hole that I wasn't. I made bogey, and Justin had about a six-footer for a par. I'll never forget this. And Justin hadn't really helped me a shot the whole day. And I said, Justin, I said, if you just make this putt, I'll beat them from here in. I promise you, I'll beat them from here in, but you gotta make this putt. And he hits his putt to a dead duck, it goes all the way around the hole and falls in. And I hung it on the lip on 16 for an ace. And so we squared the match up right there to even, and of course, we've got the T going into 17, and both of us drove it right down the middle of the fairway. And I, you know, Olathoble hits it way right. I mean, uh uh Jimenez does, and Olathoble hits this kind of snappy hook out there, and they're both in the rough. And so Justin's running off the T, and I'm hollering at Justin, Justin, just a minute, just a minute. And I had to run up there to catch him, he won't stop, you know. And I run up there and I said, Hey, look, man. I said, I just I see the stage set. And he said, What are you talking about? I said, You're one of the best wedge players in the world. Pump him up. I said, game on, this is your hole right here. Best wedge player in the world. I was a day off. The next day was, the stage was set for the next day. On 17.

Mike Gonzalez 5:58

We hope you've enjoyed this short track of For the Good of the Game. And please, wherever you listen to your podcast on Apple and Spotify, if you like what you hear, please subscribe, spread the word, and tell your friends until we tee it up again for the good of the game. So long, everybody.

Lee Trevino 6:22

It went smack down the fairway. As long as you're still in the stage, okay. When it's down the middle file.