Hal Sutton is on the phone from Columbus, Texas, where he and a business partner are in the process of building a golf course – Darmor Club – and the sound of heavy machinery can be heard behind Sutton.
The course is a nod to golden age designers C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, and Sutton is more than a consultant. He’s a boots-in-the-south-Texas-dirt part of what is coming to life 30 miles west of Houston.
“We’re actually building the double-plateau green right now,” Sutton said, the sound of metal clanking in the distance. “We’ve done a biarritz, a cape hole, a redan.
“I love it. I love creating. I love taking a raw piece of land and turning it into something. I’m a big believer you have to be here all the time to create something special.
“I live here. I’m here every day. I told my friend this is a journey, and it’s not like building a house with two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, we’re moving dirt. It’s a living, breathing deal, daily.”
This is not Sutton’s first venture into course design. His Boot Ranch in Fredericksburg, Texas, was recently ranked among the top 30 residential courses in the country by a national publication.
Course construction at Darmor will be complete in August, and the finished product, including a clubhouse, is scheduled to debut in March 2024.
At age 64 with two new hips and a new knee, Sutton has a golf academy and his course work to keep him busy. Sutton’s playing career produced 14 PGA Tour wins, including the 1983 PGA Championship and Players titles in 1983 and 2000. A former U.S. Amateur champion, Sutton was the PGA Tour player of the year in 1983 and earned the prestigious Payne Stewart Award in 2007.
Sutton doesn’t play much golf these days.
“I can’t do what I used to do,” he said. “My brain still thinks it can, but my body said I can’t do it. It’s hard to live with mediocrity after being at such a high level, but my goal is to play more.”
It’s been 23 years since Sutton stamped his place not just in Players Championship history but in golf’s universal lexicon when he stung a 6-iron into the 18th green at the Stadium Course, his beseeching words captured forever on video.
“Be the right club. … Be the right club, today,” Sutton said.
It was, and the swing allowed Sutton to beat Tiger Woods – who had won 10 of his previous 16 starts – by one stroke in a Monday morning finish that endures 23 years later.
To fully appreciate what Sutton did in 2000, it’s worth revisiting what he did 17 years earlier. He was a 24-year-old emerging superstar, painted in the image of Jack Nicklaus after his amateur success.
“Walking from 16 green to 17 tee, that’s an iconic area there. “People are enthusiastic about what they are seeing. Tiger had just made an eagle and they’re saying, ‘Oh here he comes; here comes Tiger.’ I didn’t want that to be disturbing. I had planned on that happening.” – Hal Sutton
Sutton had one tournament victory, then rolled into the Stadium Course, which had debuted one year earlier, and punctuated his Players victory by hitting his tee shot on the watery par-3 17th to within 3 feet on Sunday, tempting fate but trusting himself.
So much had changed by 2000. Woods was three months away from beginning the Tiger Slam, and he was a force unlike any that professional golf had ever seen. Still, Woods found himself trailing Sutton after 54 holes.
“I was a much better player the second time I won in terms of mental approach,” Sutton said. “I was probably better physically when I won it the first time. It doesn’t take both of them sometimes. I tell kids all the time you’re too busy trying to be perfect and overlooking things. After you have been out there a while, you realize what you need and don’t need and how you change your expectation. I knew how to play from point A to point B a lot better.”
Sutton started the final round one stroke in front of Woods and understood what he was up against. His goal was to keep his tee shots in the fairway and, hitting first into almost every green, he wanted to keep the pressure on Woods by giving himself makeable birdie putts.
On Sunday evening after a rainout, Sutton had thought through how the final round might play out. If he could build a three-stroke lead by the time they reached the par-5 16th, Sutton believed he could win. He figured Woods might make an eagle there – he did – and he might make a par – he did.
One stroke ahead with two holes to play.
“Walking from 16 green to 17 tee, that’s an iconic area there,” Sutton said. “People are enthusiastic about what they are seeing. Tiger had just made an eagle and they’re saying, ‘Oh here he comes; here comes Tiger.’ I didn’t want that to be disturbing. I had planned on that happening. He had to play 17 and 18 just like I did. Now let’s just man up and do what we have to do from here in.”
Woods had to scramble to par the 17th, his tee shot barely clearing the water and coming to rest in a small patch of thick rough. Sutton made his 3, and they went to 18 separated by one stroke.
Woods had the honor on 18 and hit his 2-iron stinger into the fairway. Sutton’s tactics changed. He wanted the last shot in, so he pulled driver after hitting a 3-wood off the 18th tee the first three days.
“You can’t be afraid,” Sutton said. “You just have to do it.”
He center-cut his tee shot, taking the left-side water out of play.
With Woods over the 18th green with his approach, Sutton stood over his 6-iron – a Hogan Apex – and took dead aim. Watching his second shot in the air, on its way to landing 15 feet short of the hole, Sutton knew he had made the swing he needed.
“I had never said that in my life,” Sutton said. “It was one of those I knew I had hit exactly like I wanted, and it was headed right at the hole. The only thing that could mess it up was a gust of wind.
“It was just a moment of passion. I didn’t even know I had said it.”
As they walked toward the green, Wood flashed a thumbs up to Sutton.
“Hal has always been a great competitor,” Woods said after his runner-up finish. “Even when he wasn’t playing his best, he was always trying – the only thing you can ask for is to keep trying, to keep grinding it out, keep fighting. That is the way Hal plays.”
The second Players victory felt as if it were in a second career from the first, Sutton said. It wasn’t lost on him whom he had beaten.
“I’m glad I was able to do that, not only for myself but for everybody else,” Sutton said. “Tiger didn’t look like he could be beat. Somebody needed to beat him. I had him at a place I could do it.”
The 6-iron that Sutton hit that day is in his trophy case at home, a reminder of the moment, not that he needs it.
Sutton rarely goes anywhere that someone doesn’t remind him of what he said that Monday morning.
“I go through the airport and people holler it across the concourse,” Sutton said. “They know I’ll look.”
Sutton has a golf course that he needs to finish building. The 6-iron will be waiting for him when he gets home.