ESPN.com - Golf Online - Presidents Cup 2000 - Frozen moment: Sutton catches fire

By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Saturday, October 21

LAKE MANASSAS, Va. -- Hal Sutton has assumed the title of speech maker and chief motivator for the U.S. team at the Presidents Cup.

And according to his teammates, he's running out of new material.


	Hal Sutton had the first pumping early and often on Saturday.

"He keeps saying that we need to get off to a great start," Davis Love III said. "He's said the same thing every day since we've been here."

On Saturday, Sutton took his own advice. Teamed with Jim Furyk in the opening best-ball match against the International team's Greg Norman and Michael Campbell, Sutton birdied the first three holes and four of the first five to build a 3-up lead.

Then he turned things over to Furyk, who birdied five of the final seven holes -- including the last four -- to give the U.S. its first point on what would turn into a huge American day, nearly salting away the Presidents Cup. The U.S. leads 14-6 with just 12 points to be decided in Sunday singles.

Furyk and Sutton had plenty to do with that. They made nine birdies in 13 holes to bury Norman and Campbell, who didn't play that badly. Norman, in fact, made three birdies on the front side -- and couldn't pick up a hole.

"You want to get that first match off to a good start, a commanding lead, and send the message to the rest of the core that we're up here battling our guts out, so let's all get in this and battle," said Sutton. "I made the statement, 'We're going to start the fire and everybody else is going to throw some gasoline on it as you come by.' "

Sutton certainly came out smoking Saturday.

He birdied the 405-yard first hole, the 420-yard second hole and the 455-yard third, all with putts of less than eight feet. He also birdied the par-5 fifth, but Norman matched him on the third and fifth holes.

Still, the message had been delivered.

"We were both hitting really good quality shots, and they didn't know whether it was going to be me or Jim that was going to hit them," Sutton said. "We were both right there. And that's the key because there's always less pressure on the other guy. One guy's got par, the other has free wheel at a birdie."

The rest of the American squad followed suit and got off to quick starts:

Tom Lehman and Phil Mickelson jumped to a lead at the third hole and were 3-up after five. They held on to win 2 and 1.

Davis Love III and David Duval birdied the first hole and, despite a tight struggle with Ernie Els and Nick Price, they never trailed before winning 3 and 2.

Kirk Triplett and Stewart Cink birdied the first hole and never trailed by more than 1-up on the way to their third consecutive victory.

Even Tiger Woods and Notah Begay III, the only American team to lose Saturday, led through five holes.

With the International team determined to get off to a good start -- to put some "blue flags" on the scoreboard, as Norman put it -- it was dispiriting. Instead of getting back into the match, the Internationals were left to try to eke out a win. They didn't get it until Retief Goosen holed a birdie putt on the 17th hole in the growing darkness, avoiding a whitewash.

"That first pair (Sutton and Furyk) were 7-under when the game finished," said International captain Peter Thomson. "That's pretty hard to match."

"We wanted to win three (matches)," Love said. "Getting that first one sure made it a lot easier."

Sutton couldn't have said it better himself.