By Bob Harig
Special to ESPN Golf Online
Sunday, March 26

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- This is exactly where Hal Sutton wanted to be, on the first tee Sunday with a chance to go head-to-head with Tiger Woods.

	Hal Sutton's lead went from four strokes to one on No. 17.

He couldn't quite understand all the Tiger worshipping among his peers, the high praise and lack of fortitude. At some point, Sutton figured, somebody has to simply stand up to him.

Now he has that chance.

Sutton and Woods will be paired together in the final group, separated by one shot with one round to go in the $6 million Players Championship.

Other than the triple-bogey he made at the par-3 17th, Sutton could not have asked for a better scenario.

In fact, it was Sutton on the eve of the tournament who questioned his peers for continually glorifying Woods at their own expense.

"By praising Tiger all the time, I don't know what it is doing for Tiger, but it's certainly putting a defeatist attitude in the guy who is doing all the praising all the time," Sutton said. "I don't know how it's affecting Tiger. ... I think you have to have confidence that you can beat him.

"If you are going to praise him all the time and his game is superior to everybody's you have ever seen in your life, well, it doesn't matter how good yours is. You have just said he is better than you."

For most of Saturday afternoon, Sutton continually met the challenge. When Woods birdied four of the first six holes, Sutton responded with birdies at Nos. 5, 6 and 7. Until the 17th hole, he had not made a bogey since his ninth hole on Friday.

"I knew Tiger was playing well today," Sutton said. "I mean, it was obvious. You see his name on the board. I was trying to answer everything he did. I am not going to roll over and play dead, I will tell you that. You'll can figure a way for me to do that, but I am going to figure out every way not to."

Perhaps Sutton was still steaming about the 9-iron shot that bounded over the green into the water at the island-green 17th. But as the questions about Woods persisted, the veteran who has 11 PGA Tour titles, including the 1983 PGA Championship, kept a firm upper lip.

"There is no winning in this conversation, is there?" Sutton said. "You know, the point is that you have got the best player in the world right there on my tail. Now that doesn't mean he is going to win. Even though everybody else in the world is trying to figure out a way for him to go ahead and do it.

"I don't have to make any other points. The only point I really want to make is driving it in the fairway on the first tee. I will start trying to make my points after that."

Woods, 24, who has won three of the six PGA Tour events in which he has played this year and 18 in less than four full seasons, shot his first round in the 60s in 15 tries at the TPC at Sawgrass.

"This is what I play golf for, to be paired in The Players Championship with the greatest player in the world," said Sutton, 41, who won this event in 1983 when Woods was 7 years old. "He is ranked No. 1 in the world. I don't want to start anything, but he is one shot down right now.

"Tiger is a great player, but as I have said many times this week, I can't do anything with Tiger. All I can do something with is Hal Sutton."