We've heard all about Hal
Sutton's mid-career crisis, how he had lost his ball-striking skills in the wilderness
of swing theory and, by going back to basics, found his way. But the most dramatic
element of Sutton's comeback has hardly been noticed: He has gone from having
one of the worst short games on the Tour to having one of the best.
The truth is in the numbers.
The Tour's scrambling stat shows how often a player makes par or better after
missing the green in regulation. Sutton used to be abysmal in this category.
In 1992, the year he hit bottom, he ranked 173rd in scrambling, and he resided
in that neighborhood for the next five seasons. Back then if the thick-limbed
and heavy-handed Sutton had to pull off a finesse shot with a lofted club, forget
about it.
In '98 Sutton began to
improve by quantum leaps, rising to 69th in scrambling. This year, with nearly
half the season over, he leads the Tour in that category, at 70.8%.
The architect of the improvement
is Floyd Horgen, Sutton's college coach at Centenary. Now 63 and a teaching pro
at Riverside Country Club in Bozeman, Mont., Horgen had stayed in contact with
Sutton but was more of a cheerleader than a coach. Finally, in '96, Horgen sent
Sutton an instructional video that addressed the fatal flaw in his full swing:
Sutton was rotating his left forearm counterclockwise during the backswing. As
a result his club face was closed to the target and a normal release produced
a pull hook. Once Sutton understood what had gone wrong, he regained his mantle
as one of the Tour's best from tee to green. But Horgen's cure had an unintended
secondary effect: It solved Sutton's short-game woes.
Even when Sutton was called
the Bear Apparent in the early '80s, his short game had been suspect. By the
early '90s Sutton had such a bad case of the chip yips that he would use his
putter from 10 yards off the green rather than risk chunking or thinning the
ball with a lofted club. "Hal just didn't have the skills, and he was giving
away shots in bunches to the players who did," says Horgen. To close that
gap, Sutton applied Horgen's advice to his short game, eliminating the counterclockwise
forearm rotation in the backswing. That allowed him to leave the face of the
club open going back, get under the ball better and have a more natural release.
He also turned his shoulders more and stopped his lower body from swaying in
the backswing. Soon Sutton began hitting his chips and pitches higher and with
more spin. "I take the weight transfer out of my short shots by hitting
the ball flat-footed," says Sutton. "The bottom of my arc is always
the same spot, so I catch a lot more shots solid."
The puzzle really came
together for Sutton when he added a 60-degree Ping Eye2 L wedge to his bag in
'98. That wedge and his new technique have combined to produce some of the more
memorable moments of Sutton's career. At the '98 Tour Championship he pulled
off a sand save on the 72nd hole that got him into the playoff he won against
Vijay Singh. On the second day of last September's Ryder Cup, Sutton nearly sank
an impossible flop shot from behind the 3rd green to halve the hole. Last month
in Greensboro, N.C., Sutton hit only five greens in regulation in the third round
but got up and down 12 of 13 times to salvage an even-par 72 that kept him in
the lead, which he never relinquished. "Five years ago Hal would've barely
broken 80 hitting five greens," says Horgen. "That round sums up how
far Hal Sutton has come."
