Sweat streamed down Hal Sutton's face and stained his shirt Monday as he pounded balls on the practice range, trying to shake the rust from a game that has been relatively dormant the past month.

This is not the time to be catching up.

The PGA Championship starts Thursday, the final major of the season. Of greater interest to the 43-year-old Sutton is finding his form in time for the Ryder Cup next month in what likely will be his final appearance.

"Every morning I wake up, I feel like I've just run a marathon," he said.

There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with age.

Sutton learned last month that he is suffering from sleep apnea, a disorder that causes him to stop breathing while he sleeps.

"I never get rest when I go to sleep," he said. "I sleep a long time, but it's not a good sleep. The way the doctors explained it, the brain sends a message to the heart to beat more because it's not getting enough oxygen. The heart beats faster and it wakes you up."

Sutton said he wakes up about 30 times an hour for a slight second.

"It's like switching stages of sleep," he said.

Over the past year, Sutton has battled soreness in his ankle, his hip and his back. The rest of his body is doing fine. Now all he needs is rest.

"When I talked to him before the British Open, he thought it was just his stomach or heartburn," Ryder Cup captain Curtis Strange said. "My brother-in-law has sleep apnea. That can be some serious stuff."

Sutton didn't make the trip to Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He took five weeks off, returning to the PGA Tour last week at the Buick Open, where he missed the cut for the first time this year.

A Ryder Cup star at Brookline two years ago when he went 3-1-1, some wonder whether Sutton will actually be a liability at The Belfry.

Mention of this only caused Sutton to purse his lips.

"People have got to have something to talk about," he said. "If I was worried about that bull, I'd be worried all the time."

He is using a breathing machine to help him sleep through the night, although the apparatus feels awkward. Sutton, who already resurrected his career once, is willing to do what it takes.

That's why he showed up at Atlanta Athletic Club two days early to work on a game that will have to negotiate the 7,213-yard, par-70 Highlands Course.

During a practice round Sunday, he belted a drive and still needed a strong 3-iron just to clear the water in front of the 18th, a 490-yard hole that is the longest par 4 in PGA Championship history.

"All the things they're doing now plays into the hands of the big hitters," he said. "They took the field size from 150 to 25. There's only 25 people in this tournament that can win."

Then again, the last time Sutton didn't like the way a course was set up was for the Tour Championship in 1998 across town at East Lake Golf Club. He wound up beating Vijay Singh in a sudden-death playoff.

A victory this week would set a record - no one has ever gone 18 years between his first and second major championship.

Sutton won the PGA Championship at Riviera in 1983, a wire-to-wire victory over Jack Nicklaus that made him one of several heirs apparent to the Golden Bear.

It never worked out that way.

Sutton became too concerned with everyone else's expectations, tinkered with his swing and went into a free fall that nearly drove him from the game. But he scratched his way back, and now commands respect with his words and his game.

He beat Tiger Woods head-to-head in The Players Championship last year, and his victory in Houston four months ago was his sixth on the PGA Tour since turning 40, tying him for fifth with Ben Hogan, Tom Kite and Greg Norman.

If Sutton feels as though he has had two careers in golf, a recent phone call from Strange only drove home the point.

"Curtis called me the other day and said, 'Have you ever played the Belfry?' I said, 'Yes, Curtis. I was on the same team as you in 1985,"' Sutton said. "In 1985, I never though about being on the team that would be going back there in 2001."

Whether Sutton goes back to The Belfry at the top of his game remains to be seen. His passion won't be questioned.

"I want Hal to be Hal. And those who know him know what I mean," Strange said. "He's evolved into a rock. People listen to him and respect him when he opens his mouth, but he's usually worth listening to."

Email this page to a friend