Prior to teeing off in the final round of the US Players Championship, the 41-year-old Ryder Cup player had not talked himself out of winning the richest first prize in the game, a cool $1.08 million (£675,000). “This is what I play golf for, to be paired in the Players Championship with the greatest player in the world,” Sutton said

One thing Hal Sutton made absolutely sure of yesterday. Prior to teeing off in the final round of the US Players Championship, the 41-year-old Ryder Cup player had not talked himself out of winning the richest first prize in the game, a cool $1.08 million (£675,000). “This is what I play golf for, to be paired in the Players Championship with the greatest player in the world,” Sutton said.
With a round to play at the TPC at Sawgrass, Sutton led Tiger Woods by one stroke. But talk of how good Woods is and that only second place is up for grabs when the world No 1 is around gets Sutton’s goat. “I have the best player according to the rankings right on my tail but that doesn’t mean he is going to win,” Sutton said.

“Even though everybody else in the world is figuring out a way for him to go ahead and do it.”I have said all week, Tiger is a great player but I can’t do anything with Tiger All I can do something with is Hal Sutton. The only point I really want to make is driving it in the fairway on the first tee. I will start making my points after that.”Darren Clarke, in winning the World Matchplay in San Diego last month, made a point of being the jovial, chatty Irishman to demystify Tiger’s intensity Sutton is too intense himself to take the same approach “It will probably be business to business. Tiger doesn’t talk a whole lot while he is playing and neither do I We both have work to do.

There is probably going to be some dirtiness in it, you know, like we will have to get down in the dirt and fight a little bit, probably.”When Woods birdied the first to move into a tie, the duel was joined But it proved not to be a spectacular affair. While Sutton ground out the pars, Woods missed the greens at the third and fourth to drop two behind. Whenever Sutton got into trouble, he found a way to get out of it. At the eighth, he was in a spot in a greenside bunker that suggested he would be lucky to keep the ball on the green. Somehow he got it to stop within 12 feet and then holed the putt.Both players found tricky spots in the rough off the 11th green and while Sutton only just made the green, Woods got his ball onto the back tier, six feet from the hole. A pivotal moment in the making, Sutton made sure it went his way by holing his 30-footer up the slope for a birdie-four. Woods, as he had done with all of his birdie chances since the first, missed to fall three behind.As the prospect of a fourth victory in seven starts this season seemed to be receding, Woods got a reprieve, and a chance to regroup, when the siren blew to halt play as the pair played the 12th due to a thunderstorm in the Jacksonville area.Sutton, America’s best player in last year’s Ryder Cup, beat Jack Nicklaus to win the 1983 Players.