2022 January Memorabilia Auction - Closing Date 02/06/2022
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/6/2022
Champion Hal Sutton's PING Gold Plated PAL Putter for 1985 Southwest Classic Win
PING founder Karsten Solheim came up with the gold putter program. In search of a way to commemorate every victory with a PING putter, Solheim started giving out gold-plated putters in the 1970's that were built to the exact specs of the winner's model. One putter is built for the champion while the other is placed inside the PING vault in Phoenix, AZ. These artifacts seldom make it to market. Here is Hal Sutton's Personal Gold Plated PAL Putter for 1985 Southwest Classic Win. A signed letter of provenance from Hal Sutton comes with this lot. 35"
The Hal Sutton Collection
Hal Sutton's golf game flourished while growing up in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. In fact the highly touted amateur golfer chose to stay closeby after high school and went to local Centenary College. It wouldn't take much time for the All American to put his school and town on the national golfing map when he received 'Golf Magazine's 1980 College Player of the Year' after 14 victories and lifting the small liberal arts school to 9th in the Nation. Unsurprisingly Hal Sutton would find great success at the professional level, notching 14 PGA Tour victories between 1982 and 2001. The 1983 season was a one for Sutton, earning PGA Tour Player of the Year honors as the leading money winner and the new accolade of 'major champion.' Sports Illustrated's golf writer Dan Jenkins' emphatically recapped his 1983 PGA Championship triumph with "There's a New Bear on the Loose - Hal Sutton Put a Death Grip on the PGA Championship To Stop a Classic Jack Nicklaus Charge." This came only months after his The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass win. Representing his country became a common role Sutton found himself in, as a 4-time Ryder Cup player in 1985, 1987, 1999, and 2002, before being chosen as the Ryder Cup Captain in 2004. He was a victorious Walker Cup team member in 1979 and 1981. <br><br>After playing two decades on the tour Hal began to shift his attention to philanthropy, with that soon becoming a main focus. This didn't go unnoticed in the golfing community and Sutton was the 2007 Payne Stewart Award recipient. He would raise more than $2 million with fellow Louisiana natives David Toms and Kelly Gibson for Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims. The Golf Auction has been very appreciative of the opportunity to offer some of Hal's Collection, including his 1998 TOUR Championship Calamity Jane Trophy, Gold Plated Scotty Cameron Putter for 2000 Players Win and all four of his 2000 Players Championship winning scorecards when it was "The Right Club."
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