Hal Sutton, the star golfer on the PGA Tour, was selected as the Sugar Bowl’s Outstanding Professional Athlete for Louisiana for 1982. The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee, sponsored by the Sugar Bowl, selects annual award winners in a variety of categories; it also selects the Sugar Bowl Athletes of the Month and each year’s New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame class.
Sutton was the 1980 recipient of the Corbett Award as Louisiana's outstanding amateur athlete for his career at Centenary which included the U. S. Amateur championship that year. Then the Shreveport star decided to try the tour in 1982. Probably even he couldn't have envisioned the success he would have as a rookie.
He set a record for rookies by cashing paychecks totaling $237,434. He won the Walt Disney World Golf Classic, and was named Rookie of the Year.
Sutton's earnings were over 80,000 dollars more than the previous rookie record set by Jerry Pate in 1976. They placed him 11th on the 1982 money list, a spot that was even more significant to Sutton because of the man who trailed him in 12th place, his career idol, Jack Nicklaus.
Sutton has already served notice in 1983 that 1982 was only the beginning of what should be a phenomenal professional career. He earned a record 126,000 dollars in winning the Tournament Players Championship while leading the money list much of the year thus far.
The New Orleans Sports Awards Committee began in 1957 when James Collins spearheaded a group of sports journalists to form a sports awards committee to immortalize local sports history. For 13 years, the committee honored local athletes each month. In 1970, the Sugar Bowl stepped in to sponsor and revitalize the committee, leading to the creation of the New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame in 1971, honoring 10 legends from the Crescent City in its first induction class.
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