CHASKA, Minn. — Winning the PGA Championship last year raised David Toms' profile, even beyond the golf course.

But he's not entirely comfortable with his fame, especially with what happened in the Dallas airport two weeks ago.

Toms was going up an escalator and a man wearing a fishing cap was on his way down.

"I could tell he was staring at me," Toms said. "When somebody is doing that, I look the other way or reach down and grab my phone like I'm talking or something because it makes me uncomfortable."

He got to the top, walked down eight gates and stopped to look at a newspaper when he noticed the same man was right next to him, still gawking.

"Finally, I said, 'Is there something you want to say?' And he said, 'You're my favorite player. I can't believe I'm actually meeting you.' Stuff like that freaks me out because I'm just a normal person," Toms said.

He signed the man's cap and a picture Toms had in his briefcase.

"You could tell it made his day, so it made me feel good, also," Toms said. "Little things like that, there's no way I ever thought that would ever happen to me. It's been fun."

ACROSS THE BORDER: Tom Lehman and a few other Minnesotans have hogged most of the local-boys-gone-big stories this week, but Wisconsin is represented in the tournament, too. Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly are both from the Madison area.

Stricker left about 15 tickets for friends and family.

"It feels like home," he said. "It's the same type of scenery and the courses in Madison are real similar to the ones out here."

COLLEGE CONNECTION: Three of the top 11 players from the NCAA Championship played at Hazeltine in 1999 are in the field for the PGA Championship. Paul Casey was fourth, Charles Howell III was fifth and Adam Scott was 11th. The NCAA winner that year, Luke Donald, didn't qualify.

DEFENDING HAL: Postponing the Ryder Cup matches for a year has created much speculation on how many players are on top of their games.

Inevitably, the questions are about Hal Sutton.

The star of the U.S. victory at Brookline three years ago, the 44-year-old Sutton has been dealing with nagging back pain and sleep apnea, a disorder that causes him to wake up constantly through the night.

Sutton is 140th on the PGA Tour money list, courtesy of missing 14 cuts and not playing the weekend since the Buick Classic in early June.

U.S. captain Curtis Strange quickly rose to Sutton's defense Wednesday.

"I think we bring up his name in a negative connotation a little bit too much," Strange said. "I think he's going to be fine. Hal Sutton's game never gets so far off because he's a good striker of the ball."

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BEACH BUM: Curtis Strange is sporting a goatee this week, which he attributes to having spent time on the beach the last three weeks.

He also has a chipped front tooth, which he's had the past couple of years. He usually has it crowned, but "it breaks every time I bite into a fishing line."

TOP PRIZE: Total prize money for the PGA Championship has gone up by $300,000 this year to $5.5 million, with $990,000 for the winner.

The PGA Championship is the only major in which the first-place check does not have seven digits. Tiger Woods won $1,008,000 at the Masters and $1 million at the U.S. Open, while Ernie Els won about $1.1 million at the British Open.

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