Jim Furyk makes transition
PEBBLE BEACH >> Jim Furyk is doing something this week he hasn’t done in 24 years. He’s not playing in U.S. Open. But competing on Pebble Beach Golf Links instead isn’t bad.
Furyk, who with Ernie Els recently turned age 50, is competing in the PURE Insurance Championship this week. It’s a first for the duo who after decades of prominence on the PGA Tour are transitioning to the PGA Tour Champions.
The two former U.S Open winners are newbies on the circuit, joining a generation of not-solong-ago elite PGA Tour players also competing this week from Davis Love III to Fred Couples to Vijay Singh.
“I think I got a really warm reception,” said Furyk, who began his participation on the tour for players at least age 50 with a victory Aug. 2 in The Ally Challenge. “I’ve played with some of the guys for 15 or 20 years of my career.
“I have a lot of good friends who have moved on to the Champions Tour and it’s good to see them. It’s good to get out there and rub elbows with some old friends. I definitely heard ‘rookie’ a lot. And they take their rookie
stuff pretty seriously out here, like in the pro-ams. There’s definitely a pecking order.”
Furyk, whose last of 17 PGA Tour wins was the RBC Heritage in 2015, finished tied for 28th in the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. He won the national championship in 2003 and finished second three times.
Furyk finished second in The Players Championship, one stroke behind Rory McIlroy, last season. He tied for 46th last week at Napa’s Safeway Open, the opening event of the PGA Tour season.
While new to the PGA Tour Champions, Furyk played in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for years, usually to begin his season.
“You’re just dealing with a lot smaller fields,” said Furyk of his one-tournament assessment of the PGA Tour Champions and his play this week. “The golf course is still 7,000 yards; it’s not short by any means. But we are not looking at the 7,500 yards they’re looking at Winged Foot (the U.S. Open host) this week.
“Maybe there’s a little bit more camaraderie out here. When you go to the pace of play in a practice round, it’s significantly quicker. No one would deny practice rounds on the PGA Tour are deathly slow. It’s a miserable day. I’ve positioned myself for nine holes out there because that’s all I can handle.
Furyk will also have a greater commitment to his new playing preference next year.
With his wife Tabitha, the Furyks will host the debut
of the PGA Tour Champions event, the Constellation Furyk and Friends tournament, on Oct. 4-10. Furyk has a long relationship with the title sponsor.
The purse will be $2 million and will be televised by Golf Channel. It will be the first nationwide TV exposure for Timuquana, the Donald Ross-designed course built in Florida in 1923.
“Tabitha and I like to have a good time and we have a lot of friends who like that as well, golf, food, drink and fun, though not in that order,” Furyk said during the event’s media announcement. Golf is probably fourth.”
Furyk, who turned age 50 in May, embraces the changes to his game, just as he does the new tour. His driving average is nearly the same as it was a decade ago. The improvements in equipment have helped maintain his competitiveness.
But he understands as he ages, he will “slide a little.”
Furyk’s play on the PGA Tour waned in recent years. Younger players are driving the ball farther, requiring Furyk to “squeeze everything he can out of his game.”
It’s also helped him decide to play only in select PGA Tour events next season.
“I am pretty sure I am going to be playing more on the Champions Tour and less on the PGA Tour,” Furyk said. “Maybe an 8020 split. That’s the goal right now. I’ll play out the fall on the Champions Tour, see how it goes and make some decisions from there.”