Straight Man

After a lackluster 71 in the third round of the inaugural FedEx Cup playoff event, the 2007 Barclays, Furyk was approached by some New York newspaper guys. His answers were short, his mood a bit sour, but neither scribe thought twice about Furyk's demeanor. Furyk headed to the Westchester practice range and hit balls for two hours in the searing August heat, then walked to the media center and apologized to both writers.

"Absolutely flabbergasted," is how one described his own reaction. "Twenty years I've been doing this, and not once has an athlete come in to say he was sorry because he didn't give me his best answers."

So a clown costume? Not a problem. Never mind that it's 90 degrees, or that the photo shoot will take an hour, or that this is the first day of a two-week stretch Furyk will spend away from the tour, or that he's turning 39 tomorrow. He doesn't even need an explanation for the clown theme. Jim Furyk understands. If you need him, he's there. He has been there before, and he'll be there again, although he'd prefer that it be in a U.S. Open than in a Charlie Chaplin costume.

Those Sunday afternoons can get pretty hot. So can those red foam noses.

When furyk invites you to lunch and offers choices of cuisine near his home in northern Florida, the greasy burger joint in Jacksonville Beach sounds like a place where normal folks go for an honest meal. "Tabitha and I used to eat here two or three times a week before we had kids," he says.

Caleigh was born 10 days after Furyk missed the cut at the 2002 U.S. Open, the only time in 14 Open starts that he didn't play the weekend. Some of it had to do with becoming a father. Most of it had to do with Bethpage Black, perhaps the one U.S. Open venue where the middle of the fairway won't help much if you don't hit it far enough.

The last time Furyk shot 80 was seven years ago on the Black, during a second round played in steady rain and temperatures in the high 50s. "It was very tough for me," he says. "With the weather making a hard course that much longer, the tournament was basically dominated by three really good players, three really long players: Tiger, Phil and Sergio [Garcia]. Obviously, I'd like to see it play firm and fast this time."

Obviously. If you were to list the top 20 players of this generation, none drive the ball shorter or straighter than Furyk. His average rank in driving distance over the last nine full seasons is 161st, his average accuracy rank 12th. Forget the numbers on any U.S. Open scorecard. Once you get past 7,000 yards, everything is long. What makes Bethpage unique, which in this case means exceptionally difficult, is the height of its length—the pronounced elevation changes that affect so many approach shots.

Just two people approach Furyk at lunch, and both stopped by to say hello more than to ask for his autograph or a swing tip. His morning had been spent in a digital recording studio for American Express, one of his corporate sponsors, which had asked Furyk for a hole-by-hole analysis of Bethpage that will be distributed to card members.

The production guys rented the studio for four hours. He was done in half the time. Weather permitting, he will stick around twice as long at Bethpage this time.

He used to be one of those kids on the practice green, back when golf was just a game and lots of teenagers thought they would grow up and make birdies for a living. "He quit football in the ninth grade, then quit baseball the following year," Mike says. "He called his baseball coach the night before cuts and told him he wasn't going to play. The coach asked him why, and Jimmy told him he was going to play on the PGA Tour.

"So the coach says, 'You're not that good a golfer,' and Jimmy says, 'Well, I'm not now, but if I'm going to be, I've got to start practicing.' "

After the loss at Oakmont, Furyk sat next to his locker on the second floor of the clubhouse, the window behind him open, as if the sights and sounds of Angel Cabrera's victory celebration, which had just started, would eventually serve a purpose. Later that summer, on the day Furyk apologized to the writers, he spent the majority of those two hours pounding drivers, one ball after another flying into a section of the range net not more than 10 yards wide.

The driver was working that day, and it will work again because Jim Furyk will keep practicing until he gets it right. On a 97-degree afternoon in the dead of August, whether you are sitting in your car behind a row of bushes or standing next to him, you would notice this is serious business.