We Know What You Did Last Summer

Jim Furyk breaks through to become a major winner who knows the value of life outside the game

calm, cool and collected, furyk relaxes on the beach

Photo: Ben Van Hook

By John Hawkins

Photo By Ben Van Hook

February 2004

That homemade backswing is as loopy as Jim Furyk gets. Who better to repel the advances of a topless woman while chugging toward his first major title, which Furyk did during the final round of last year's U.S. Open? The man is all business, an old-school disciple who absorbed the virtues of hard work and toughness from his father, Mike, a former western Pennsylvania club pro and Tommy Armour sales rep.

Dad was the one who heard all the snickers about his kid's funky action over the golf ball. Nine PGA Tour victories and $19 million later, Jim Furyk has choreographed a path to stardom, blessed not with Tiger Woods' physical arsenal or Phil Mickelson's flair but with one of the game's most reliable toolboxes.

Although Furyk has gone so far as to pluck hecklers out of the gallery during practice rounds, distractions that might have sidetracked weaker minds have done little to slow his climb into the top five in golf's World Ranking. A turbulent partnership with caddie Steve Duplantis ended in 1999, when Furyk hired Mike (Fluff) Cowan, who had worked for Woods. In 2000, just before the Tour Championship, Furyk injured his wrist while trying to be a defensive back in a stadium parking lot after watching his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers. Then, in early 2002, Furyk awoke one morning dizzy with a severe case of vertigo that troubled him for months. It wasn't until he rallied past Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Mickelson to win the Memorial later that spring that Furyk felt 100 percent recovered.

At various stages during his 2003 breakthrough season, Furyk, 33, met with us to discuss all of the above, and why winning a major isn't about to turn him into something he's not.

Golf Digest: When we started these sessions a few days after your U.S. Open victory, you said that on a scale of 1 to 10, the impact of a major title on your life was no higher than a 4. Are you gonna stick with that?
Jim Furyk: I probably had a hundred people tell me things were going to change dramatically after winning a major championship, and I'm still not sure what they meant. There's a little more of a demand on my time, a little more opportunity to play in foreign events, a little more endorsement interest. Don't get me wrong — winning a major was, by far, the one achievement that changed my career in terms of how other people perceive me, but I wouldn't call it a life-changing experience. Having a child is a life-changing experience. Having a relative pass away, somebody getting ill — those things change your life more than winning a golf tournament.

During the Open a streaker visited you on the 11th green during the final round. Your lead was four strokes over playing partner Stephen Leaney. How much of a distraction was all that?
Not the least bit. I had a 25-footer for birdie and Leaney had a six-footer for par. I rolled my putt about eight inches past the hole and I heard somebody say, "You've got to be kidding." I see she's got two roses, and I'm thinking one of them is for Stephen. Meanwhile, he's got six feet left for par, and it's a very big putt. He had to stand around two or three minutes while everybody got settled down. He missed it and I tapped in, so for me, it wasn't a nuisance at all.

Is that the weirdest thing that has happened to you on a golf course?
I would hope so.

How does [wife] Tabitha react when someone in the gallery, not realizing who she is, makes a critical remark about you?
I've heard some things people have said, and I'm sure there are incidents she never tells me about. A few have [ticked] her off to the point where she's responded. When we've talked about it, I tell her she has to shake it off. There will always be critics; it's another thing you have to deal with.

My favorite is when you hear someone say, "I can hit that shot." I've pulled people out of the crowd. I remember a practice round at the British Open with [Steve] Stricker and [Lee] Janzen. Stricker's ball and mine were in the same area off the green. Stricker went first and hit his chip shot to eight feet. I got over mine and somebody said, "I can hit one better than that." So I told my caddie to throw me a ball. I handed the guy my wedge and said, "Let's see what you've got."

Let me guess: He holed it.
He laid the sod over it.

Couldn't handle the pressure.
Another time I was practicing bunker shots to a tight pin. I left the first one short in the rough and somebody watching goes, "Chunk!" I did the same thing with my second, and he said it again. The third one had a bunch of spin and stopped about six or eight feet from the hole, which is about as good as I could do. "Not bad," he said. So I asked him what he thought of the first two. He said I chunked them, so I handed him my club and gave him a try. He moved it about six inches, max.

How about when people joke about your swing? David Feherty once said it looks like an "octopus falling out of a tree." How'd you feel about that?
I find it funny. I like David — he could almost do stand-up comedy if he wanted. If you can't laugh at yourself, you can't have much fun. My relatives are Ukrainian, Hungarian, Czech and Polish. I get a kick out of Polish jokes, too.