59! Furyk runs the table at Conway

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Friday, September 13, 2013

    It was just after Jim Furyk marked his approach shot on the ninth green at Conway Farms Golf Club, his 18th hole of the day. He was about three feet from the cup – and a share of golf history.
    Make it, and he scores a 59.
    Then the voice rang out.
    “Jimmy, I’ll give it to you!” said the South Side-accented man.
    The crowd cheered. Furyk waved at him. Then, after Jason Dufner and Gary Woodland had holed their putts, neither of them more than six feet, Furyk stepped up and the crowd stilled itself.
    Center cut. Fifty-nine!
    The man who first broke the barrier of 63 in the Western Open / BMW Championship with a 62 at Bellerive Country Club in 2008 had scored golf’s magic number, the sixth person to do so in PGA Tour competition.
    And with a bogey on his card. Al Geiberger, David Duval, Paul Goydos, Chip Beck and Stuart Appleby all had bogey-free rounds en route to their 59s.
    The 59, 12 under Conway Farms’ card of 71, is the greatest round of golf ever shot in Chicago, standing above the 62 scored by Ben Hogan at Ridgemoor in the Hale America National Open of 1941, the 62 Tiger Woods put on the board at Dubsdread during the 2009 Western / BMW, and any other low number from the history books.
    This one goes in the frame above the fireplace.
    Furyk did it the hard way, that bogey coming on his 14th hole of the day. Now he needed to birdie two of the last four holes. And he did it, a rally consisting of a routine par, a birdie and an up-and-down par on the par-5 eighth before the final drama at the ninth hole.
    He hammered a drive 281 yards down the right side of the fairway, with 103 yards left to a flag waving tantalizingly from the front left of the green.
    “I knew the pin was in a benign spot,” Furyk said.
    For Furyk, 103 yards left is a “smooth” gap wedge. He struck it purely. The crowd was roaring when it was halfway to the green, and got even louder when it hit about seven feet behind the cup and spun toward the hole. ShotLink measured it at 3 feet 3 inches. Furyk thought it a little under three feet. The gallery? Measured in decibels.
    “I noticed how many people came out to watch,” Furyk said.
    They were four deep on the right side of the green where almost nobody had stood for two days, and filled the ground and grandstands, including the back of the grandstand at 18, where Tiger Woods was finishing at about the same time. Everyone wanted to see history.
    Everyone did. He didn’t need the gimme from the fan. Furyk poured it in. He pumped his right fist several times. He doffed his cap and waved. He soaked it in.
    “It reminded me of the putt to win the FedEx Cup (in 2010),” Furyk said. “I always try to daw on times when I’ve done something well. Hell, I knocked that one in. I thought, ‘Left-center and let’s see what happens.’ I don’t remember really even striking the putt or what it felt like when it left the putter or anything. It went in the middle, I believe.”
    It did. And then into his right pants pocket. Furyk signed his glove for the World Golf Hall of Fame after signing his card, then signed some balls for those who walked with him, scorers, standard bearer and the like, but not the last ball of the round, the 59 ball.
    “That’s the one that went in on 9, and it’s staying with me,” Furyk said, holding it up. “I’ve got a place for those at home.”
    The path to that trophy case was fascinating. Furyk scored 1-over-par 72 on Thursday and stood nine strokes behind leader Brandt Snedeker at daybreak. Now, after his 59 and Snedeker’s ho-hum 68, they’re tied for the lead. (Oh, by the way, there is a golf tournament going on, and those two lads will play together in the last pairing at 12:50 p.m. Saturday.)
    Furyk started on 10 and birdied his first three holes, the longest putt a 9-footer on No. 10. He his his third shot on the par-5 14th to three feet and sank that. He holed out from 115 yards with a 9-iron on the par-4 15th, the eagle making him 6-under for the day in as many holes.
    “I knew the pin was only cut about five from the right edge there and really I watched the gallery,” Furyk said. “They started standing up and the arms went up and that’s how I knew it went in.”
    The game was afoot. A birdie on 17 – his second 2 of the round – and another on 18 brought him in with a 7-under-par 28 on Conway’s back nine. He had done that before, during his 62 at Bellerive five years ago, but didn’t recall it.
    “I’ve never shot 28 before to start with,” Furyk said. “It kind of dawned on me at the turn that it would only – only is a tough way to say it – it only takes 4-under on the (par 35) front to break the barrier of 60.
    “The way I played it out in my head was, the back nine was over,” Furyk said. “I was just going to play the front nine and shoot as low as I could. I was trying to take the nerves out of it. Heck, I’ve shot 4-under on nine holes probably 100 times in my career. Probably even more.”
    Furyk than ran down birdie putts of 13, 26 and 5 feet on the second, third and fourth holes to reach 11-under for the day and 10-under for the championship. He was chasing history and close to catching Snedeker.
    Then came the fifth hole, the lonely hole near the railroad tracks where the gallery rarely ventures. And where Furyk, after hitting the back of the green – he missed only the 16th, and hit all 14 available fairways – three-putted. Bogey.
    “A little bit of a blip,” he put it. “Shoulda made the first putt (from 29 feet). That pin was tough and icy.”
    His par-saver lipped out on the low side. So he was 10-under for the day. Four pars equaled a 61. But there were birdie chances ahead, notably the par-5 eighth and the par-4 ninth.
    But he birdied the par-4 seventh, hammering a gap wedge to 11 feet from 126 yards in the middle of the fairway.
    “Seeing that putt go in was a big help mentally, knowing I figured eight was going to be reachable (in two) and 9 was going to be a short iron,” Furyk said.
    His approach on the eighth landed on the grassy edge of the big sod-faced bunker in front of the green, with the cup directly behind. He rapped the ball up and out to the back of the green and two-putted for par, and wasn’t happy.
    “I was bummed that I didn’t do it on No. 8, but was excited about the opportunity on No. 9 after I drove it down the middle,” Furyk said.
    Golf fans are an interesting breed. They root for birdies even when it’s not their favorite. Jim Furyk has been a Chicago favorite ever since he won the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields. He doubled up with a victory in the 2005 Western Open at Cog Hill. His fans agonized with him and the rest of the American team when his putts didn’t fall down the stretch at last year’s Ryder Cup at Medinah.
    Now here he was in the right center of the fairway, 103 yards from golf’s version of perfection – even with a bogey. Everyone was in his corner, and everyone let loose when, first, his approach covered the flag all the way, and second, when it disappeared into the cup.
    “Not many cities have treated me this well,” Furyk said.
    Not many players have accomplished what he has. No other scorer of a 59 has a U.S. Open title on his resume. Of the other five worthies, only Geiberger and Duval have won majors, a PGA and British Open respectively. None of them have won a Western Open, and Furyk now is in great position to win a second – this time under the BMW moniker.
    With the best round of a splendid career, he was the dominant player of the round, and by a wide margin. Furyk’s 59 was six shots better than the next-best score of the day, the 6-under 65s registered by Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker. And it was a dozen strokes ahead of the average of 71.086 turned in by the 70-player field.
    That’s how brilliant Furyk was on Friday at Conway Farms. Eleven birdies, an eagle, five pars and that bogey, just for laughs.
    “I always scratch my head and try to figure out how you get to 59,” Furyk said.
    Now he knows. Now we all know.

    Tiger, meet Sergio; Sergio, say hello to Tiger

    Maybe it was golf karma. Maybe it was negligence or stupidity.
    But Tiger Woods’ mistake on the first hole on Friday morning dropped him into a pairing with Sergio Garcia thanks to a two-stroke penalty administered late in the afternoon.
    Woods his his approach on the first hole into the wood chips under bushes behind the green. He moved one little twig, but when he touched another, his ball moved. He said nothing about it, but the movement was captured by a PGA Tour Entertainment video crew. When someone at PGA Tour Productions saw it, they forwarded it to the rules officials here, and Woods was questioned after his round.
    He said the ball had oscillated, and perhaps it had from his angle, looking down, but from the side angle on video, it was obvious the ball moved downward.
    Said PGA Tour rules official Slugger White, “He knew there was movement there, but he was very adamant that it oscillated, it stayed there. The ball did, in fact, move.
    “In that situation, had he put the ball back, it would have been a one-stroke penalty. He didn’t, so he gets a two-stroke penalty.”
    Woods made a hash of the hole anyway, dubbing the chip and making double-bogey. The penalty turned it into a quadruple-bogey 8, a snowman, and landed him at 1-over 72 for the day and at 4-under 138 for 36 holes. That’s where Sergio Garcia stood.
    And guess who are paired together for Saturday’s third round. Yep, Woods and the guy who made the “fried chicken” crack in Woods’ direction earlier this year.
    Instead of a starter at the first tee, maybe they need a bell and a girl in a skimpy outfit holding up a “Round 3” card when the two protagonists step into the ring for their 11:50 a.m. tee time.

    Around Conway Farms

    Don’t look now, but Winfield native Kevin Streelman is tied for fourth a 6-under 136 after adding a 70 to Thursday’s 66. He goes off with Jordan Spieth, whose quiet 65 on Friday was a six-stroke improvement on his opening round, at 12:30 p.m. ... Zach Watney (69 for 136) and Zach Johnson (70 for 134) are in the penultimate twosome, at 12:40 p.m. ... Defending champion Rory McIlroy is lucky there’s no cut in the 70-player field. He added a 77 to Thursday’s 78 and stands at 13-over 155 entering Saturday’s third round. That’s his highest score on the PGA Tour after 36 holes. He and Charley Hoffman are the dew-sweepers at 7:25 a.m. ... Along with the six 59s in PGA Tour history, there have been 28 60s scored by 28 players in Tour history. Two 59s have been scored on the web.com Tour this year. ... Even with all the low rounds, the scoring average each day has been over the par of 71. Patrick Reed’s 78 was Friday’s high round, followed by the 77s of McIlroy and Ken Duke.

    – Tim Cronin