This week's Open is a turning point in Tiger Woods' quest to win more majors than Jack Nicklaus.
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- I used to think Tiger Woods would pass Jack Nicklaus' 18 majors like a highway rest stop, but now I'm starting to wonder. He has 14, but he's 34 and aging like the portrait of Dorian Gray. Headlines on TMZ.com and in the London Daily Mail will do worse things to you than whiskey and pork combined.
Most great players don't win majors past 40. Tom Watson stopped at 33. Arnie at 34. Nick Faldo and Greg Norman both stopped at 38. Hogan stopped at 40. The Golden Bear's last major would've been at 40 until all the stars and every planet aligned one last time at Augusta in 1986, when he won his 18th at 46.
"I still think he's got a 90 percent chance to do it," says Steve Stricker. "He's in better shape than Jack was."
But Jack didn't have a left knee like Tiger's. Any orthopedist will tell you that for a joint that's had four surgeries, the question is not IF it's going to get arthritis, it's WHEN.
"That's true," Stricker says. "OK, let's say 80 percent."
If we agree on the 40 thing, that leaves Woods with, more or less, five and a half years left in his prime -- 22 more majors. He's played 52 majors as a pro and won 14 of them, so that's about one in every four.
Twenty-two chances to win five? For the old Tiger, a bunny layup.
For the post-fire-hydrant, porn-star-plagued, gross-national-product-of-Peru-divorce-settling Tiger, a little harder. "I think the odds are more in his favor than not," says Phil Mickelson.
OK, but where will he get the five?
After turning 35 later this year, he's got five more cracks at Augusta, which is his happy place, if you can call a place where you get heckled by banner-towing airplanes happy. He's won four times there in 13 tries -- that's about one in every three -- although none in his past four appearances, his longest streak without somebody handing him a green jacket. Plus, the rest of the field isn't scared of him like it was before. Still, if he gets his life back in bounds, you've got to figure he'll get at least one of those. That leaves four.
He's got five more U.S. Opens in his prime, but no more at Pebble Beach or Torrey Pines, where he's won. And unless he and his driver start speaking to each other again, U.S. Opens to him are what ice caps are becoming to polar bears. There's just not enough room.
The next Open is at Congressional, where he finished T19 as a rookie. The one after that is at Olympic -- T18 last time. Two are at places he's never competed: Merion and Chambers Bay. But he gets one at Pinehurst, where he's come in third and second. That last one, in 2005, he would've won except for the out-of-the-blue, never-to-be-repeated performance of New Zealand's Michael Campbell, who will soon be around to take your drink order. So let's say he gets one of the five. That leaves three.
The next six PGA Championships don't set up well for him at all. Two are at Whistling Straits, the Royal County Down wannabe that will have rough you'll be able to hide a small cow in and is totally wrong for Woods' game right now. When he played there at the 2004 PGA, he finished 24th.
One's at Atlanta Athletic Club, where he finished T29 in 2001, and another's at Oak Hill, where he did even worse in 2003. His best chance will be at Valhalla, where he won by sheer force of will in his Tiger Slam -- anybody remember Bob May?
So maybe he gets one of those. That leaves two.
Which brings us to the nut graph. He's got six more British Opens, including this one at his beloved St. Andrews and probably another here in 2015. That's what makes this British Open so essential for Tiger Woods. Right now, he's stuck in golf and he's stuck in life. St. Andrews can be the defibrillator that kick-starts him.
2013年9月22日
Some golf rules are bunk
US Presswire, AP Photo, Getty Images
Dustin Johnson, Roberto De Vicenzo, and Michelle Wie have all been the victims of dumb golf rules.
Golf is the best game with the stupidest rules ever invented.
It is considered heroic to call violations of these rules on yourself, even when the rules themselves are as dumb as a box of hair.
For instance, Dustin Johnson just lost the PGA Championship (and at least $1 million) for grounding his club harmlessly in a bunker. He made a 5 on that 18th hole at Whistling Straits, putting him in a playoff, only to be told by a man in an oddly colored blazer that he actually made a 7, dropping him to fifth, and out of the playoff. He was rightly bent by it. If he could've stolen two beers and popped the slide, he might've.
Why Whistling Straits calls unkempt, unraked, shaggy pits of sand that spectators have been standing in, sitting in, sleeping in, eating in and smoking in all week bunkers, I'll never know. It's a local rule that makes no sense at a spectator tournament.
Of course, Johnson should've seen the rule posted in the locker room:
"All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked."
Even the ones 50 feet outside the ropes. Fine. His bad.
But Whistling Straits was asking the players to treat these pits like bunkers when the course itself didn't treat them like bunkers. Whistling Straits didn't rake them, and didn't protect them from fans, footprints, strollers, beer cans or napping babies.
The reason you can't ground your club in a bunker is that you might (a) be able to move enough sand to improve your lie and (b) you might be able to "test the surface," i.e. figure out if there's a lot of sand under your ball, not much sand, soft sand, hard sand, rocks, etc. But when a bunker gets treated like a weedy bleacher, with thousands of people clomping through it, it's no longer a bunker, nor should it be played as one. It's not a bunker anymore, it's a dirt path.
Johnson in no way violated the spirit of the grounding-the-club rule. All he did was gingerly set his club behind the ball and swing. No advantage gained. Yes, he was stupid to violate the rule. But Whistling Straits was stupid to make it.
Let me ask you this: How was Johnson even supposed to know he was in a bunker? He's played golf most of his 26 years and never before has he come upon a bunker where a dozen people were standing in it with him. Has it ever happened to you? If Whistling Straits is so intent on playing a slab of trampled sand as a bunker, doesn't it owe it to the players to maintain it like one? Why didn't it have ropes around them if it was expecting players to have to play out of them with such tenderness?
Even the champion's caddy thought it was a joke. "It's a bit farcical," said Scotsman Craig Connelly, the caddy for Martin Kaymer. "You can't have bunkers that people are walking through and grass is growing out of. It is a pathetic ruling to say that was a bunker."
Golf is an ass sometimes.
To wit:
• Ball in a divot in the middle of the fairway. You can't move it. Congrats, you've just been penalized for hitting a fairway. You can get a free drop from ground under repair, a French drain, a staked tree, a man-made obstruction, a fence, a wall and a crane, but you can't get a free drop from some guy who swings like John Henry? It's man-made!
You have five minutes to find a lost ball. You can't have five minutes to find your scorecard and sign it? It takes a tiny mind to think up a rule that small.
• Tapping down a spike mark. Just before you try your 5-foot birdie putt, your 400-pound cousin walks across your line, leaving the Mt. Vesuvius of spike marks. The rules forbid you from flattening it out. Golf should never mean having to hook a 5-foot putt.
• Signing the card. Two summers ago, Michelle Wie turned in her second-place scorecard at the State Farm tournament and forgot to sign it until she'd left "the scoring area." Somebody chased her down and told her and she hurried back to sign it. Too late. She'd already been disqualified. She hadn't left the course, hadn't left the grounds, hadn't even left the clubhouse, but she'd left the roped-off "scoring area" around the scoring tent. Who decides what the "scoring area" is? You have five minutes to find a lost ball. You can't have five minutes to find your scorecard and sign it? It takes a tiny mind to think up a rule that small.
• Signing for a higher score. The famous Roberto De Vicenzo incident at the 1968 Masters. You sign for a higher score, you get that score. Makes absolutely no sense. Does Kobe Bryant have to keep the game score? Does he lose if he gets it wrong? Is math a golf skill?
• Wind. If the wind moves your golf ball and your club was near it, or addressing it, it's counted as a shot. That's not a shot, that's an act of God!
Golf is a gentlemen's game. It's just that the gentlemen who run it -- especially at Whistling Straits last weekend -- have too much damn time on their hands.
Dustin Johnson, Roberto De Vicenzo, and Michelle Wie have all been the victims of dumb golf rules.
Golf is the best game with the stupidest rules ever invented.
It is considered heroic to call violations of these rules on yourself, even when the rules themselves are as dumb as a box of hair.
For instance, Dustin Johnson just lost the PGA Championship (and at least $1 million) for grounding his club harmlessly in a bunker. He made a 5 on that 18th hole at Whistling Straits, putting him in a playoff, only to be told by a man in an oddly colored blazer that he actually made a 7, dropping him to fifth, and out of the playoff. He was rightly bent by it. If he could've stolen two beers and popped the slide, he might've.
Why Whistling Straits calls unkempt, unraked, shaggy pits of sand that spectators have been standing in, sitting in, sleeping in, eating in and smoking in all week bunkers, I'll never know. It's a local rule that makes no sense at a spectator tournament.
Of course, Johnson should've seen the rule posted in the locker room:
"All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked."
Even the ones 50 feet outside the ropes. Fine. His bad.
But Whistling Straits was asking the players to treat these pits like bunkers when the course itself didn't treat them like bunkers. Whistling Straits didn't rake them, and didn't protect them from fans, footprints, strollers, beer cans or napping babies.
The reason you can't ground your club in a bunker is that you might (a) be able to move enough sand to improve your lie and (b) you might be able to "test the surface," i.e. figure out if there's a lot of sand under your ball, not much sand, soft sand, hard sand, rocks, etc. But when a bunker gets treated like a weedy bleacher, with thousands of people clomping through it, it's no longer a bunker, nor should it be played as one. It's not a bunker anymore, it's a dirt path.
Johnson in no way violated the spirit of the grounding-the-club rule. All he did was gingerly set his club behind the ball and swing. No advantage gained. Yes, he was stupid to violate the rule. But Whistling Straits was stupid to make it.
Let me ask you this: How was Johnson even supposed to know he was in a bunker? He's played golf most of his 26 years and never before has he come upon a bunker where a dozen people were standing in it with him. Has it ever happened to you? If Whistling Straits is so intent on playing a slab of trampled sand as a bunker, doesn't it owe it to the players to maintain it like one? Why didn't it have ropes around them if it was expecting players to have to play out of them with such tenderness?
Even the champion's caddy thought it was a joke. "It's a bit farcical," said Scotsman Craig Connelly, the caddy for Martin Kaymer. "You can't have bunkers that people are walking through and grass is growing out of. It is a pathetic ruling to say that was a bunker."
Golf is an ass sometimes.
To wit:
• Ball in a divot in the middle of the fairway. You can't move it. Congrats, you've just been penalized for hitting a fairway. You can get a free drop from ground under repair, a French drain, a staked tree, a man-made obstruction, a fence, a wall and a crane, but you can't get a free drop from some guy who swings like John Henry? It's man-made!
You have five minutes to find a lost ball. You can't have five minutes to find your scorecard and sign it? It takes a tiny mind to think up a rule that small.
• Tapping down a spike mark. Just before you try your 5-foot birdie putt, your 400-pound cousin walks across your line, leaving the Mt. Vesuvius of spike marks. The rules forbid you from flattening it out. Golf should never mean having to hook a 5-foot putt.
• Signing the card. Two summers ago, Michelle Wie turned in her second-place scorecard at the State Farm tournament and forgot to sign it until she'd left "the scoring area." Somebody chased her down and told her and she hurried back to sign it. Too late. She'd already been disqualified. She hadn't left the course, hadn't left the grounds, hadn't even left the clubhouse, but she'd left the roped-off "scoring area" around the scoring tent. Who decides what the "scoring area" is? You have five minutes to find a lost ball. You can't have five minutes to find your scorecard and sign it? It takes a tiny mind to think up a rule that small.
• Signing for a higher score. The famous Roberto De Vicenzo incident at the 1968 Masters. You sign for a higher score, you get that score. Makes absolutely no sense. Does Kobe Bryant have to keep the game score? Does he lose if he gets it wrong? Is math a golf skill?
• Wind. If the wind moves your golf ball and your club was near it, or addressing it, it's counted as a shot. That's not a shot, that's an act of God!
Golf is a gentlemen's game. It's just that the gentlemen who run it -- especially at Whistling Straits last weekend -- have too much damn time on their hands.
Waterlogged in Wales
Andrew Redington/Getty Images
The rain suits of the American Ryder Cup team were soaked through and through on the first day of the 38th Ryder Cup. That certainly was the case for Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar.
NEWPORT, Wales -- The Sun Mountain rain suits the USA team played in Friday at the Ryder Cup were three exits past awful. But they weren't as bad as the Belding bags.
Meant to look like the old leather bags of the 1970s, they repelled water like bags of the 1870s. Exhibit A: Steve Williams, Tiger Woods' caddie, was handed a new towel on the third tee box. He quickly zipped it into the side pouch. By the end of the third hole, it was sopping wet. That's how wet it got in one hole.
Same with the rain suits. I know. I held one of the jackets. It was literally dripping.
Hey, it doesn't say "Rain Mountain."
An hour into the rain delay, all the caddies and players had brand-new rain suits by ProQuip, purchased by the PGA of America from the merchandise tent, at a cost of £350 each (about $550). So now the PGA of America knows how we feel paying those prices.
Better yet, the new ProQuip ones don't have those bush-league names on the back.
"Haven't had my name on my back since peewee football," one player was heard to grumble while walking into the clubhouse during the rain delay.
Wonder what one of those babies would go for on eBay?
This whole team-uniform thing is confining, nonsensical and ruinous. If I were captain, as soon as I had my team, I'd have a list of everything the player wears week to week. I'd call those companies and have them send me a blank version of it -- the shirt, the pants, the rain suit, everything. Then you'd simply have your Ryder Cup staff fill in the USA logos.
By the way, that's what Tiger Woods thinks, too, and apparently has been saying since this Waterworld disaster began.
Why, you ask, hold the Ryder Cup in Wales in October, when the Farmers' Almanac tells you it's going to rain every other day, at least? Because when it was originally awarded to Wales, they were hoping to schedule it for early September. But then the four-week end-of-the-year FedEx Cup playoffs was invented, which pushed it back to October, which meant everybody was stuck.
"This thing might not end until Tuesday," I heard a fan say.
Not possible. It's in the captain's agreements that no hole may be started after sunset Monday. Any match not completed Monday will be considered a halved match and whichever team is leading at that point will be declared the winner.
Unless, of course, both captains agree to call it a draw.
That, of course, won't happen, even if the math works out to a tie. If it's tied, the USA keeps the Cup.
The PGA of America may have picked the world's dumbest rain suits and bags, but they're not that dumb. Are they?
The rain suits of the American Ryder Cup team were soaked through and through on the first day of the 38th Ryder Cup. That certainly was the case for Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar.
NEWPORT, Wales -- The Sun Mountain rain suits the USA team played in Friday at the Ryder Cup were three exits past awful. But they weren't as bad as the Belding bags.
Meant to look like the old leather bags of the 1970s, they repelled water like bags of the 1870s. Exhibit A: Steve Williams, Tiger Woods' caddie, was handed a new towel on the third tee box. He quickly zipped it into the side pouch. By the end of the third hole, it was sopping wet. That's how wet it got in one hole.
Same with the rain suits. I know. I held one of the jackets. It was literally dripping.
Hey, it doesn't say "Rain Mountain."
An hour into the rain delay, all the caddies and players had brand-new rain suits by ProQuip, purchased by the PGA of America from the merchandise tent, at a cost of £350 each (about $550). So now the PGA of America knows how we feel paying those prices.
Better yet, the new ProQuip ones don't have those bush-league names on the back.
"Haven't had my name on my back since peewee football," one player was heard to grumble while walking into the clubhouse during the rain delay.
Wonder what one of those babies would go for on eBay?
This whole team-uniform thing is confining, nonsensical and ruinous. If I were captain, as soon as I had my team, I'd have a list of everything the player wears week to week. I'd call those companies and have them send me a blank version of it -- the shirt, the pants, the rain suit, everything. Then you'd simply have your Ryder Cup staff fill in the USA logos.
By the way, that's what Tiger Woods thinks, too, and apparently has been saying since this Waterworld disaster began.
Why, you ask, hold the Ryder Cup in Wales in October, when the Farmers' Almanac tells you it's going to rain every other day, at least? Because when it was originally awarded to Wales, they were hoping to schedule it for early September. But then the four-week end-of-the-year FedEx Cup playoffs was invented, which pushed it back to October, which meant everybody was stuck.
"This thing might not end until Tuesday," I heard a fan say.
Not possible. It's in the captain's agreements that no hole may be started after sunset Monday. Any match not completed Monday will be considered a halved match and whichever team is leading at that point will be declared the winner.
Unless, of course, both captains agree to call it a draw.
That, of course, won't happen, even if the math works out to a tie. If it's tied, the USA keeps the Cup.
The PGA of America may have picked the world's dumbest rain suits and bags, but they're not that dumb. Are they?
The president of the Hole in One Club
Buzz Jordan at Cherry Hills Country Club with his sons Brooks (in green), Zack, and nieces Kate Jordan Little and Molly Jordan Little.
This is just a little story about friendship and holes-in-one and how death can remind you which is rarer.
It starts with a sports nut named Buzz Jordan, who was practically born at a football game. His mother's water broke at a University of Colorado game but since her husband was the namesake for the team MVP award -- Zack Jordan -- she didn't dare ask to leave.
Maybe that's why, later, one of Buzz's unbreakable rules was "Always stay to the end of the game!" When one particular game ended -- Colorado's 2001 stunner over Nebraska -- Buzz snuck up on CU's 1,300-pound mascot, Ralphie, snipped off some of his hair and kept it in his wallet the rest of his days.
There was also "You gotta learn to fall before you can get up!"
Which is why when Buzz taught you to ski, he pushed you down in the snow first, so you'd learn how to get up on skis. Buzz's goal in life was to match the first two figures of his salary to the number of his ski days in a year.
And of course there was "Call your mother!" Buzz did it religiously. His dad died young and Buzz felt he had a role to fill. In fact, when Buzz turned 18, he had his name legally changed to his dad's -- John Zack Jordan -- out of respect.
Buzz was not just an optimist. He made optimists look like hangmen. He was the kind of guy who's sure the IRS auditor is going to find mistakes in his favor.
Buzz was not just an optimist. He made optimists look like hangmen. He was the kind of guy who's sure the IRS auditor is going to find mistakes in his favor. That's why it figured that he'd convince seven of his childhood buddies to throw in $100 a year for a Hole in One Club. First guy to make an ace got the money. But there was a twist: One of the eight had to be a witness when it happened. Buzz figured that way, they'd all play together more often.
Well, 22 years went by -- from 1988 to 2010 -- and nobody cashed in. Not once. Not only did none of them ever make an ace around each other, only one of them ever made an ace at all.
Not that it mattered. The Hole in One Club stayed so close the guys started holding Hole in One Club tournaments together. They got sponsors and prizes and gave all the money to the American Cancer Society. Held it for 10 years and sent a meaty check every year. And then, in January of this year, cancer got Buzz. Throat and neck. Bad. Which was jarring, since Buzz had always been the fittest of the group. Of course, Buzz wasn't worried. For him, it only forced him to ask the big question, green wig or pink? (Even during chemo, Buzz skied in the green one.)
In fact, Buzz was so sure everything was going to be fine, the group decided to plan a big cure party. They would take all the money -- it was over $15,000 now -- and go to Pebble Beach for three days. Blow the money on a big Buzz Beats The Big C bash.
Buzz was one treatment away from Pebble when his heart just stopped.
The end of the game had come. It was June 21. He was dead at 49, the exact same age his dad and granddad died. The man who taught you how to get up was staying down for good.
Buzz Jordan
Jordan Family
Buzz Jordan's indomitable spirit will live on forever through his friends and family.
Rather than go to Carmel as planned, the seven resurrected the Hole in One Tournament, in Buzz's honor. They raised another $25,000, added that to the $15,000 hole-in-one kitty, and gave the whole bundle to Buzz's two sons, Brooks and Zack, for college.
And that was that.
But then, on Oct. 2, a very Buzz thing happened. One of the seven -- Scott Lasater -- decided to play golf with some buddies. Not easy, since an injury three years before had wrecked his right hand. He could hardly grip the club. Yet Buzz refused to let him quit golf, so he kept playing.
As Lasater was playing that day, he kept hearing the words Buzz used to yell at him on every par 3: "Come on Las! Let's get one here!"
And so it was he came to the seventh hole at his home club -- Lone Tree Golf and Country Club -- 152 yards. He hit a 6-iron that landed in the rough, left of the green. But the ball took a weird bounce dead right -- "sort of defying the forces of nature," Lasater says -- spun back down a little hill and trickled lazily into the cup for an ace.
Freaking, Lasater texted the news to one of the seven, who texted back: "Wow! And on Buzz's birthday, too!"
It had completely slipped Lasater's mind. Buzz would've been 50 that day.
Figures. Buzz always found the coolest gifts.
This is just a little story about friendship and holes-in-one and how death can remind you which is rarer.
It starts with a sports nut named Buzz Jordan, who was practically born at a football game. His mother's water broke at a University of Colorado game but since her husband was the namesake for the team MVP award -- Zack Jordan -- she didn't dare ask to leave.
Maybe that's why, later, one of Buzz's unbreakable rules was "Always stay to the end of the game!" When one particular game ended -- Colorado's 2001 stunner over Nebraska -- Buzz snuck up on CU's 1,300-pound mascot, Ralphie, snipped off some of his hair and kept it in his wallet the rest of his days.
There was also "You gotta learn to fall before you can get up!"
Which is why when Buzz taught you to ski, he pushed you down in the snow first, so you'd learn how to get up on skis. Buzz's goal in life was to match the first two figures of his salary to the number of his ski days in a year.
And of course there was "Call your mother!" Buzz did it religiously. His dad died young and Buzz felt he had a role to fill. In fact, when Buzz turned 18, he had his name legally changed to his dad's -- John Zack Jordan -- out of respect.
Buzz was not just an optimist. He made optimists look like hangmen. He was the kind of guy who's sure the IRS auditor is going to find mistakes in his favor.
Buzz was not just an optimist. He made optimists look like hangmen. He was the kind of guy who's sure the IRS auditor is going to find mistakes in his favor. That's why it figured that he'd convince seven of his childhood buddies to throw in $100 a year for a Hole in One Club. First guy to make an ace got the money. But there was a twist: One of the eight had to be a witness when it happened. Buzz figured that way, they'd all play together more often.
Well, 22 years went by -- from 1988 to 2010 -- and nobody cashed in. Not once. Not only did none of them ever make an ace around each other, only one of them ever made an ace at all.
Not that it mattered. The Hole in One Club stayed so close the guys started holding Hole in One Club tournaments together. They got sponsors and prizes and gave all the money to the American Cancer Society. Held it for 10 years and sent a meaty check every year. And then, in January of this year, cancer got Buzz. Throat and neck. Bad. Which was jarring, since Buzz had always been the fittest of the group. Of course, Buzz wasn't worried. For him, it only forced him to ask the big question, green wig or pink? (Even during chemo, Buzz skied in the green one.)
In fact, Buzz was so sure everything was going to be fine, the group decided to plan a big cure party. They would take all the money -- it was over $15,000 now -- and go to Pebble Beach for three days. Blow the money on a big Buzz Beats The Big C bash.
Buzz was one treatment away from Pebble when his heart just stopped.
The end of the game had come. It was June 21. He was dead at 49, the exact same age his dad and granddad died. The man who taught you how to get up was staying down for good.
Buzz Jordan
Jordan Family
Buzz Jordan's indomitable spirit will live on forever through his friends and family.
Rather than go to Carmel as planned, the seven resurrected the Hole in One Tournament, in Buzz's honor. They raised another $25,000, added that to the $15,000 hole-in-one kitty, and gave the whole bundle to Buzz's two sons, Brooks and Zack, for college.
And that was that.
But then, on Oct. 2, a very Buzz thing happened. One of the seven -- Scott Lasater -- decided to play golf with some buddies. Not easy, since an injury three years before had wrecked his right hand. He could hardly grip the club. Yet Buzz refused to let him quit golf, so he kept playing.
As Lasater was playing that day, he kept hearing the words Buzz used to yell at him on every par 3: "Come on Las! Let's get one here!"
And so it was he came to the seventh hole at his home club -- Lone Tree Golf and Country Club -- 152 yards. He hit a 6-iron that landed in the rough, left of the green. But the ball took a weird bounce dead right -- "sort of defying the forces of nature," Lasater says -- spun back down a little hill and trickled lazily into the cup for an ace.
Freaking, Lasater texted the news to one of the seven, who texted back: "Wow! And on Buzz's birthday, too!"
It had completely slipped Lasater's mind. Buzz would've been 50 that day.
Figures. Buzz always found the coolest gifts.
2013年9月20日
Furyk: No hard feelings about Presidents Cup snub
Jim Furyk
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Think Freddie wants to take back that Presidents Cup captain’s pick?
Not exactly, or at least that’s not the way Jim Furyk viewed his snub in the wake of his second-round 59 at the BMW Championship.
“You want a guy that’s playing well,” he said Friday, “but just because I shot 59 today doesn’t make me the best choice.”
A member of every U.S. team since 1997, Furyk will miss next month’s event after being passed over for Webb Simpson, who was inside the top 10 in points until the last qualifying day, and Jordan Spieth, the 20-year-old phenom who has a win and two other runner-up finishes in his first year on the PGA Tour.
BMW Championship: Articles, videos and photos
The decision was made on live TV last Wednesday, nine days ago, and only Thursday night did Furyk finally come to grips with the call.
“I was bummed about it,” he said, “but I’m not really like a spiteful person. I didn’t go out there with a chip on my shoulder to prove anything to anyone this week. I feel like my career has spoken for itself, and I really don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”
There’s a four-week gap between the announcement and the competition. Should the Presidents Cup decision be made later, so the best (and hottest) players are selected to the 12-man team? After all, Furyk has four top 10s in his last five starts, and now he’s tied for the lead at the third playoff event after only the sixth 59 in PGA Tour history.
Well, it’s not that simple, Furyk said.
Clothing has to be fitted and ordered. Programs have to be printed. Countless other behind-the-scenes chores.
“I hope to be a captain of a team one day, and I guess my selection isn’t going to come down to the last day and the last shot,” Furyk said. “I’m going to look at the guys that I think are the best players and that are going to give me the best opportunity to win the event. That’s what Freddie had to do, and he made his choice.
“I think the timing of it, though, the four weeks is probably fine. It’s probably needed, to be honest with you.”
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Think Freddie wants to take back that Presidents Cup captain’s pick?
Not exactly, or at least that’s not the way Jim Furyk viewed his snub in the wake of his second-round 59 at the BMW Championship.
“You want a guy that’s playing well,” he said Friday, “but just because I shot 59 today doesn’t make me the best choice.”
A member of every U.S. team since 1997, Furyk will miss next month’s event after being passed over for Webb Simpson, who was inside the top 10 in points until the last qualifying day, and Jordan Spieth, the 20-year-old phenom who has a win and two other runner-up finishes in his first year on the PGA Tour.
BMW Championship: Articles, videos and photos
The decision was made on live TV last Wednesday, nine days ago, and only Thursday night did Furyk finally come to grips with the call.
“I was bummed about it,” he said, “but I’m not really like a spiteful person. I didn’t go out there with a chip on my shoulder to prove anything to anyone this week. I feel like my career has spoken for itself, and I really don’t have anything to prove to anyone.”
There’s a four-week gap between the announcement and the competition. Should the Presidents Cup decision be made later, so the best (and hottest) players are selected to the 12-man team? After all, Furyk has four top 10s in his last five starts, and now he’s tied for the lead at the third playoff event after only the sixth 59 in PGA Tour history.
Well, it’s not that simple, Furyk said.
Clothing has to be fitted and ordered. Programs have to be printed. Countless other behind-the-scenes chores.
“I hope to be a captain of a team one day, and I guess my selection isn’t going to come down to the last day and the last shot,” Furyk said. “I’m going to look at the guys that I think are the best players and that are going to give me the best opportunity to win the event. That’s what Freddie had to do, and he made his choice.
“I think the timing of it, though, the four weeks is probably fine. It’s probably needed, to be honest with you.”
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