Jim Furyk Ends Four and a Half Year Drought at Harbour Town
- Dan Hauser
- 20 Apr, 2015
When Jim Furyk dropped his putter and started fist pumping before his winning putt on the second playoff hole dropped Sunday, you could tell every emotion of the past four and a half years came rushing out of him.
“That was four and a half years of frustration in that celebration,” Furyk said.
Four and a half years was the last time the Jacksonville native won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Furyk capped off a three win season in 2010 at the Tour Championship as well as claiming the Fed Ex Cup.
A lot has happened since 2010.
Back in 2010, Jordan Spieth was still in high school, the Ryder Cup still belonged to the Americans, and Rory Mcllroy was still a year away from winning his FIRST major.
A lot has changed in the world of golf in those four and a half years, but one thing that hadn’t changed was the number of PGA Tour wins that Furyk had. It seemed that number would be stuck on 16 forever.
I was starting to feel like this game is beating me up, and the losing hurts a lot more than winning feels good,” he said after his win Sunday.
The lack of finding the winners circle certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. In those four and a half years there were a lot of bad breaks, almost-s, and what if-s.
Furyk played in 99 events between victories. Out of those 99 starts, he finished in the top-10 31 times. He blew nine 54-hole leads, including earlier in 2015 at Pebble Beach. He finished runner-up seven times. He represented the United States in international competition four times. He went from fifth to 61st to as high as third in the Official World Golf Ranking. He collected $14.8 million. All of that and he had exactly zero wins to show for it.
Furyk sank nine birdies on Sunday, something that he hasn’t had a history of doing as of late, and still had to wait it out to see if it would be enough, another thing he has grown accustom to in the past four and a half years.
He had to sit back and watch Kevin Kisner pour in a birdie on the 72nd hole to force a playoff with Furyk. At that point it would have been easy for Furyk to say “not again” and just kind of give up. Instead, he sank two huge birdie putts in the playoff, the second coming from about 12 feet for the win, and let it all out.
“I can’t think of a more fitting place to kind of break that streak and get another win under my belt. This is my favorite event. I love being here. And outside of winning another major championship, this is the perfect place to do it.
Merrit found himself in Furyk territory Sunday. He shot a course record tying 61 on Friday and shot a final round 69 but it wasn’t enough as he got run down my hotter golfers and found himself finishing third. Defending champion Matt Kuchar had four rounds in the 60s on his way to a fifth place finish, while Masters champion Jordan Spieth recovered from a Thursday 74 to finish in a tie for 11th. It was only the third time in his last 13 events that he finished outside of the top 10 and his finishes in his last five events were 1-2-2-1-T11.
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About Dan Hauser
As an avid golfer and sports enthusiast, Dan has had a passion for sports starting at a very young age. Dan’s other passion has always been writing. Since the time he could write, he has always enjoyed sharing information with people and telling stories through writing. In middle school he combined his two loves by joining the school newspaper in the sports department.
