FedExCup Winner's Share: 600 •
Yards: 7,220

Furyk, Els in position to snap PLAYERS Championship droughts

Halleran/Getty Images

Local favorite Jim Furyk has yet to win THE PLAYERS Championship in 14 career starts at his home course.

May. 5, 2010

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- What's held you back from winning here?

Jim Furyk let the question tumble around in his brain for, oh, about 30 seconds. He grimaced. He shook his head.

He wanted to lie, but he couldn't.

It was -- at the start -- Pete Dye's Sawgrass Stadium layout. The course he contrived from swamp land. The one players once wondered aloud was a dinosaur burial ground.

"Quite honestly it's an age of architecture that you know that I've never been all that comfortable with,'' Furyk said. "When I stand on most of the holes early on in my career I was not comfortable with this golf course at all. It's a manufactured golf course.''

Visually disturbing -- like another Dye course, Whistling Straits -- was the term he used. Uncomfortable to the eye. Not his -- as grandma would say -- his cup of tea.

Fifteen years and several renovations later, Furyk is about as at peace as he'll ever be with -- for lack of a better term -- his backyard course. And the Ponte Vedra resident is playing about as well as he ever has in the first quarter of the season too. The key stat -- 10 of his 15 wins have come later in the season than THE PLAYERS.

Which just might mean something this year.

Both Furyk and Ernie Els -- Nos. 5 and 7 on your Official World Ranking list this week -- just may be turning the corner at the tournament neither has won. But kinda, sorta, could have won. Not necessarily should have.

We're talking top 10s, fast finishes. No holding the third-round lead or contending down the stretch. Four top 10s for Els, including a share of sixth in 2008 with a closing 72. Three for Furyk, who shared fifth a year ago and third in 2006.

But this year? They're the only two two-time winners this season; two fortysomethings -- Els will be 41 this year; Furyk turns 40 next week -- who are riding the crest of comebacks. And climbing the world and FedExCup rankings.

They're also -- honestly -- taking a back seat to all the Tiger-Phil-young guns talk.

This will be Els' 17th PLAYERS; Furyk's 15th. At this point, they've seen just about everything the Stadium Course can throw at them. They know the twists, the turns and, of course, those sideways bounces. Both then and now.

Both are coming off top 10s that could have been better. FedExCup leader Els slip-slid to a closing 74 into a tie for ninth at the Ballatine's Championship two weeks ago while Furyk three-putted the 18th from 12 feet Saturday at the Quail Hollow Championship and wound up in a tie for seventh.

Furyk shook it off. He knows he's playing well enough to join David Duval (1999) and Fred Funk (2005) as hometown winners. But make no mistake. The course they're playing this week with quick greens and rough isn't the course they see the rest of the year.

"I think you gain a little bit of an advantage really off the tee box of where you want to hit the ball maybe playing here year round,'' Furyk said. "But as far as iron shots into the greens or reading the greens, the other 51 weeks are, yeah, pretty worthless to be honest with you.''

What's priceless is the experience. And, of course, learning to deal with a course that looked like a cacophony the first few times he played it.

"Now that I've played here a lot, I've gotten used to it, and it's not disturbing to me off the tee,'' he said. "I know where I'm supposed to put it, I know what's good, what's bad, and where I should put the ball off the tee. Early in my career I think I struggled just because I was never comfortable on the golf course.''

Els missed the cut at his first PLAYERS, struggled a bit the next two, then had three consecutive top 11 finishes from 1996-98. He ambled about until a T8 in 2006 and the T6 in 2008.

"That's not the best record, I must admit, and obviously I'd like to step that up a bit and come Sunday afternoon get myself in position to win this thing,'' he wrote on his blog. "There's no reason why I can't. I put in some good, solid practice sessions at the Bear's Club last week.''

Furyk feels pretty good too. Especially after getting the truth off his chest and admitting how he felt about the course. After, of course, he let that question rumble around in his head.

As he thought, someone asked, if the question made sense.

"I'm deciding whether I want to tell you the truth or lie to be honest with you," he said with a bit of a smirk.

He went with the truth.

And later, he reminded us that he didn't much like the layout at one of the courses in Las Vegas either. He dealt with it and, well, won there three times.

Enough said.