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CHRYSLER CLASSIC OF GREENSBORO

October 13, 2004

Jim Furyk

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

CHRIS REIMER: Like to thank Jim Furyk for joining us today. Talk about how the course is playing today.

JIM FURYK: It's really soft from the rain. The fairways, from what I heard yesterday the fairways were running a little fast and that's not the case right now. The fairways are soft, the greens are soft.

But the course overall looks like it's in real good shape.

CHRIS REIMER: The rough a little longer than last year?

JIM FURYK: My memory from last year is not greatest, so I remember the golf course, I remember the greens, but as far as how thick the rough was and such, the rough isn't overly overly long, but it's thick enough and difficult enough that you can get some shots in there where you can't control the ball coming out. I didn't -- I didn't play yesterday, I played nine holes in the pro-am today, so all I have really to go by is the couple holes I hit it in the rough and then walking through it and taking a peak at it.

Q. Do you feel more energized at this time of the year than in the previous years because you missed so much time?

JIM FURYK: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's only my 12th event of the year. Absolutely. By this time I'm usually quite tired. I've already played 24, 23, 24 events. I'm looking forward to the off season a little bit more. And right now with having half the year off, it's, this is about normally mid season or just past I would be in major championships at this point. So definitely there's a little bit more energy for me and I'm not quite as tired.

Q. Where do you feel like you are compared to where you were before the injury?

JIM FURYK: In what respect? In health, in game?

Q. I guess both. I imagine it's healthy, but?

JIM FURYK: Health I'm pretty close as far as I'm as close to a hundred percent as I'm going to get. I don't really have any pain, I'm in no pain playing, I'm in no limitations right now as far as practice or whatever I want to do. I kind of know where I stand there. And I feel good.

As far as my game is concerned, I think that obviously last year was the best year I ever had, so coming off that year and taking six months off, there's a little work to get back to that point. I won a Major championship and two events total last year and I made over five million dollars, so I'm obviously not playing at that level. But I didn't expect myself to be. I don't think it would be fair to ask myself to take six months off, 10 events later be in that position. But I'm very happy with the progress and the improvement I made. I think that right now it's really an issue of getting back to playing a lot of events in a row. For almost all of this year I've played one week on, one week off. And kind of pick and choose my spots that I wanted to play and really took it easy on my wrist, which I think was a smart thing to do. Now that it's not bothering me, now that I feel close to a hundred percent, I can play two, three, four events in a row. Which before this I only did once. I played the PGA and the World Series back to back. Now I'm in the middle, this is the third event of five in a row for me. So I'm able to do it, I'm gaining a little bit more rhythm as I do that and the trick for me right now is it's kind of normally I want the season to end, this year I kind of don't want it to end so the trick's really to try to just stay patient and instead of feeling like I have got to get it in in the next few weeks, just go out and enjoy the rounds and play as well as I can, keep trying to improve and I still would like to play well for the end of this year, but I also have to look at I'm kind of prepping myself to get my game in shape for really coming out and having a good year next year.

Q. Do you like this style of course?

JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think that -- I grew up in the northeast, in Pennsylvania, I really grew up on more traditional golf courses, I didn't grow up in the age of TPC and target-oriented type golf courses. So I'm more comfortable on a little bit more traditional and I feel that this has always had that look from tee to green. The old redone greens had a little bit more of a clover shaped, target-oriented green, so it was kind of like new style greens on an old style golf course. And what Davis has done here, there are a lot of slope, still a lot of slope. Some difficult greens out there. But it looks a little bit more natural now I think. That being said, I really played well on the old course so I kind of miss it, but I think it's a better golf course now.

Q. Speaking of energy level, is that the kind of thing you're increased energy level, that's necessary to play in Las Vegas in one week and then in east coast on the next?

JIM FURYK: Well, I did the same last year, I believe. I think that -- didn't this follow Vegas last year? Yeah. I did the same last year. That's one option. Had I felt mediocre about the Greensboro or quite frankly going from Ireland to Las Vegas was a heck of a long trip. So this is quite easy. And I actually went home for a day and kind of stopped in between. So I think that it had, had I not had so much success at Las Vegas in the past or here in the past then I probably would have taken one of those weeks off. But it's the fact that I have won three times in Las Vegas so I don't care when they put that in the schedule I'm going to go play there. And I kind of wanted to come back last year this course was a little bit young and I played very well at Greensboro in the past, I like this area. And the event always seems like a pretty big deal here. It's not a small town, but it's not a great big city like New York or L.A., so we get a lot of fanfare here and a lot of friendly atmosphere with the crowd and it's a fun event, it's a fun town. So I wanted to come back and give the course another look and see how I thought it suited my game and helped it.

Q. You mentioned the old course and success, what do you think of the redesign? I mean Davis was kind of nervous last year about what the reaction was going to be?

JIM FURYK: Sure he was, because now he had, he already had probably 500 critics that were members, now he had 150 of his peers who I'm sure he was a little nervous to see. Obviously he first, first and foremost, we only play one week a year, so you want to make sure that, I'm sure he wanted to make sure that the members were happy and they enjoyed the golf course and liked it. And if he had done that it was a success. And then it was probably he was hoping that we would come in and really enjoy the layout. And that it would be a good tournament and then it would be a huge success. Yeah, if I were in his shoes I would be nervous too.

Q. He was talking about how he's won 3 million dollars this year but no tournaments and so the year feels somewhat hollow. Can you, is that one of the ways you know that you have made it? That you can win 3 million dollars and feel somewhat less than satisfied?

JIM FURYK: Well, the best players in the world, Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Davis Love, III, you look at those guys and they're not playing to win money. I don't know, I never looked but I'm pretty sure Davis has enough money. Maybe we never do. But all the best players in the world are trying to win golf tournaments. And when you can do that, you can compete, get yourself in contention, win tournaments, the rest of it will take care of itself. It's like a young guy coming out on TOUR, he just thinks so much about the top 125 or trying to keep his card, if you get so focused on that end result or the money or then you kind of lose the, you lose sight of what got you there as far as improving your skills and honing your game and also more importantly, to get to go to Hawaii, to -- we're always judged, at the end of our careers we're going to be judged by how many tournaments we won and how many Majors we won. And so that's what we want to do. So I, you know, a player of his caliber, I've had, I had a year once where I won more money than I ever had and set a record at one time for winning the most Monday in the year without winning. Back then it was like 1.6 or 1.8. And didn't win. And I would trade all those top-10s in I think I set a record for top-10s that year and I was fourth on the Money List and but you don't win, it's, that's what you want to do. I would rather have a mediocre year with a win or two than a good year with no wins. I think every one would feel the same way.

Q. Do you think after playing last year you get a full idea of what the changes were like or do you think it takes a couple times around for guys to know whether they like it or not?

JIM FURYK: Probably a couple times around. Let the course mature a little bit. There was talk before we came here last year that, well, it's going to be in okay shape, but not as nice, but it was pretty darn good as far as the condition-wise. But I think it takes the course a little while to settle and even for our staff to figure out how they want to set it up or maintenance to figure out how they -- I saw some fairway cuts that changed this year. The first hole is much tighter than it was last year. I think some of the holes were pinched in a little bit. Limiting it off the tee. A little tighter. I think figuring out how they want the course to be played and how they want to set it up. That's going to take a little time. But I think after two, three years for sure you're going to have an idea, all right, I want to come play this event, I don't want to come play this event or I like the course, it suits my game or it doesn't.

Q. Kind of an unrelated note, have you ever, do you recall if there's ever been a time where you've woke up on Wednesday as an alternate worrying if you were going to get in the field. Has that ever happened to you?

JIM FURYK: Sure.

Q. What was that like? How do you deal with the uncertainty of flying to a place and wondering if you're going to make it?

JIM FURYK: I did it my rookie year and I got reshuffled early on in my career coming out of TOUR school. The first 10 events before the reshuffle my number was terrible and didn't have to worry about that. I wasn't in much of anything. But close on the borderline. And you sit back and hope.

And then I got reshuffled after my 10th event on the west coast and we went to Doral, I was fourth or fifth on the list, I figured, heck, I'm getting into anything I want now. So I flew to Doral. When I got there I think I was maybe second alternate and fortunately I got in that event and it was even nicer, what was even nicer is parings were already made, I got a nice pairing right there in the middle of the field instead of last like usual. And yeah, I think a lot of it, it's difficult, but I think it's really those players probably have to go a little extra mile. They don't know exactly when their weeks off are going to be or weeks on and they have to be prepared to go at any time. So it's difficult, but it's a part of the process, unless you're someone like Phil Mickelson who won a tournament in college and came right out. Pretty much everyone else dealt with that at one time or another to a degree.

CHRIS REIMER: Jim, thanks a lot.

End of FastScripts.

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