BUICK OPEN MEDIA DAY

June 21, 2004

Jim Furyk

LARRY PECK: Thanks, Al. Hey, it's great to see a lot of familiar faces out in the crowd today. Thanks for coming out. Great to be back for Media Day. I tell you the tournament is right around the corner, and we are all really excited about another great event. A couple things about Buick and golf. We are now in our fifth decade as the regional corporate sponsor of the PGA TOUR, and ironically enough, it started right here in this very same clubhouse in 1958 with the very first Buick Open. So a lot of tradition and history. This year we are the title sponsor of three other events. The Buick Invitational that we had in February, was an awesome finish if you remember with John Daly winning that event. The Buick Classic in Westchester, New York that we just completed last week was an exciting playoff finish; by the way, if you did not see who won, it was Sergio Garcia. And of course, our newest tournament, the Buick Championship in Hartford, Connecticut, that will be the fourth week in August and we are really excited about that, as well. The big news for us also on the golf front from a marketing standpoint is that we extended our relationship earlier this year with Tiger Woods that takes us through the end of the decade. We plan to use Tiger over the coming years to help us launch an entirely new lineup of Buick vehicles. Buick marketing touches golf on all levels, the PGA TOUR events, but also we are in our third year of the title sponsor of the Buick Scramble, which is the world's largest amateur golf tournament and would encourage you to get involved in that if you like to play golf. Last year's Buick Open generated a record donation of Buick Open charities of $617,000. And we are very proud to have donated more than $6.4 million to southeast Michigan charities since we began keeping track in 1982. All told, we have raised more than $28 million for charity in our tournament cities. So we look forward to continuing that tradition of raising money for charities that means so much to so many people in these tournament cities. At this point, what we all came here to see today, it's my privilege to introduce a man that actually I and somebody else in the room here I see, Frank, had the honor of playing with him in last year's Pro-Am, he's coming back from a wrist injury with a very fine showing at the U.S. Open in extremely difficult conditions, a tough tournament to come back and play in. He's currently ranked in the Top-10 on the Official World Golf Ranking, he has nine career PGA TOUR victories and more than $19 million in career earnings. Last year he set a career record with 15 Top-10 finishes and made over $5 million placing him fourth on the PGA TOUR Money List. The 2003 Buick Open champion, Jim Furyk. We really appreciate you being with us today. Great to see you back playing some great golf and thanks for joining us today. Let start out, would you be able to maybe tell us what it was like to take some time off and after you've had a year to reflect on the Buick Open here and what it's going to mean to you to come back and defend your title.

JIM FURYK: Well, first of all, what it means to defend, I've always really enjoyed Warwick Hills. I enjoy the Flint area and the community really comes out to support that event. It's been one of my favorite events and the course seems to really fit my game well. So it's an event that I think I've only missed once in my first ten years on TOUR, and I'm looking very forward to coming back and defending this year. Life at home has been very interesting. I've never spent six months at home straight before, so it was -- it was awkward but it was very fun. I think my family is maybe a little too used to being home right now. We are in a good rhythm and a good flow at home, so heading out to the U.S. Open last week was a little awkward for us but also a little fun. I had a good time spending time with my kids. My wife and I, I had a new addition back in mid-December and our little boy is six months old now. So I really had the opportunity to spend a lot of time at home and help out. I get to see both kids grow up a little bit more for the last six months, and that was very rewarding. It gives you time to reflect and sit back and think about -- I had a lot of time to think about golf when I wanted to, but to get away from it and get refreshed. Now that I'm getting back to playing, my wrist is feeling better. I'm a lot more excited about playing the game, and hopefully last week I was a lot more patient with the game and patient with myself.

JIM FURYK: It was really -- I was really surprised at how well physically I was at the U.S. Open. I didn't expect to be there to start with. So just being able to tee it up on Thursday and play was really a good sign. And then I actually played reasonably well. I made the cut and hit a lot of good shots, and although I was a little bit rusty with my scoring, I was very pleased with the way I played, also, and the wrist felt better actually as the week went on. I was getting a little nervous through some of the practice rounds. I played nine holes every day, starting last Saturday. So I had five days where I played nine holes each. And it was starting to get -- I won't say sore, but it was starting to get a little tender through Monday, Tuesday, and I'm not sure exactly why, but I came out of that fine, and the rest of the week from Wednesday on it felt great. So, right now, I'm kind of that period where I think that my wrist is healed, but I'm going to have to be a little bit more intelligent about picking and choosing the spots that I want to play and maybe not playing a bunch of events in a row to start with. Last week I put some stress on it. I'm going to take this week off to try to relax and rest and get ready for the Western Open, and I think for a while I'm going to kind of go with a one tournament on, one tournament off and let it rest a little bit and be a little bit more wise about the amount of tournaments I'm playing and kind of take my time slowly to get back into playing a lot of events. So, it probably takes me from the Western, the British Open and Buick coming up for my next three events.

JIM FURYK: For improvement, I think that surprisingly enough, the thing I was probably able to work on the most while I was off was my putting, and I think that was the worst. I think that was due to the severity of the greens and how difficult a test that they are. But, I need to really -- more than anything, physically I did pretty well. I need to work on my putting a little bit. And I think more than anything, I just need to keep playing golf and need to keep my scoring -- you hear guys go out and say, "I hit the ball well today and played well today but didn't score well." Because I've been off for so long and been off for six months, I have the ability to get the ball -- and make the decisions at the right time; I was rusty with that, and I think the only way to fix that is just to keep playing and keep getting back out there playing a little bit in my off weeks, keep playing as many tournaments as I can, and in time that will come back. As far as the golf course, I know it was a big talk yesterday and throughout the press, and I watched a little bit of TV this morning. I really was impressed with the golf course to start with. I think Shinnecock was one of my favorite golf courses in the world. I put it in my Top-5 in the world. I was really impressed by it. I was happy to be there and play. I really like the way the golf course was set up to start the week, and through Thursday and Friday I know the conditions were pretty benign. The wind didn't blow very much and still the scoring wasn't incredibly great. I think there were only about ten guys under par for the first two rounds. Saturday the conditions got a little tougher. They firmed up the greens a little bit, got them a little quicker and the course played tougher. I thought that it was still a pretty fair test. I know that the USGA talked about the 7th green getting out of line a little bit and getting over the top, and that pin placement where you have guys putting the ball in bunkers. And Phil had that putt where he was about six feet and basically hit a defensive putt that went about 20 feet by; that's not supposed to happen and it was out of line. And I think Sunday, I don't know if it was the high winds we got on Saturday evening or what it may be, but the golf course in more than one spot got a little bit tough, and I don't think that's what the USGA intended to do. I don't think that's what they want to do for their Championship, and I think the golf course got away from them a little bit.

JIM FURYK: What was the first part of that question again?

JIM FURYK: The positives were I hit a lot of fairways, I hit quite a few greens. The parts of my game that I felt like would be difficult, when you take some months off and you throw yourself right back into the U.S. Open, the parts that are difficult, I assumed it would be very difficult to -- I hit a lot of fairways at the U.S. Open with tight fairways, hit a lot of greens. The putts that I thought would be difficult for me to come back with, I did quite well with. I hit a lot of fairways and greens. I just didn't -- I was rusty with what I said before I need to work on, scoring, getting the ball in the hole. What was the second part of the question? I'm a little brain-dead after the weekend, I can't follow too much here.

JIM FURYK: When I had surgery in the late March, I was given three to six months for recovery time to be back on TOUR, and three months would be this Wednesday would be two days from now. So I wasn't expected when I had surgery. I was pretty much told that, you know, I know want to play in the U.S. Open but it's not looking really good. And my doctor was very conservative. Early, my surgeon, he said the most important part of my healing time would be six to eight weeks, so he really limited me on what I was able to do. I was very careful with my rehab. I did the rehab down here in the Jacksonville area and I had surgery up in New York. But my doctor really was conservative in the fact that he wanted me to be very patient with it early on and then he kind of opened the reins up and let me get more aggressive for the last month in trying to prepare for the U.S. Open. It just really responded well the last couple of weeks. I had a charity event of my own in Pennsylvania one week before, basically Monday of Westchester, where I had Mickelson and Daly, Chad Campbell, Stuart Appleby came in and played. And I didn't play in the event, to let you know I wasn't ready to ply one week before the U.S. Open started. Obviously I want to play in my own charity event, but I wasn't able to play at that week. And at that point the U.S. Open wasn't going to be in the cards but my wrist responded well. I pushed it that week to see if it would get sore and if it would hurt, and everything went well. I was pleasantly surprised that I would have the opportunity to go out there and try to play and then be able to play.

JIM FURYK: It was the first signs that I noticed any problems with my wrist was really at the British Open last year and it was quite sore. I think it had a lot to do with the firm turf. I was working on a lot of balls, I was working on my ball-striking at that event. The range there last year was very, very firm and I tended to -- it was a little sore, but I was kind of on an on again, off again. At the Buick last year I was in no pain. The injury was not bothering me at all. And then as the year progressed, the pain came back more frequently, and when it did come back, it was more severe. And by the end of the year, by the time I got to December, I was playing in a Grand Slam and I was quite sore when I was playing that event and I tried to give it a lot of rest. I took a month off in December and tried to come back for Kapalua and Sony; it was still sore. Took some rest, had a cortisone shot, some more rest and it just didn't respond. It was getting worse at that point. So it really left me with only one option and that was to have surge surgery.

JIM FURYK: Well, yes and no. While I was at the U.S. Open, I pretty much was reserved to warming up, playing my nine holes of practice rounds, chipping and putting afterwards, trying to get my short game in shape. It was a little bit of an abbreviated practice session, and I think for a while, that's going to be the case. I'm going to have to be smart and not go out and hit four or five buckets of balls, and I'll have to use my time wisely. A few years ago, I hurt my right wrist and tore the same cartilage in my right wrist a few years ago that didn't require surgery. What I learned form that is that instead of going out and hitting four or five, six, seven buckets of balls and not concentrating 100% on every shot, now I'm limited a little bit with the ability of how many balls I can hit. But my concentration, I'm 100% focused and attention needs to be paid to those shots to get as much out of it as I can. And I think I learned to become a much better practicer and I learned to get a lot more out of less time, actually, than when I was younger. I would go out and beat balls all day and maybe my concentration would tend to flow. I would start telling stories, listening to jokes on the range and maybe not always focused on every shot. Now I need to -- I can practice. Give me a few more months, I'll be able to practice full-time as hard as I want. But for a little while, I'm going to have to tone it back a little bit and try to get as much as I can after shorter and abbreviated sessions.

JIM FURYK: It was really difficult early on through January and February seeing some of my favorite events go by, not knowing exactly what was wrong. I knew I had a tear, basically the TFC in my left wrist, and I knew there was a tear, I didn't know who what extent, how severe it was, how long would it keep me out or if it need surgery or not. I had a similar injury to my right wrist three years ago and didn't require surgery. I was expecting a month or two off and hopping right back into it. It didn't turn out that way. I think while I was sitting back and not knowing, that was difficult to watch. But once I made the decision, basically right before THE PLAYERS Championship, I had surgery on Monday of THE PLAYERS Championship. Once I made that decision, went through the surgery, from that point on, I saw a lot of positives. Every day or every week, I made steps forward to getting back to playing and getting back to healthy. Once I had surgery, I actually had a very positive outlook on things that didn't bother me being off the Tour. I really had a lot to keep me busy at home, not only with my family but every day, I was doing something, whether it was going to rehab or working on basically getting back to the tour. I had something to focus on and something to see positive steps and positive strides. At that point it really wasn't bothering me. But early on back in January, February, that not knowing, just having no idea when I would be back or how well my wrist would respond, that part is difficult to deal with.

JIM FURYK: It was just, like I said it was a lot of fun. It was very rewarding. My family got into pretty much a routine as far as something we haven't done before. My wife and I have always traveled, always been on the road since we started our family. Our daughter is two now and my son is six months. We spent, I wouldn't say all the time, but quite a bit of time, they spent two-thirds of the time on the road with me the last couple of years or year and a half. It was just different for us to all be home and kind of go through that daily routine. My kids really got -- my daughter, especially got really used to being home every day, seeing the usual faces, her friends, seeing the same toys, sleeping in the same bed. It was a lot of fun for the family to almost be normal again instead of traveling. But it was rewarding for me as a father and as a parent to be home and to do -- not only be home in the morning and the evening, but be home all day at times to watch them and kind of gave my wife a little bit of freedom to get out and do some things, and at times I would help out and take the kids. So it really worked out well and that was rewarding for me as a parent, because I don't get that opportunity with my job to do that as much. It was something I looked forward to every day. I missed some of that, but it's also -- it's also good to be back and playing and doing my job and working towards that.

JIM FURYK: A little of both. I think our National Championship should be set up very difficult. It is a demanding test. It always has been; it always will be. Even last year, I know the scores were quite low for the first to days and allowed the finishing score to be low, but it wasn't really the USGA. It was the fact that we had overcast or cloudy skies. We had overcast conditions that really kept the moisture on the greens and made the scoring more possible. But the golf course again got very firm and dry over the weekend and the scores went the other way. I think, yes, it should be set up demanding. But I would be very shocked and surprised if the USGA is to say yesterday it what they wanted for their championship. I think Tom Meeks was talking Saturday night and Sunday morning about he felt the 7th green had got out of hand on Saturday. You know, there was quite a few holes on Sunday that were like that. I think the golf course just got away from them. No, I don't think that -- Retief Goosen obviously was identified as the best player for the week, but I think when you set a golf course up the way it was Sunday, you risk not really rewarding good shots and identifying the guys that are playing the best. Like I said, I would be very surprised if the USGA were to come back and say that's exactly how they wanted their championship to be on the weekends. There was some mistakes made. When you try -- I think what happens is they are trying to make that golf course as difficult and as demanding as they can, and they are trying to tread that line between very difficult and getting over the top. When you get close to that line, every once in awhile you're going to go over the top and it's going to get away from you. It's unfortunate. I don't think that's what they wanted to do. I would be very surprised if that's what they wanted to do.

JIM FURYK: Well, one, it's an old traditional golf course, which I grew up in the northeast part of the country in Pennsylvania. I grew up on courses built back in the 30s and 40s. Warwick Hills is an older, traditional style golf course. Most of the greens are relatively round. They slope from back to front. You have to keep the ball below the pin. It's a very tight, narrow, tree-lined golf course. Most of the holes runs east/west, north/south. You have basically 1, 10, 9 and 18 runs one way, and the rest of the course is running north and south the other way. I don't know the actual directions, north and south, east and west, but they are running at 90-degree angles to each other, and it reminds me a lot of what I grew up on. Considering that I'm not a very long player, I'm an average-length player, but my strengths are getting the ball in the fairway and wedge game; Warwick Hills suits my game very well. I had a lot of success there early in my career where I shot good numbers. I never really finished in the Top-10 or threatened to win that golf tournament, but I had the course record for a while way back when in about 1995 or '96. A couple of years ago, I finished second, and that solidified a Ryder Cup spot for me and last year was year I broke through. I've always really liked that golf course and felt like it suited my game well and it should be a golf course I can win on. Before last year, I was never able to do it.

JIM FURYK: I don't think it really hurts at all. I always liked the tournament right before the PGA, because that's an event I like to play. I don't mind playing events right before a major championship, but I want that event to have a little bit of a similar feel. I think that an event like THE INTERNATIONAL is a wonderful golf course, it's a wonderful tournament, the treatment there is great but for me it's difficult to go from elevation back to sea level and kind of get adjusted. So last year I chose not to go to THE INTERNATIONAL before the PGA and, I kind of like the Buick in that spot because I like playing my way into a major championship. Otherwise I kind of like the -- I tend to pick and choose the event that I mark as my favorites events, whether that's for the golf course or what may it be. I'm going to pick my favorites events, try to play about 25 events a year and my favorite ones are going to range in the 15, 18 events where I Mark every year that I want to play. The Buick Open is one of those, and then I kind of sprinkle in seven or eight tournaments around that to fill out my schedule.

JIM FURYK: He actually kept pretty busy. I'll start with that one. Mike worked a little bit more -- he had Brad Faxon at the Masters. He worked for Kevin Na, a 20-year-old pro on TOUR this year, a really good player; a guy by the name of Dan Olsen. He had Michelle Wie's bag for one week at Williamsburg, a few hours down the road from where he lives. I may be missing a gig or two in there somewhere, but he kept busy, and didn't work full-time like he may have more me or as many events but he kept busy. I think we're excited to see me back playing again where he'll be a little bit more full-time. I think he's also working the Kemper this week but I'm not sure exactly for who. As far as the Ryder Cup, I think that it's my -- I won't make any bones about it; it's my favorite event. I love playing in that golf tournament. It's an honor to represent your country and play in that format. And I was a little disappointed when this injury came along because I was afraid that I would have an opportunity to fall out of the Top-10 in the points list after having my best year unmistakably last year. But it looks like I have a good chance of staying within the points, and obviously I'd like to earn more, but more importantly, I would also like to get my game in shape so I felt like I was 100% for the Ryder Cup this year and felt like I could be very useful and help my team and try to win some points.

JIM FURYK: It absolutely does. Our talent pool is -- I've always said, even when I was young on TOUR, compare a Tiger Woods to a Jack Nicklaus to a Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones as you go back in time, it's something to argue, but basically, the greatest players of all the generations were great players. It doesn't really matter which one fits in where. I'm not going to tell you that our great players are better than they were generations past; I don't think that's true. I just think that our talent pool at the depth and the amount of players that have the opportunity to win tournaments is probably much greater now, and what surprises me is really how young, you're talking about Mike Cohen, my caddie, Fluff, is working for Kevin Na, a 20-year-old rookie this year, and that to me is amazing. He's playing well, he's in position to keep his card and has made quite a bit of money this year. Just when I was even -- I'm only 34, but 14 years ago, there were not that many 20-year-olds that had the ability. Phil Mickelson is probably the only one I can think of that had the ability to come out and play the Tour full-time. It just seems like there's a lot more younger players now that are ready much earlier. Their games are more mature. And every half-generation or generation seems to be more good, young players come out. And absolutely, it definitely heightens the competition on TOUR, and our talent pool is getting deeper and deeper. Guys are winning tournaments, and I always hear the comment, you know, well, geez, I don't know that guy or I haven't heard of that guy, but here he is winning a tournament. It goes to show you that there's also, for every one of us, there's another guy on the Nationwide Tour or the Hooters Tour, whatever it may be, who has the ability, who has the talent to come out and compete and possibly win on our tour.

JIM FURYK: Fortunately for me, Phil had that locked up for a long time. You guys had the opportunity wear him out for a long time. Players like Mike Weir and myself and some others never really dealt with that issue or dealt with that tag. Phil obviously was the best player, almost 20 wins to his belt, and unfortunately just had not broken through in a major championship. I know that he's very happy and relieved, and he had the opportunity to win one yesterday and it slipped by again. But I'm happy to see him win the Masters and was real happy for hip. That's something I never really had to deal with too much as far as being that player. I think that unfortunately, or however it may be, fortunately for me, unfortunately for Phil, he pretty much had that tag and dealt with it for a lot of years.

JIM FURYK: It is a very demanding golf course. And one, again, I had a lot of success there in the U.S. Open in, I want to say in '96 it was at Oakland Hills. I believe I finished fifth in that event, and none of you knew who I was back then. I like the golf course a lot and it was very typical U.S. Open style golf course with deep rough. You have to drive the ball very well into some very difficult fairways. The greens were very difficult and had a lot of slope to them, were very quick and no one will ever -- the finishing holes, 16, 17, 18 were great holes. 18 was a par 5, turned into a par 4. I'm not even exactly sure how we'll play it. I'm not even sure it matters in a match-play event how you play it, but it's a very difficult par 4. It's hard to get the ball into the fairway, and the green was designed as a par 5 green, a very small, tiny green where now we are approaching it with a long iron at times; so it is very difficult to hit. That pretty much for me wraps up that golf tournament. It was a very tough week all around, and a golf course that I really like, especially because I played well there. The Buick Open is always one of those events that is on my schedule year-in and year-out, and I'll be back for many more years. Thanks.