THE TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY MERCEDES-BENZ AND MICHELOB

November 2, 1997

Jim Furyk

JIM FURYK: Thank you.

JIM FURYK: Yeah. I played solidly today. I feel like coming down the stretch I hit a lot of good shots, hit the ball where I wanted to. Little disappointed I missed the 18th fairway, shortcut on the right. Other than that I hit the ball really well. You know, if I lost the tournament, in any respect, it would have been yesterday shooting 73. Although, it was a tough day. Made a couple dumb mistakes, wasted a couple shots, as I'm sure everyone did this week. It's a tough golf course. You know, overall, I think, you know, I played well. It's a good week. But just losing a few minutes ago, it's a little disappointing to lose by 1.

JIM FURYK: I felt like there was a chance. Although the holes coming in were playing downwind, I felt like, you know, still it's to win a golf course. You have to get the ball on the fairway, play the ball well. Not easy holes. I felt like I had a chance. When I saw the TV, saw Davis -- first thing I saw was Davis had it in the bunker on 16. David was in the trees on 17, right. At that point, I felt like, you know,"hey, we could be going to a playoff here." Wasn't meant to be. David played well, got it up-and-down on 17 and 18 from trouble off the tee. I mean, that's what you have to do to win golf tournaments. I congratulate him; he did it.

JIM FURYK: Well, I think it wasn't quite as tough as it was yesterday. Wind didn't blow quite as hard. I still think it was a little tougher than the first two. You know, it was a little tamer than yesterday. Although, I think some of the pin placements today were -- there were a couple that were borderline ridiculous. But there were some very tough ones. Here it seems like -- today you had few pins today behind bunkers on edges of greens that swept away from you. If you stuck the ball in the middle of the green or 20 feet left of the pin, you know, the fat side of the green, you always had to putt kind of up over a ridge, down to the pin. The greens were definitely faster today. No doubt about it. Probably getting close -- I mean, they really shaved them. I'm sure without some of that dye, they'd be pretty brown this time of the year. Sure rolled smoothly, very quickly today. So I think that added -- made the day a little tougher.

JIM FURYK: No, I can't remember (laughter). I mean, I didn't say they were ridiculous. I said they were borderline.

JIM FURYK: Getting misquoted all the time.

JIM FURYK: I feel like on some of the holes, you know, 5 is a reachable par 5. But the pin was cut right over the bunker. You know, if you hit a shot, a long shot, approach shot into that green, you're going to hit it over the gap, hitting up this huge slope down to the pin. It was extremely quick there. On a hole like that, I guess they figure you're going to reach it in two anyway. Wasn't into the wind today. They're going to make a difficult pin position. But there were still a few par 4s and par 5s where it was really slick to the pin. There was a lot of them out there.

JIM FURYK: It was pretty difficult. I didn't have -- I had a mediocre lie. It wasn't great, it wasn't horrible. You know, the toughest part was it was pretty fast running away from me. At the time I'm still thinking about trying to chip it in as far as giving it a run. That's what I was concentrating on. When it landed, I really thought I had a chance, took a little bit of a hop to the right, trickled past the hole. You know, I was really happy with the shot I hit. I had a huge spike mark in front of my ball about six inches on the putt. Didn't affect the putt at all.

JIM FURYK: Putt on 17, for some reason, that second shot, I had 173 or so, whatever it was, and I hit 7-iron in there, which I was surprised went so far past the pin. Kind of landed on a little downslope past the green, 174. I shot to the back right of the green. Had about 35 feet. I read a break a little bad coming back to the right. It was tracking the whole way. Wasn't going very hard, lipped out on the right side. You know, a little bit of a heartbreaker, but not like I had a five-footer for birdie and missed it. I had a 35-footer. Hit a good putt. Sometimes they go in. Just doesn't seem like it was kind of meant to be. I had a couple putts on the way in that looked good that didn't go in. Played solid, and, you know, other players got it done. Basically, though, I feel like I played well. I have no reason to hang my head. I'm not upset. I played super, on the way in, last seven holes today I played great.

JIM FURYK: What did you call it?

JIM FURYK: Possibly. I think right now we have a lot of young talent and a lot of guys playing super golf. You know, we also have a lot of veterans, too, that are good players. You know, I think for a long time the tour was criticized that there wasn't any young players to step up and play well. I don't know. There's always a story somehow. Before there wasn't any, now there's a lot. I don't know. I just think that we hit a period where we have some good, young players that are doing well, top of their games right now. I wouldn't say -- I'm not going to sit here and tell you the young guys are going to dominate the tour next year and the veterans are done. That would be pretty foolish.

JIM FURYK: That would be foolish. I think, you know, if anything, I enjoy playing some of my practice rounds with guys that have been out here 15, 20 years. You can learn so much just from their experiences, just pick up a lot of things. Just keep your mouth shut and pay attention a little bit, you can learn a lot.

JIM FURYK: Tomorrow I'm in the Skills Challenge in Ojai Valley, California. Running slightly late for a flight. So I'll be there for two days. Then going to Kapalua Tuesday night. Hopefully sleeping on Wednesday. Tournament there starts on Thursday. So I'm going to vacation in Maui the week after that. Probably one of my favorite places to travel, one of my favorite tournaments. This is its last year, as we know it. I'm going to enjoy it a little bit, have some fun.

JIM FURYK: Thank you. Appreciate it.