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CANADIAN OPEN

September 7, 2006

Jim Furyk

ANCASTER, ONTARIO

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thanks for joining us after a first round 7 under par 63 at the Canadian Open. Maybe some opening comments and a great day for you.

JIM FURYK: Yeah, I'm real happy, obviously, getting off to a good start. Weren't any mistakes out there. I kept the ball in the fairway most of the day and hit quite a few greens. It was nice to get off to a start on the backside and holed a 9 iron on 12. So I got to 2 under pretty fast and was able to keep it going.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: What did you hit in on 12.

JIM FURYK: Nine iron.

Q. Yesterday you mentioned one of the reasons you came up here is because you heard so much about the golf course. Is there a connection between shooting a really low round and just being excited to play the golf course?

JIM FURYK: I think there's a connection if I would have played if I wouldn't have liked the golf course the first time seeing it or was uncomfortable on the design, it's tough to go out there and play well, especially when you don't like a place, the attitude isn't all that good. And it makes it harder. I always I grew up, like I said, I grew up in Pennsylvania and courses built in the early 1900's, old, traditional courses. And this has that feel. I try to play, you look at my schedule on Tour, I tend to play the golf courses that fit that bill. And this is definitely that style. It's a very good one. I heard coming up here how good the course was, and I think it definitely met expectations.

Q. At the British Open this year, you said you'd kind of altered your game. As we look out here, is there any golf course that doesn't suit you when you're playing well?

JIM FURYK: Well, I think most of the guys that are some of the better players on the PGA TOUR feel like when their gym is on they're going to compete no matter what golf course it is. And I feel like I have the capability of doing that. But I'm also more excited and I think I have more opportunities and a better chance to win at certain golf courses over others. You look at Sony Open and Colonial and Flint, Michigan, you start picking and choosing those courses, I think I'm going to have more opportunities to win events on those, than if you pick I'm trying to think of if I choose one, it's going to be some place I don't like. But picking a long, bombers golf course. I think I have more opportunities to win in Flint than at the International. I like the golf course at the International, there's nothing wrong with it, but it's more a let it fly golf course than Riviera, maybe, because you have a hat on. I tend to go those places that you have that old traditional feel. And it gives me more an opportunity to win.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JIM FURYK: Whatever you want to call it. I think you have to hit shots different ways on the golf course, you just can't tee it off and bomb it and go find it all the time. It makes you think a little bit more.

Q. Where you seeing signs later in the round that the earlier soft conditions may have disappeared and it will toughen up the course the next three days?

JIM FURYK: I thought it was going to be softer in the morning, but it's not showing any firming up right now. Hopefully if the rain stays away and we get sunshine and a little breeze, that may be the case. I wasn't here in '03, but from what I heard we're not going to return to those conditions in that short period of time.

Q. Obviously a great ball striking round. But if it does dry out, will you alter your game plan? How much of your game plan was based upon the golf course being as soft as it was?

JIM FURYK: Not really that much. I think that it definitely probably changed some club selection off the tee. Probably hitting similar areas off the tee, but less club. The doglegs out here, I'm trying to imagine the golf course playing firm and fast, with all those doglegs, it would be difficult to get the ball in the fairway all the time. You'd have to carve the ball and work it and stuff. I obviously wish it were firm and fast, but we got some rain, and you deal with what you have. I just have to be more aggressive. Greens are small in areas, it allows us to take more aim at the pin than if the greens were firm.

Q. Could you just elaborate on something you touched on yesterday, Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, the differences between the two, and why the Ryder Cup teams are a little more volatile than The Presidents Cup. If you had to pick one, which one would you pick?

JIM FURYK: Well, the last part of that puts me in a difficult situation, with about half the people I would probably pick the Ryder Cup, but I love both events and I enjoy playing in both of them. We talked about that yesterday, the difference in the two events, one has more history, sometime in the '30s, the first Ryder Cup was sometime in the 1930s. The first Presidents Cup I believe was '92, something like that, or '91, '92, something like that. They're both great events. I think that maybe, like you said, the volatility, is that a good word? I think that I think in The Presidents Cup the 12 guys that we're playing against from the International Team are usually members of the PGA TOUR, at least ten of them, if not all of them. A lot of those people live in the United States, Stuart Appleby, Vijay Singh, you go down the list, they're neighbors of ours, we see those guys all the time. It doesn't make us want to win any less, but a lot of those guys are our friends. And we see them all the time. We live next to them and it makes it a more friendly match. It's still played fiercely, I believe, but it's done the right way.

In the Ryder Cup, that's the way the Ryder Cup was intended to be. It was supposed to be Great Britain and Ireland playing the U.S. in a friendly match to kind of spread golf. And somewhere in the '70s, '80s, '90s, somewhere in that area there tended to get to be a little clashing between the two sides. I don't think it was always played in the spirit it was supposed to be. But I think now that golf has become a little more of a worldwide theme and you've got all the best players from around the world, a lot of them, again, are playing here in the U.S., but now we have the four majors. We have the World Golf Championship, THE PLAYERS Championship, where we get all us back together again. I know most of the guys on the European team very well, and I have a lot of good friends on that team. I hope they'll be played in the right spirit, and possibly get a little friendlier in the future.

You have guys like Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood, and Sergio over here, Luke Donald over here, living in the country, we've got a bunch of guys from Europe that are living here. So I think it's going to become a little more like The Presidents Cup.

Q. Is it sometimes easy to get caught up in that kind of scene where things get hot?

JIM FURYK: I haven't had too much issues, if that makes sense. I think that there's guys that have you always see a little whining along the way, someone is mad about something, and vice versa on both teams. And I haven't had too much issues in the Ryder Cup. But I would stand up for myself if need be. But I think you treat people a certain way and you expect to be treated the same way back, and I've always seen that as the case for me.

Q. 76 years we had this professional record intact with Tommy Armour. Congratulations, great round of golf today.

JIM FURYK: I don't know anything about the record.

Q. Well, 1930 Canadian Open, the last round he shot 64. That's a terrific achievement you've done.

JIM FURYK: Thanks.

Q. Can you answer a couple of questions about how you played the golf course as far as fairways, tee balls that you hit, how many drivers and 3 woods and 3 irons and that sort of thing?

JIM FURYK: I could go through driver on 10, driver on 11, 3 wood on 12, 13 is a par 3 are, 14 I need my yardage book, for goodness sake 14 is obviously driver, 15 is a driver, 17 is a driver, 18 is a 3 wood, 3 wood off of 1, driver off of 2, 3 wood off of 3, driver off of 4 par 5, 3 wood off of 5, six is a par 3, 3 wood off of 7, driver off of 9.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think you get to hit some different tee shots. Had it been much firmer and faster, a lot more 3 woods come out of the bag, I might have hit more hybrids, like my 1 iron off the tee, to try to keep the ball from running through the doglegs. I do, I think there's a lot of option off the tee here. And you can kind of be more aggressive, you can do some different things. With it being softer, I think you're seeing some guys be more aggressive right now.

Q. You shot 63 in damp conditions. Why would you wouldn't you want it wetter and softer?

JIM FURYK: Well, but you can get away with more, too. When a golf course I think what was really nice about this course, and what says a lot about it is we had a couple of the guys in our scoring tent, the officials that we have that take our score cards and they said they'd never seen so many guys come in and shoot 75 and rave about a golf course. When it was playing firm and fast it was a difficult test, but yet it was a fair test that guys really appreciated. We're not always looking to shoot I played a good round today, I shot a low number, but I was obviously aided by the weather and the conditions of the golf course. And we were fortunate that it was soft. But when the golf course gets firm and fast it tends to spread the field out a lot more. It rewards good shots and hinders bad shots, whereas when it's soft you can kind of get away with some stuff.

Q. You hear about guys, maybe adjusting the makeup of what's in their bag, depending on the type of golf course they're playing. You had a 1 iron and a rescue club, did you alter it at all?

JIM FURYK: The rescue is like my 1 iron or 2 iron. It's not two separate clubs. I have a hybrid type club in my bag that plays like a 1 or 2 iron for me. But, no, that's usually in my bag. The only place I usually change is over at the British Open. I get a club that I can hit about head high and low and running and try to keep it out of the wind and get the ball on the ground over there.

Q. (Inaudible.)

JIM FURYK: Driver, 3 wood, I go to a hybrid. I have a strange makeup in my irons I've carried since December of '02. I go 3 iron to 5 iron up to pitching wedge, gap wedge, sand wedge, L wedge and putter. That's 14, if anyone is wondering. I counted them a few times.

Q. Jim, your score today is a good one, and there's other good ones on the board. Will this tournament be one without being aggressive?

JIM FURYK: Depends on the golf course, and how firm it gets. If they can get the greens firmer out there then, yeah, it's going to make us play a lot differently and the scores are going to go up. Time will tell on the weather conditions. If we get more rain and it stays soft, I think you'll continue to see some good scores. But if the wind picks up a lot of different variables that can happen. You have to check the weather when you wake up in the morning and assess the situation. Once you get out and play a few holes you get the idea how the course is playing.

JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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