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VERIZON HERITAGE

April 13, 2006

Jim Furyk

HILTON HEAD, SOUTH CAROLINA

JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Jim Furyk back to the interview area. 7 under par, 64 today. Tom Pernice was in and he talked about absolutely perfect scoring conditions out there.

JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think last year the wind blew pretty hard all week. And this morning it was calm. I think it's going to be calm the rest of the day. And we talked a little bit yesterday when I was here about the conditions being pretty soft out there, the ball is not really chasing, it's not running as much on the fairways. It's not running as much when you miss the greens. It makes it it plays firm and fast, it's going to play more difficult.

Conditions, like Tom said, was good for scoring.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Talk about your day.

JIM FURYK: Well, I'm happy with putting up a good number. I got off to the start was, I wouldn't say rocky, but I hit it I missed the green just a touch left on 10 and it went into the collection area and shot a little left and made a good little up and down to start the day.

1 I drove it a touch right and had to hit like a little low cut underneath the tree and up around the green I hit a tree and made another good up and down.

About a six, seven footer for par, there. That was a good start for the day. I missed a few didn't hit terrible shots, but it doesn't take much here. You can get on the wrong side of the fairway and not really have a shot at the pin here. It's good to start out with a couple of up and downs.

Then drove it perfect on 12, an iron in there about 20, 25 feet and knocked it in for birdie and got me started.

Q. Jim, you talked about the near misses and you got up and down. Does that give you more confidence or does it shake your confidence when you start out like that?

JIM FURYK: Well, I don't think it really does either, it's just nice to I think I could have been say one or 2 over par and said, you're even. That's definitely a positive. But there's always times within a round or within a tournament week where you're going to make hopefully make a key up and down or make a key putt, whether it's a long putt or something that just kind of gets you jump started or if you're already going along well, to kind of keep that momentum going, where you feel like not that you got away with one, but I had an opportunity to drop a shot and I kept it going. It's a boost. It was nice early on like I said, I didn't hit a bad shot at 10. I missed the green about two feet to the left and it kind of rolled down in the hollow, and the pin was tight to that edge, so I had a tough shot and I got it up and down. I think it's a good positive that I I shouldn't have short cited myself, it should have been right of the opinion, I got over aggressive. But I saved par.

I was able to do that on 11 and birdied 12 to kind of get things going?

Q. You said you didn't come in here with expectations, but you don't come into a golf tournament with any expectations of maybe winning or something. Did you feel like you were going to play well today?

JIM FURYK: Well, when I left yesterday, I wanted to work on my putting a little bit. And I felt okay about my golf game. I wouldn't say I felt great about it. I played well a few weeks ago at Players and played okay last week at the Masters. But there were a few things I wanted to work on my game. My putting was not that I was playing poorly, I played good in the Pro Am. I just wanted to feel more comfortable with the speed of the greens how the ball was coming off the putter. That's what I worked on pretty hard. When I went home last night, I felt pretty decent about my game, but like I said, you never know what's going to happen. You just come out and take it one shot at a time.

Q. How did you think your putting was today?

JIM FURYK: It went well. It went well. It's tough to shoot 7 under par and feel like you putted poorly. If you do, you really hit well for a day. I wasn't unhappy with my putting yesterday, but I wanted to I just wanted to get more comfortable with the speed of the greens. It's a little bit of an adjustment from last week, different type of grass, different style of greens. I just wanted to get comfortable and feel good about it. And I think the work really helped. I went out and putted really well today.

Q. Do you get more confidence with the putting, where it's the first two holes where you're trying to save par with it and it's working?

JIM FURYK: The one from 10 was from probably a couple of feet, it was a short putt. And I made a six or seven footer on 11. And I made a good, long putt on 12. It's good to see the ball go in. If you have a day where you go out and say the first 5, 6, 7 holes make good putts, and it doesn't go in. You see guys getting impatient and trying to jam the ball in the hole and force it. You tend to get more frustrated. It's nice to see some balls go in early, and if a putt didn't happen to go in by 7, 8 or 9, it's easy to shake off, because you've already seen a bunching in, you know things are going all right?

Q. When you're working on the putting, incoming from Augusta to here, is there any change in technique or equipment? You used the same putter you used last week?

JIM FURYK: I'm notoriously a guy that changes putters a lot, but I've had the same one in the bag since January of '05. I'm trying to set a record here.

Q. Do you feel like when you realize that the conditions are a little softer than normal and the wind is not blowing yet like it can be, do you feel that you've got to throw a number of birdies up there, because the rest of the field is going to be doing that as well?

JIM FURYK: Well, I think that I don't know if the rest of the field is going to do that. You know someone is going to go out and play a good round. I wouldn't be surprised if I feel like someone will probably shoot better an 7 under today. But I think it's a Catch 22. It's like going to an event like Las Vegas or the Hope and knowing that you've got for shoot somewhere between 20 and 30 under par to win the tournament. You get off the first day and you're even through 6 and you want to start trying to push. You still have to stay patient. You still have to hit the shots. You have to let things happen. If you force it and try to make those things happen, I think that's when the course jumps up and bites you. You want to get out there and make birdies and be aggressive, but you have to do that within your game plan. Like I say, it's a Catch 22 a lot of times. If you try too hard and rye try to force it it's counterproductive?

Q. Did you make any real bombs today putting wise?

JIM FURYK: I made a pretty good putt at 12 and a pretty good putt at 3, which was probably about, again, another 25 feet or so, SHOTLink will have those down to the inch for you. It's tough sitting in the media room giving you an idea of how long our putts were, because we're checked on that. I guess it was somewhere in that 25 to 30 foot range.

JOE CHEMYCZ: 12 to 14 fairways, 15 of 18 greens, including the last 13 greens in a row for you today.

JIM FURYK: 15 greens and I missed the first two.

JOE CHEMYCZ: You missed three of the first five and that was it.

JIM FURYK: I missed 14, too. That sounds good to me. Do that again tomorrow and it would be nice.

Q. Do you anticipate as it gets warmer and not so much rain or not getting wet the course will get firmer?

JIM FURYK: You would think so, but it would take the wind to help it out. I'm not sure if it's supposed to get breezy the next couple of days. The sun will help some, but I think if it got breezy last year it was probably as firm as I've ever seen, but I think that had a lot to do with it being pretty sunny, pretty warm and also very windy for those four days. But, yeah, I anticipate it firming up. Also out in the morning everything is going to be more damp than the afternoons?

Q. Do you have any lingering effects from the wrist surgery? Do you have to do anything before, after or around? Or is that all in the past now?

JIM FURYK: No, it's in the past. It was sore for quite a few years before I had surgery and since I've had the surgery it's a lot better. So I probably I need to take care of it less now than I needed to before. I rehabed it, up until the time I started playing golf. And he thought the golf was more rehab than actually what I was doing previously. He kind of said as three months, this is what you'll feel, at six months this is what you'll feel, at nine months you'll be at about 100 percent. The dates when I thought back, they were pretty much spot on. Amazing when you do a couple thousand of those how good you get at that.

JOE CHEMYCZ: Jim, thank you.

End of FastScripts.

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