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SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

January 11, 2007

Jim Furyk

HONOLULU, HAWAII

TODD BUDNICK: We thank Jim Furyk for stopping in after a 5-under 65 in round one of the Sony Open in Hawaii. No bogeys today, Jim. A good round for you.
JIM FURYK: It was. It was a good, solid round. I kept the ball in front of me most of the day with the little bit of wind out there and narrow fairways, especially after last week.
It's tough to keep the ball in the fairway a lot. I made a few good up-and-downs today, but mostly I gave myself a lot of opportunities. I was able to knock a couple in.

Q. Is having a round of tournament golf under your belt already, especially over here in Hawaii, does that give you an advantage over the guys who haven't?
JIM FURYK: You mean from playing last week at Kapalua?

Q. Mm-hmm.
JIM FURYK: I think it helps a little bit. But it depends. If you're coming from Chicago and you haven't played much golf, yes. But guys that live in warmer weather or playing some golf trying to get ready, maybe just a little bit.
Yeah, it's nice to have some rounds under you, but there's probably 25 guys in this field that played last week also.

Q. So is there such a thing is early season errors?
JIM FURYK: You get rusty. I think it depends on how much time you've taken off, too. Some of the -- like Appleby probably hasn't taken time off. He's probably tired rather than early season because they play a lot in Australia at this time.
Other guys will take eight, nine weeks and just put them away and come back out here. Yeah, you're going to be rusty after some time off.

Q. Do you have anything new in the bag at all this year?
JIM FURYK: No. Everything's identical to what I finished up -- well, pretty much what I had in the bag for probably the last ten months last year.

Q. Have you seen anything new in 2007, either in the way of gizmos or clubs that you had not seen?
JIM FURYK: I mean, everyone's coming out with a new ball and a new driver head and a new this and a new that.
So, you know, it's that time of year. PGA Show is coming up, so everyone has something planned. But I haven't seen anything where everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and switching right now.

Q. Were you disappointed with how you played last week, or do you feel a little bit better obviously with a nice round today?
JIM FURYK: I'm not sure I understand your question. Last week I was disappointed with the way I played. Today I'm happy with shooting 65.
Yeah, you let go of that. Last week was last week. I knew, I took what I needed to work on, and what I wasn't happy with and tried to correct some of those problems and still going through that.
You know, you're going to have a lot of weeks in this game where you're not happy with the way you performed or you felt like you left a lot on the golf course and that's what the time off or the few days between events, that's what you're working on and that's what you're gearing your game towards. I'm disappointed with the way I played, but I guess good news, bad news. Bad news is I'm disappointed with how I played last week. Good news is I get to start all over again.

Q. You're on record saying you hit the ball well but didn't putt very well; is that accurate? What did you do this week? Did you change ball positions or anything special to feel more comfortable on the greens?
JIM FURYK: Actually I changed putters this week, too. I forgot about that, now that you mentioned it, which I used to do quite often in my career.
I tried to identify the problem, which my aim was bad. It's kind of like shooting a rifle or doing anything. If you're not aimed at your target or where you want to go, it's pretty much impossible to hit your target. So my aim was poor. I found that I was aiming right. The reason I switched putters was just to get a different look and try to help align the putter up properly.
I spent a lot of hours on the putting green this week with my dad watching and trying to figure it out. I'm taking the next three weeks off, some personal time, get away, spend some time with my family but I'll be out practising and working on my putting and trying to get where, that went wrong, where my eyes got messed up. Just some time off and probably didn't put as much as I should have when I was at home. You know, just things happen. I worked into some bad habits.

Q. What's the putter that you switched to?
JIM FURYK: Still an Odyssey. I don't know the name of it. It has a D and a G on it, whatever that means. I didn't look at the name. It's not that much different style.

Q. Just to follow that up, is that something where you got on the putting green on Monday, Tuesday, your dad is out there and you say, okay, let's figure this out and he looks down and that's something he saw, or you saw it on television or how did you arrive at that conclusion?
JIM FURYK: It would be really difficult to see on television just because the angles are not good. Unless it was kind of on the ground and a 4-footer and I knew where I was going when I came in. I'll pick a spot out on the green and say, I think I'm aiming right edge or left edge. I have some drills where I hit the ball down a straight line or a putt a ruler behind my ball.
There's one where I'll put a ruler in behind the ball, put the ball in front of it and I'll set up and try to -- that ruler will show the path of my backswing and the first part of my through swing. That also gives me an idea of where I'm going, and I notice that where that ruler is pointing and where I felt like I was aiming were two different spots.
So I knew that I was aiming too far right and then having to try to pull putts.
So, you know, you don't make -- it's hard to go from here to here in golf. You kind of have to chip away and get yourself back. And I'm working on it. I putted better today obviously because my score is better. But I'm still not jumping up-and-down doing back flips. I still want to work on it and try to get a little better every day and a little more comfortable every day if that makes sense. I still hit some putts that I wasn't happy with today and sometimes I wasn't comfortable today.
But if I can make those -- a number of those times decrease and get really comfortable by the end of the week that would be great. But I also hit some very, very good birdie putts today where I didn't last week and felt better.

Q. What kicked in on the eighth hole?
JIM FURYK: Nothing really. I hit it close. I hit it about three or four feet on 8 and made about a 6-, 7-footer on 9. Made about a 12-footer on 10. Kind of got on a nice little roll.
You know, that start isn't really the easiest of starts going out there on 1 and 2. 4 is a tough hole, 5 and 6. I missed a couple good birdie putts early on. I had a couple good up-and-downs early on, too.
I made a good up-and-down on 2 and 4 and missed three good birdie putts on 1, 3 and 6. So that was kind of a little give and take and playing solid and just kind of, you need something to jump start a round every once in a while. It was nice to hit one tight in there on 8 and get it going.
TODD BUDNICK: How about just the birdies on 13 and 15.
JIM FURYK: I birdied 13. I hit a drive down the middle and I hit my hybrid club, I'm guessing somewhere around five feet. Don't get that many opportunities on 13. Knocked that in.
Then on 15, I hit a 3-wood off the tee and a 9-iron to about, oh, probably about eight feet behind the hole and made a nice little downhill curler there for birdie.
TODD BUDNICK: Thank you, Jim.

End of FastScripts

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