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TARGET WORLD CHALLENGE

December 15, 2007

Jim Furyk

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA

JOE CHEMYCZ: We welcome Jim Furyk into our interview area, Jim with a 3-under par 69 today, stands at 12-under par through 54 holes. Some birdies early and a couple struggles on some par-3s towards the end of the round. Maybe just talk about the day in general and then we'll get to specifics.
JIM FURYK: Yeah, I got off to a good start today. I birdied -- I had an eagle putt at 2 and at 5, and made two good birdies there, and a good birdie putt on 4. 3-under through 6, I kind of had it rolling, felt real good about my game.
Birdies at 11, 13, I was rolling pretty good. At that time I think I was three back. Obviously at the end of the day the big swing was on 14, 15. Tiger was in trouble on 14, had a long par putt, he ends up making that, and I doubled the next with a really poor swing on 15. It looked like it could have been a two-shot gap and ended up a five-shot gap real quick.
Tiger has a way of kind of keeping the pedal down and birdieing 18, and now it's six. I really felt good about the way I played today. I'm a little disappointed in the finish. Really only two loose swings.
I made a very poor swing at 15, didn't hit it solid. I knew pretty much when it left the club it was going to end up short, disappointing. Hit a pretty good 12-footer for bogey that didn't go in.
16, I thought I hit my drive perfect and it ended up trickling through and went through into the rough and settled for par there.
But 17 was kind of a great escape. I'm down there trying to figure out a way to not make double, and somehow get away with a six-footer for par. I felt like I definitely saved at least one there where I threw a couple away on 15.
Overall I was pretty happy about the way I played. I'm a little disappointed in being six back. But I really only have myself to blame.
JOE CHEMYCZ: You had a ruling there at 17 and you got a drop. Can you explain that?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, there was some new sod laid down in front of my ball. It was probably about eight inches in front of my ball, maybe six to eight. The way I had to make a swing of the club -- my first question was do you get relief from a sodded area or sod seam from where your ball is laying or intended swing. Because of the severity having to swing down behind that little bush behind my ball I could get a club on it, but I was going to drive the club very far in front of the ball. I was going to hit the sod.
So I was awarded a drop. Still wasn't in the greatest area in the world, but I felt like from there I could kind of just blast it up somewhere on the green and two-putt for bogey and get out of there. The second shot turned out pretty miraculous actually, better than I had ever envisioned anyways. It was nice to make 3 there and feel like I stole one.

Q. 16, is that a hard decision what to hit there and where to drive the ball?
JIM FURYK: You know, from that back tee, I knew I could probably get it through the fairway at the left bunker, but the right bunker, I didn't think that would be an issue. What determined -- the reason I didn't hit 3-wood is I have two 3-woods that I play regularly. One has 15+ degrees of loft, the other one is about 13 and a half, and I've got the higher lofted one in my bag. I don't hit it that far but I can bring it into par-5s really soft, so it really came in handy on -- I hit three par-5s today in two with that 3-wood and knocked it up there on 13. With that club I made four birdies today from the fairway, but it's not a great tee ball.
Actually it works out perfectly on 9 because the long 3-wood would be bad. It works out good on 9. But for this course the higher lofted works, and I felt like I would have left myself way too far back with that club off the tee.

Q. You were on the walkie-talkie on 17. Who were you on with and what were you saying?
JIM FURYK: That was the rules official. He wasn't at the green. I asked one of our security guys if he could call for a ruling on the walkie-talkie. They were pretty far away and I wasn't sure if I could get relief and I knew I could ask the question, so I was just kind of giving them an idea of what I was up against, and when he gave me here's the rule, I told him you'd better come take a look. It's a little borderline but I think it's worth taking a look at, and I ended up getting a drop.

Q. What's your thought process when you go into the last day six shots behind, and is it any different when Tiger is the one that's leading?
JIM FURYK: No, I don't think you approach the day any different, but you know you're in for a -- you know you're in for a tough day and you know you really have to fire a good number. He's a great front-runner. He's been in this position so many times and you know you're going to have to fire a low number to try and put some heat on him. He's really good at getting the ball in the fairway, getting it up on the green, making his share of birdies, playing -- I don't know what the word is, conservatively aggressive would probably be the best way I could say it. He knows when to throttle back, put a 2-iron in the fairway. He just knows how to play out of that position, and he's very, very difficult to catch.
I think he's got basically me and Henrik and Zach who just need to do something really super tomorrow to put any heat on him at all.

Q. You had a good look at Tiger's par putt at 14. How hard did that putt look to you from your angle?
JIM FURYK: It wasn't on a much different line than I had. It was slightly downhill, a little quick, and probably breaking -- I guess it would be about eight inches from right to left. It wasn't a ridiculously hard putt, but I didn't expect him to make a 25-, 30-footer for par, either, maybe a 25-footer. What a way to keep a round going. He hit a bad second shot, wasn't happy with where it ended up, buried it under the bunker. He had to hit a really good third shot in my estimation just to get it where he did, and he ended up knocking the putt in. He's strong-willed and finds a way to get the ball in the hole when he's in trouble.

Q. The same answer from a minute ago?
JIM FURYK: My hats off to him. Good putt. That's pretty much all you can say.
It's so early in the week at that time and there's still a lot of holes to play, whether you're two down, three down, really doesn't change your thought process. I feel like I'm done with the round and never really thought about how close I was getting. I was just kind of trying to plod along and play my game and make some birdies out there. For the most part I did it other than 15 -- probably the only hole I'm really disappointed in myself is 15. Just needed to make a better swing than that.

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