Hitting every green, Furyk flashes his vintage form

text size

NORTON, Mass. -- When Jim Furyk is dialed in, few golfers on the PGA TOUR are more accurate with their irons. On Friday, no one was more accurate, which helps explain why he shares the first-round lead with Steve Stricker at the Deutsche Bank Championship.

RELATED

Round 2 Tee Times
Leaderboard
Stricker thrives with Tiger
Ailing Verplank fires 65

In posting an 8-under 63 that ties for his lowest first-round score, Furyk hit every green in regulation. It's the seventh time in his career that he's reached perfection in that category. The last time he did it came in the first round of the Masters in April.

"I really felt comfortable over the ball today in my set-up," Furyk said. "And what I mean by that is at times I've felt a little crossed up where I don't feel like my feet, my shoulders, everything was kind of matching.

"Today when I got over the ball (and) looked down the fairway, I felt like my body was in a pretty good position, and that makes it that much easier to make a nice swing and get your swing down the line and your ball starting down the line."

That's vintage Furyk, the one who always nails his approach shots. During the six-year stretch from 2002-07, Furyk ranked in the top 10 in greens in regulation five times. The only time he didn't came in his injury-plagued 2004 season in which he underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair his left wrist.

Unfortunately we haven't seen the dialed-in vintage Furyk much in the last couple of years.

A year ago, Furyk ranked 48th on TOUR in greens in regulation, his lowest end-of-year ranking for a full season since 1997. This year, he entered the Deutsche Bank Championship ranked 111th, hitting greens just 64.26 percent of that time. If he ends the season at that rate, it would be his lowest percentage in 13 years.

Not so coincidentally, his drop-off in accuracy has also paralleled his drop-off in the victory department, as Furyk hasn't won since 2007 in Canada.

That drought eats at him, especially since he's come close a couple of times, most recently at the Memorial in early June when he finished second to Tiger Woods. He still bemoans the six-foot putt on the 15th hole at Muirfield Village that he missed, a sharp breaker that he hit too hard because he was "jacked up."

"I've had two pretty solid years," Furyk said. "I wasn't able to win last year in '08, and I haven't been able to win this year in '09, and yeah, it absolutely eats at me.

"But that being said, I wouldn't be a competitor, I wouldn't have a lot of faith in myself or a lot of trust in my game or a lot of belief in my game if it didn't bother me."

The same questions about Furyk's drought this week are the same ones he heard last year at this time when he started the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.

While he didn't break the drought, he played well for the four-tournament stretch, never finishing lower than a tie for 12th. He opened with a 66 at TPC Boston a year ago, but faded on Sunday with a 1-over 72 to finish tied for seventh.

He appears to have cranked it up again for these Playoffs. He tied for 15th at Liberty National last week and now has grabbed a share of a first-round lead for just the third time in the last three years.

"You've got to put today behind you," Furyk said. "But I'm going to feed off the momentum."