By Art Spander
PGATOUR.com Contributor

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. -- The good wishes have been coming in for Jim Furyk. Not for his golf, although that's not undeserving of praise.

For the Pittsburgh Steelers, his team, winning the Super Bowl.

"I made a joke on Jim Rome," said Furyk about the sports radio host, "on how many people have congratulated me for the Steelers. I got a kick out of it, because I really didn’t do that much, besides having a couple of beers and watching the game. So it was pretty easy for me."

Furyk was there, in Detroit, at Ford Stadium, a couple of Sundays back when the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 21-10.

"There are always tickets to the Super Bowl," he said cryptically. "How much did I pay? Undisclosed. Actually, my management company (Goal Marketing) has some clients in the NFL, so I ended up getting a pretty good deal."

He had just finished his round Saturday at the Nissan Open, elevated himself from a tie for 36th at the start of a day that was bright and clear, after the Friday rain, into the top 10. A 6-under par 65 at Riviera will do that for a man, although he still was considerably behind Rory Sabbatini.

“I realized when I got to 7 under for the tournament, who was at 1 under when he began play, “I was only three or four shots off the lead. If you’re within five or six shots going to Sunday, you have a good chance. Any more than that, it will take a phenomenal round.

“I put myself behind the 8-ball after the first two rounds, being only 1 under."

The 65 included two chip-in birdies, on 15, since he played the back nine first, and then on three. He birdied four other holes and didn’t have a bogey.

Furyk’s schedule so far has been dictated by relaxation and football, a bit unusual, and by course and tournament preference, not unusual at all.

He started at the Mercedes Championships, at Kapalua, where he has a home, coming in third, then moved over to Oahu and came in seventh in the Sony Open in Hawaii. After that, it was a three-week break before returning for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and 27th place.

“I kind of picked out my favorite events on the West Coast," Furyk explained. “I had a very short offseason the end of last year, so the three weeks off after the Sony (Open in Hawaii) gave me time to re-charge. Now I’ll play four in a row."

It was three years ago when Furyk won the U.S. Open at Olympia Fields, thereby unintentionally handing the unofficial title of Best Player Never to Win a Major to Phil Mickelson, who gratefully dispensed of it a few months later at the 2004 Masters.

Now, of course, we’re wondering when Furyk is going to win another major.

Jim Furyk finished third at the Mercedes Championships. (Grayson/ WireImage)

“It’s kind of like having kids,’’ Furyk, who has two, said with a laugh. “When you don’t have any kids, everyone gives you a hard time. When you finally have one, and you think the pressure’s off, they ask you when you’re going to have a second. It never stops."

Not dissimilar to golf. Every shot is followed by another shot. What have you done for us lately?

Furyk had wrist surgery in 2004 after the U.S. Open, came back to finish fourth in the PGA TOUR official money list in ’05 and is being pestered about, yes, another major.

What Furyk is thinking he would like that next major but, unlike ’03, he’s doesn’t carry a burden.

“Before Sunday’s round when I won the (U.S.) Open, I put a lot of extra pressure on myself, just because I hadn’t won one yet. I had a big lead, a great opportunity, and I didn’t want to let it slip through my fingers. I’d like to get back to that position to see how I react to it."

The guess is, like his Steelers, he would react quite well. Again.