Furyk Stays in the Loop

By THOMAS BONK

Feb. 1, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PEBBLE BEACH —

Here’s today’s swing thought, brought to you by Jim Furyk: Don’t.

Once Furyk gets a club in his hands, it only seems as if that odd, loopy swing is coming apart at the graphite. Heck, there isn’t one single thought about the golf swing in Furyk’s head, where only one thought of any kind exists.

“All I want to do is get the ball in the hole,” Furyk said.

And so far at the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Furyk has put the ball in the hole faster than anyone else. His second-round 65 Friday at Poppy Hills moved him into a one-shot lead over David Frost at 12-under-par 132 halfway through the $1.9-million tournament.

Mark O’Meara and Paul Stankowski are two shots back at 134, which is still eight shots better than Tiger Woods, whose 72 placed him at two-under 142 and in danger of missing the cut for the first time in his 11 events as a pro.

Furyk’s swing may resemble a folding chair falling off a truck, but there’s no denying that it works. Furyk has won two tournaments and more than $1.5 million in three years on the PGA Tour, and he’s in contention again.

Gee, it’s just too bad he can’t get that silly swing straightened out, right? Furyk said the whole idea is sort of absurd.

“Here I am, 12 under par and leading the tournament, and all I’m doing is answering questions about my swing,” he said. “It’s pretty funny.

“You know, people still feel sorry for me. They come up to me, slap me on the back and say, ‘Don’t worry about that swing.’ ”

Frost should have had a few concerns of his own. He played his first tournament last week at Phoenix, turned in a 76-77 and missed the cut by from here to Cannery Row.

For that reason, it’s hard to explain how Frost toured Pebble Beach in nine-under 63, one off Tom Kite’s course record. He felt so good about the experience, he kept the ball as a souvenir.

“It’s such a fantastic golf course, to shoot a round like that, you’re going to remember it for a long, long time,” he said.

But first, Frost had to forget something, like his vacation. He didn’t really have any great expectations, probably because he is coming off two months in South Africa, where he hung out at the beach and checked on his 300-acre vineyard when he got tired of eating lobster.

Frost’s brother, Michael, runs the business in Baarl that features grapes of merlot and cabernet and will produce 1,000 cases of cabernet this year.

He pulled the cork out of a nine-birdie round and certainly wasn’t hurt by the fact that his group had the day’s first tee time and the rain-softened greens didn’t have any heel prints.

After playing his first nine holes in four under, Frost birdied No. 1, his 10th hole, rolled in consecutive short birdie putts on Nos. 4 through 6 and coaxed in a 20-footer for birdie on No. 8 to wind it up.

It didn’t take long for Furyk to size up leading the tournament.

“Obviously, it’s a good spot to be in,” said Furyk, who also was fortunate enough to be in the first group at Poppy Hills.

Preferred-lie rules were in effect again, and Furyk said that has made a big difference in the scoring.

“If anyone says it wasn’t helping them, they are lying,” he said. “If you let a professional golfer put his hands on the golf ball and set it up nice, well, there are 180 of us out here and somebody is going to shoot a low number.”

O’Meara’s second consecutive 67 wasn’t the lowest, but it was one of the more interesting rounds, consisting of an eagle, four birdies, one bogey and six hours of elapsed time at Spyglass Hill.

Meanwhile, O’Meara’s personal elapsed time reached 40 years two weeks ago, and his wife, Alicia, threw a surprise party for him.

There were 40 candles on the cake and O’Meara couldn’t blow them all out. It probably doesn’t matter. A four-time winner here, O’Meara has shown he is capable of a blowout in this place.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Leaders

After the second round of the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (Par 72):

Jim Furyk: 67-65--132 -12

David Frost: 70-63--133 -11

Mark O’Meara: 67-67--134 -10

Paul Stankowski: 67-67--134 -10

Brian Henninger: 66-69--135 -9

Jesper Parnevik: 65-70--135 -9

Vijay Singh: 67-68--135 -9

Ted Tryba: 68-67--135 -9

Larry Silveira: 68-67--135 -9