Furyk Gets Steely Look Again

Jim Furyk has received a bevy of congratulations during the last couple of weeks, which makes him chuckle.

The well-wishes have nothing to do with his golf game. Furyk, you see, is a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. He was in Detroit on Feb. 5 to watch them win the Super Bowl and his fellow tour pros have been congratulating him on the Steeler victory.

“I get a kick out of that because I didn’t really do that much except have a couple of beers and watch the game,” Furyk said. “It was pretty easy for me.”

If Furyk keeps playing the way he did Saturday in the third round of the Nissan Open, however, the congratulations on his golf game probably will follow close behind.

He shot a six-under-par 65 at Riviera Country Club, tied with Fred Couples for second-best score of the day, and vaulted from a tie for 36th into a tie for seventh at seven under, seven strokes behind leader Rory Sabbatini.

It might be a little too much ground for the 2003 U.S. Open champion to make up, but it was an encouraging round after starting this week with rounds of 69 and 72.

“I struck the ball a little bit better and gave myself more opportunities to birdie,” he said.

He was also aided by a deft short game that produced chip-in birdies on Nos. 3 and 15. Because of those, Furyk needed only 25 putts and is tied for third this week with 78 total putts through three rounds.

Furyk, however, conceded that it would take a pretty special round to catch Sabbatini.

“I think if you’re within five or six shots, you’ve got a good chance,” he said. “Any more than that it would take one real phenomenal round.”

Furyk’s game seems to set up well for Riviera. He’s an accurate, but not particularly long, driver, he’s a solid ball-striker and is among the top putters on tour -- all assets that benefit players at old, traditional-style, tree-lined courses with small, tricky greens.

Surprisingly, though, his only top-30 finish in nine appearances at Riviera came in 1995 when he tied for ninth.

Of course, winning at Riviera takes a back seat when the subject of winning majors comes up.

It has been three years since Furyk won the Open at Olympia Fields, and two years since wrist surgery that forced him to miss a chunk of 2004, so it’s about time for the inevitable question: “When are you going to win another major?”

“When you haven’t won one, you get labeled as a guy who hasn’t won a major championship,” Furyk said, “and when you win one everyone wants to know when you’re going to win your second.

“It’s kind of like having kids. When you don’t have any kids, everyone is giving you a hard time about when you’re going to have kids. When you finally have one, you think the pressure’s off now, then they want to know when you’re going to have your second.”

All signs say this might be the year he adds that second. He started the year with a third-place finish at the Mercedes Championships and a tie for seventh at the Sony Open in Hawaii.

That followed a 2005 season during which he notched career victory No. 10, had 10 top-10 finishes and finished fourth on the money list with $4,255,369.

He didn’t fare all that well in the majors -- his best were 28th-place finishes at the Masters and U.S. Open -- but said he would relish the opportunity to contend on the grandest stage once again.

“Last year I had a very good year playing, but I didn’t play as well in the majors as I would have liked,” he said. “I’d like to get back in that position just to see how I’d react and what I’d feel. It would be fun.”