Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Jim Furyk tees off on the 16th hole of Oakmont Country Club in the first day of the 2007 U.S. Open. Click photo for larger image. Multimedia: Excerpts from Jim Furyk's press conference after his opening round at the U.S. Open. In the hunt Click to view video report PG golf Writer Gerry Dulac wraps up Day One developments at Oakmont yesterday.

All the cameras twisted to focus on the guy in the red shirt, and more to the point, panned in tight on his left wrist.

This whole place, this whole event, the entire U.S. Open continuum, all of it keenly attentive to Phil Mickelson's uber-publicized wrist injury.

But as the wave of international media attention steered in the direction of one of Lefty's left appendages, Jim Furyk played in the same group, trudging along in his signature nature. More ho-hum than big flash. Steady, focused and invariant in disposition.

When all of it shook down, there Furyk was, signing a card that was proof of his 1-over 71, a tally good enough to earn a spot in the fourth-place logjam after the first round yesterday.

Furyk is human. That said, he understood the scope of what was going on around him.

"[Mickelson] went to fix his wrist brace on our first tee on No. 10 and I heard 50 clicks of cameras," Furyk said. "And there was definitely a large media entourage, especially in the way of cameramen following our group, so it was a little bit of a circus out there."

So what is so special about that 71 turned in by Furyk yesterday? After all, there were 15 other players who carded that same number.

But Furyk's 71 -- even he'll admit -- was a few feet from being a 69.

There were those two flubs -- short, makeable putts on Nos. 6 and 8 -- that separated this eastern Pennsylvanian from a tie with Angel Cabrera for second, a shot behind leader Nick Dougherty, who fired a 2-under, 68.

When asked how he felt about two those putts, Furyk offered, "Obviously not pleased. I hit a decent putt at 6, an awful one at 8, where I never made up my mind on the read, and I kind of fell in love with the line and I was confused, never committed and never hit a solid putt."

But to fixate on those two poor shots would be unfair. While those two abysmal putts transformed an under-par round into one in the black numbers, Furyk's overall body of work yesterday was superb.

There was that chip-in from just off the back of No. 12, rattling home for a birdie-4. There was also that roaring drive off No. 15 and that pure short iron into the second green. For Furyk, the good ones far outweighed the bad ones. "I hit the ball well, hit a lot of fairways, struck the ball solid ... ," he said.

"... I was very comfortable with the way I struck the ball and maybe I could have done a little bit better with the wedges in my hand and maybe with the putter, but I feel good about my game."

While stroke totals in golf have no varying degree, a 320-yard drive counting as much as a tap-in that was teetering on the lip, one big variable needs to be mentioned with the 71 Furyk shot yesterday -- it came in the afternoon, when scores ballooned as the temperature rose, the sun parked high in the sky and the course hardened (literally and figuratively).

A 71 at Oakmont anytime is impressive, but in all fairness, a 71 from Furyk's 1:36 p.m. tee time yesterday afternoon impresses much more than a 71 fired in a round that began nearer sunrise.

And if Furyk is able to keep playing the way he did, some of the focus surely will shift direction -- right onto him.