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Monday, June 16, 2003

By Gerry Dulac, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. -- Jim Furyk's swing might be difficult to watch. And his preshot routine is even more annoying, like waiting for mold to harden. But his performance on the final day of the 103rd U.S. Open, when everyone around him began to stumble, was a thing of beauty.

	Jim Furyk reacts after winning the U.S. Open - his first victory in a major championship - at Olympia Fields yesterday. (M. Spencer Green, Associated Press) Notebook: Woods empty-handed for now

Don't bother looking for Furyk's swing in an instruction manual. Instead, consider the place he earned in the U.S. Open record book.

The man with the loopy swing won his first major championship yesterday at Olympia Fields Country Club, and he did it in impressive fashion. Furyk shot a final-round 72 to tie the lowest winning score -- 8-under 272 -- in U.S. Open history, joining some of the greatest names in golf history.

"This is definitely the best part of my life, golf-wise," Furyk said.

Nothing could keep Furyk from winning his first major championship. Not Olympia Fields, which finally began playing like a U.S. Open venue. Not even a bare-chested female who accosted him at the 11th green and managed to do something that no player could do on this day -- startle the unflappable Furyk.

It didn't even matter that Furyk bogeyed the final two holes. When the day was over, he was still holding the three-shot lead he carried into the final round on Australian Stephen Leaney. More important, he was clutching the Open championship trophy and the $1,080,000 first prize.

"Your first win is always a special moment," Furyk said. "And I thought the most excited I got in my career was the Ryder Cup at the Country Club [in Brookline, Mass.]. It's hard to rate things, but this is the most special day and this means the most to me right now."

Furyk probably has been the most consistent player on the PGA Tour this season. He led all players with 10 top-10 finishes and was sixth on the money with more than $2.3 million. But, despite six finishes in the top five in his past nine events, Furyk was winless in 2003 until yesterday.

It was Furyk's eighth victory and gives him at least one victory in six consecutive seasons, second only to Tiger Woods among active players.

"I really liked the way I was playing," Furyk said. "I had a great year so far. I hadn't won a golf tournament, I had to hear about that for a while, but I felt comfortable with my game and thinking about how well I was playing. That got me in a positive frame of mind coming here, not only about playing well but winning the golf tournament."

Furyk has ties to Western Pennsylvania. He lists his hometown as Lancaster, Pa., but his family moved to New Kensington when he was 3 and lived there for five years, from 1973-78. His dad, Mike, was the head pro at Uniontown Country Club at the time.

Mike Furyk was there yesterday, on Father's Day, to watch his son.

And the young Furyk really never had a fight on his hands.

Leaney, who shot 72 and finished at 5-under 275, hung around for a while. But he had three bogeys in five holes, beginning at No. 7, and went down under. Vijay Singh, who started the round five shots back, had six bogeys in a row, beginning at No. 8, and was dispatched quicker than that heckler who was ejected Friday for taunting him about Annika Sorenstam.

Singh shot 78 and finished at 3-over 283, tied with Tiger Woods.

"I'm happy and sad," said Leaney, a three-time winner on the European Tour. "I thought I had a very big chance and I thought I had a very good chance after I holed that putt on 13.

"I've got my tour card for the next two years, which is what I wanted, and I got [an exemption into] the Masters, so I guess there are some good things to come out of it."

That's why Kenny Perry, a back-to-back winner on the PGA Tour, was able to leap 30 spots on the leader board with one of the few sub-par rounds posted on the final day at Olympia Fields. Perry shot 67, the day's best round, to finish tied with Masters champion Mike Weir for third at 1-under 279.

"The golf course played like they wanted it to play all week," Weir said. "It played firm and fast, the wind swirling around, the greens getting that baked-out look to it. It played very difficult out there."

After playing more like Mrs. Fields than Olympia Fields for three days -- there were 70 sub-par rounds in three rounds -- the course finally played to U.S. Open standards in the final round. There were only six sub-par rounds yesterday, one of which was by England's Justin Rose, who shot 69. That allowed him to finish tied for fifth with four other players, including British Open champion Ernie Els, at par 280.

"I think this is the way the USGA wanted the golf course and they finally got it," said Els, who shot 72. "It was a very difficult day out there."

Woods, trying to become the first player since Curtis Strange in 1989 to defend his title, shot 72 and was never a factor after he took four putts from the fringe for double bogey at the ninth hole.

"It was frustrating in general because I never got anything going," Woods said. "I was so close to putting it together. From that standpoint, it is frustrating. All I needed was a little bit of momentum to get things going."

Furyk had momentum all week. He set Open scoring records with his second- and third-round totals (133 and 200). What's more, he was carrying a five-shot lead heading to the final nine holes at Olympia Fields, thanks to a two-putt birdie from 20 feet at the par-5 sixth and back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 7 and 8 by Leaney.

"I love being the front-runner," Furyk said. "I love hitting solid shots and putting the pressure on the other guy. It's nice having that big lead. You can afford to make a mistake. You can afford to make bogey."

About the only real challenge Furyk had to face was at No. 11 when a female patron, who had discarded her shirt, got inside the gallery ropes and walked toward him, holding a flower.

"I heard a fan yell, 'You got to be kidding me!' and I looked at Stephen and he had a blank look on his face," Furyk said. "I turned around and she was already on top of me. She was 4 feet away. I was in total shock."

Unfazed, Furyk made par. But Leaney bogeyed the hole, putting the deficit at five.

"You don't know how to react," Furyk said. "It's an embarrassing situation on national TV."

Furyk had a chance to join Woods as the only players to finish better than 9-under par in the U.S. Open. But he bogeyed the par-3 17th when he hit 3-iron over the green at the 247-yard hole and three-putted the final hole from 30 feet for bogey.

"I must have been jacked, because I can't physically do that," Furyk said of the shot at No. 17. "I hit 3-iron, 7-iron at No. 18, and now that I think of it, that was darn-near a 200-yard 7-iron."