Weekend Wrap - 58 Edition

CBS brought us a priceless moment in golf broadcasting yesterday...  Peter Kostis had lead analyst duty yesterday and at the end of the broadcast was thrown a softball by Jim Nantz... The question?  What will tomorrow's headline be, Furyk shoots 58 or Knox wins the Travelers?

Help me, Kostis whiffed on it, though I'll give him a pass because he was likely worried about offending a sponsor in his unfamiliar role.  But I can help...they've played over a million Tour events, and that's just this season, whereas this is the first 58.  So, I'm gonna go with the latter....

27-31-58 - Alas, Poor Furyk no more..... though he did kind of stink up that back nine.  I saw none of it, as his early tee time wasn't exactly appointment TV, but here's what you need to know.

Jim, your sponsor prefers you to lave your cap on, and in this case I concur.

The 58 That Almost Wasn't - Yes, he had an early tee time, but he almost had the weekend off.  Get this...

His 58 Sunday at TPC River Highlands, a par 70, came similarly out of the blue.

Furyk birdied three of the last four holes Friday just to make the cut.

He made an eight-footer for par on his final hole to make the cut on the number.   On Sunday he was in the third group out...

And the guy that taught Jim that crazy swing (or, more accurately, didn't coach him away from it) apparently still has coaching chops:

After a third-round 72, he retreated to the range to hit a big bag of balls. He became so frustrated with his ball-striking that he instructed caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan to take pictures of his swing to send back home to his father/swing coach, Mike. The fix was a tighter, shorter backswing.

 What had caused him to get long and loose?  

The 46-year-old who had played 11 of the last 14 weeks was tired and frustrated and

struggling with his swing, having gotten too long and loose after trying to keep up at bomber’s paradise Baltusrol a week earlier. His upper and lower body were out of sync, making it difficult to hit the ball consistently or straight.

The Almost WTF Moment - In this summer of our discontent, with our governing bodies tripping over their shoe laces in enforcing the rules, we almost had an epic addition to their body of work:

Furyk shot his record-breaking 12-under 58 playing alongside Miguel Angel Carballo on 

Sunday, and Furyk's barrage of birdies must have confused the lesser-known Tour pro. Carballo initially marked Furyk down for a 3 at the par-4 14th hole, which is a problem because Furyk made a rare par at 14. Fortunately, Carballo realized his mistake and replaced the 3 with a 4. Had he not discovered his error and handed in the incorrect scorecard signed by both players, it would have led to a painful DQ for Furyk.

That's why the player keeps his own card as well, so I'm guessing this wasn't such a near-miss thing. 

Here's some detail on the round:

In 70th place and in the third group off Sunday, Furyk birdied the second hole, jarred a wedge on the third for eagle and added another birdie on 4. Starting at the sixth, he ripped off seven birdies in a row. 

Furyk’s momentum slowed on the par-5 13th, where he made par after laying up with his second shot, and then missed 10-footers on the next two holes. He moved one step closer to history with a 23-footer for birdie on 16, then made a pair of stress-free pars to finish. As Furyk climbed the hill behind the green, the crowd chanted “58! 58! 58!”

Easy for you to say they were stress-free....Jim made it clear that having been there before was a big help:

“I had that here-we-go-again turning the front nine,” Furyk said. “I remember the mental battle, the grind. Same thing, I kind of got off to a good start on the second side at Conway, as well. 

“Had I never shot 59 before, I probably would have been thinking 59, the barrier. . . . Having that experience in the past, and this one mimicked it a lot, it was comforting for me. You don't wake up on Sunday morning with an 8:41 tee time thinking that anything exciting is going to happen. I mean, really on those days the most exciting thing that can happen is the group in front of you plays quick and your flight takes off a little early and you get home is usually what you're looking to do. To get out there and make a bunch of birdies and get the juices flowing and feel like I was in the hunt in a golf tournament was kind of cool.”

He deserves a lot of credit for not mailing it in, as there didn't seem to be much to play for.  But it was only five days ago that I did a Ryder Cup post in which his name wasn't mentioned, as his runner up finish at Oakmont was a glaring exception to his play since returning from a long injury-related absence.

This was Jim's helpful take-away:

"It’s kind of a reminder,” he said, “that no matter how bad you feel with your swing, you’re never that far away.”

Well, you're never that far away.....

In terms of historical perspective, one can only wonder what the sources were for these widely divergent accountings.  First:

There have been approximately 613,000 rounds in PGA Tour history, and Furyk's is the lowest ever.

The accomplishment just builds Furyk's case for the Hall of Fame.

Compared to this:

There have been approximately one and a half million rounds played on the PGA Tour, and Jim Furyk – the aging warrior with a weird swing and a grinder mentality in a power-player era – is the first to shoot a pair of sub-60 scores.

In the immortal words of Emily Litella, that's very different.   Can we get a team of forensic accountants on it, stat?

The Tour Confidential panel takes a shot at it as well:

Cameron Morfit: Justin Thomas shot 62, and there were some 64s, so Furyk’s 58 wasn’t exactly on an Oakmont-hard course. That said, come on … it’s a score that starts with a 5 and ends with an 8, and that’s just silly good. Put it this way: Any score that looks like it must be a typo has to be good. Good for Furyk, one of the saltiest, most delightfully cantankerous characters I’ve ever interviewed.

As I learned long ago from Bill James, such freakish performances will inevitably come under the most favorable conditions, because...well, duh!  And that's why, per Cam, the scoring record at Oakmont is "only" 63, but in this case the challenge was the barrier more so than the course.

Alan Shipnuck: We can always quibble about the course or the setup, but the bottom line is Furyk did something no one has ever done on Tour. If Geiberger is golf’s Roger Bannister, Furyk is now the Usain Bolt, pushing a record number so low it’s hard to imagine it will ever be beaten.

Mark Godich: Exactly, Alan. And if someone had told me 10 years ago that someone was going to shoot a 59 and a 58, Furyk would not have made my top 20. Good for him. And even with the hole-out from the fairway at the 3rd, 58 is about as high as he could have shot.

Ain't that the truth?  You'd think it would be the bombers that go so low, but it's quite the eclectic mix of guys that have shot 59, isn't it?  I mean, Chip Beck and Paul Goydos?  Not exactly show ponies, are they?

I'll leave this subject with this nice recollection from Furyk:

Furyk later said that one of his coolest memories of that 59 was getting a text from Al Geiberger, the first player to reach the number.

Jim seems like the kind of guy that remembers such things, and will pay it forward when his 58 is matched.  As it inevitably will be...and I'd guess sooner rather than later.

There Was A Tournament? -  It's hard to get excited over the event itslef, though as the winner notes, it could have some interesting implications:

Russell Knox was standing on the 18th tee nursing a one-shot lead in the final round of the Travelers Championship on Sunday at TPC River Highlands when something you might not expect, given the gravity of the moment, popped into his head. 

“I knew by winning this tournament, it'd put [European Ryder Cup captain] Darren Clarke in a very difficult position not to pick me,” Knox said. 

Back in May, Knox made a bold statement on the eve of the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship, saying that he “expected” to make this year’s team. Never mind that he was 17th on the world points list at the time, had never played in a Ryder Cup and had more experienced players like Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood ahead of him in the pecking order.

He's now won twice, though I'm actually a bit surprised that he's maintained his Euro Tour membership.   It turns out that there's a technicality involved that will have folks csratching their heads:

The victory won’t yet be enough to lock up a spot among Europe’s top nine in the points list but that’s only because of a technicality -- had Knox been a member of the European Tour when he won in Shanghai last November he would easily be in. Instead, he joined after and as a result he’s on the outside looking in, at least for now.

That'll be a tough call for Clarke, as the team will already have 5-6 rookies and, his steely twelve-footer to win aside, hes' not known as a great putter.  

And while I'm favorably-disposed towards Knox, an Inverness lad, it was hard to watch Jerry Kelly's disappointment as the putt dropped.  He's not likely to have many more chances....

A Battlefield Promotion -  Better known for his trick shot artistry, Wesley Bryan is headed to the Show:

It took two extra holes, but Wesley Bryan is PGA TOUR-bound, thanks to his playoff

victory at the Digital Ally Open at the Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate. 

His third win of the season came after he hit, what he called, the shot of his life, on the par-3 17th. After he, J.T. Poston and Grayson Murray all made birdies on the par-4 18th, they retreated to the 17th for what turned out to be the final time. Murray missed his chip long, and Poston left his putt short. That set the stage for Bryan, who had left himself about 2 feet for the win. 

There was never a doubt.

Oh, there are always doubts....

I'm going to leave you here, and get on with my day.  Which just happens to include golf this afternoon....