JIM FURYK QUESTIONER: Conditions? JIM FURYK: Conditions were actually better today because the wind never, at least at Poppy the wind didn't kick up too much. Stayed relatively calm. We maybe had a couple holes where the wind picked up at the turn. So probably in the 11:30 range to noon, where it blew a little bit but never quite as hard as yesterday. Kind of seemed like bands were coming through. Get a little band of rain, then it'd be warm. Rained less than what I expected, less than yesterday and it wasn't very windy and the forecast that I saw last night 15, 16 miles per hour which in the rain and cold is quite stout. I think we got out of it pretty good today. Hoping for the same tomorrow. NELSON SILVERIO: Questions? QUESTIONER: Jim, you talked about staying home on the bombers course. You think these more classic courses, little more shot maker courses fit you pretty well. JIM FURYK: I think so. Length really isn't an had you on any of these golf courses. Right now with all the rain the greens are soft. One thing we're having to do is hit a lot of club. Hitting 8 iron, using 9 iron and the ball's still spinning back. Yeah, I'm not uncomfortable on long golf courses. Medina is a long golf course, I'm very comfortable there. Just when it's a golf course where I feel like it's pretty open off the tee, lot of courses are designed where the bunkers maybe only go to 280, 290. They're hitting to a 50 yard wide fairway, I'm hitting to a 35 yard fairway, it's just not making a lot of sense at times. There's times we have to play those whether it's a World Golf Championship or Major Championship. I'm not uncomfortable on long golf courses, just if I have to pick and choose my schedule I can only play so many events. I still play quite a bit 25 or more events. I'm going to pick the courses that best suit me. QUESTIONER: What's been your closest call here? JIM FURYK: Been in the top 5 a couple of times at least. At least a couple times, but I don't know. I was playing real well one year when O'Meara won. Duval was up there pretty close. I finished about fourth that year. I don't know if I've counted. The closest call is probably the year we had to come back in September or August whenever we came back. I think I had the lead on that last day for a while. I've had some good years. It's a test of patience, that's for sure. QUESTIONER: Do you feel like maybe you're at a new level? You've kind of crept up a little more consistently in the world rankings and maybe you're at the highest level you've been consistently for a while? Does that feel like your game's matured another step? JIM FURYK: I think so. Last year was probably my most solid year. '03 was a good year. Last year I played very, very well though, probably my best year-to-date. My world ranking has crept up and, you know, a lot of people it seems to make a much bigger difference to... QUESTIONER: Others... JIM FURYK: Other people rather than the players, if that makes sense. I think it's a reflection on how well I've been playing but again it's not what I'm striving for and I'd rather try to win golf tournaments and try to get better and sometimes that's a direct reflection, sometimes it's not really, if that makes sense. I think you can get better in your game and maybe it's not showing, eventually it will. QUESTIONER: You mentioned it's a test of patience. Besides six hour rounds... JIM FURYK: Six hours would be on the minimum. We've been over. I'll take the over tomorrow too as well. You've got the very soft greens. Today at Poppy the pins tend to be in the back of the greens, they're very soft. It's hard to hit a golf shot that will get back there and doesn't spin back, you know, there's times even from say 105, 110 yards you're chipping a little wedge and it's still jerking back 15 feet. It's hard from 105 feet to hit a 9 iron, 8 iron. You fly the green, you make bogey anyway. It's a test of patience. I think when it's raining here and you're playing on poa anna, you can see the footprints, the greens aren't perfectly smooth, you're going to have some putts that bounce around a little bit. Then you're standing on a lot of tee boxes, waiting and, you know, I don't know... obviously I'm playing well and I don't want to only say the negatives but it's a test of negatives. Patience. It's very easy to make a couple of bogeys and then have to go sit on the next tee for 15 minutes to hit. You sit there bowling. It's easy to lose your patience, make some bad decisions. It's a lot easier when you're playing well to stay in a good frame of mind. I think it's hard to sit out there for six hours and 20 minutes and stay focused on every golf shot. Just very difficult to do. QUESTIONER: Did you have any long waits? JIM FURYK: My longest was the turn because second group out you're going to play a little longer, you're going to have to wait. For some reason on the last tee box, I waited on the ninth turn for quite a while. Today number 9 was a reachable par 5 so that's understandable. That was quite a good wait. I watched the group in front of us hit on one, two, five and nine, so four times I saw the group in front of me hit. QUESTIONER: You look much at what courses you've played compared to the others that are next to you on the leader board, kind of figured you've run the shorter laps, longer laps? JIM FURYK: No idea. Don't care, either. Won't look and just go play golf. Doesn't matter. I can't really do anything about how they're playing, what courses they're playing. I can control how I play a little bit tomorrow. Obviously I hope the weather is good at Pebble and not a lot of wind. Can't control that, either. I'll just go out tomorrow and play the best round I can. Try to play well enough. QUESTIONER: Three straight birdies, pretty big. JIM FURYK: It was a good finish. God finish. I hit it about a foot-and-a-half on 7 and I chipped in from about 20 feet on... just off the... just off the right side of the green the pin was on the back right just over the bunker, good lie, pretty good shot in there. Just kind of spun back off the green, I chipped it in and I made a really good long putt QUESTIONER: Do you feel somewhere else you played you're going to have to keep up that pace? JIM FURYK: Yeah, I think the lack of wind today really allowed guys to go out there and... scores should be better today, I would expect. Yesterday was a pretty tough day and my 5 under at Spy yesterday was probably, from a stroke average was probably as good or better than the round I played today at Poppy. QUESTIONER: Does anything change at all if the wind's howling tomorrow, will you try to hit a lower shot or anything like that? JIM FURYK: Just it tests your execution, makes you hit the ball that much more crisp. Yeah, I think we're already hitting shots pretty easy and relatively low to counter the softness of the greens so it won't be that much different, but yeah, I try to hit the ball relatively easy to take some spin out of it, try to hit it relatively low to keep it out of the wind and try not to fight the wind too much. The harder you swing, the more spin you have on the ball, the more the wind can eat it up. But with the greens as soft as they are that's pretty much the way we're playing all week. QUESTIONER: You hope the forecast continues to be wrong? JIM FURYK: Eventually it will probably catch up to us, but I guess it's been pushing north. From what I've been hearing, Santa Cruz and north has been getting it. No offense, but I hope they keep getting it. Is it true the Santa Cruz college is the Banana Slugs? QUESTIONER: Yeah. Banana Slugs. QUESTIONER: The leaders of environmental science. QUESTIONER: You find yourself looking at whether to continue this tournament... JIM FURYK: They're about the same. I'm not a person who has to play years and years before I talk about the weather all the time. But I figure out what the wind's going to do in the forecast and get an idea. They do a pretty darn good job as far as wind direction and it's been actually pretty variable this week, so it's been tough to get a handle on it, but they do a good job. It's a good site to go to. It's probably not our official site, but it helps me figure out what's going on. NELSON SILVERIO: You went your three consecutive birdies, do you mind going through the rest of them? JIM FURYK: Birdied the first hole today, hit a driver and a 3 iron to about 30 feet, 2 putted for birdie. Birdied the 12th hole. Laid it up hit a wedge about 12 feet behind the pin, sand wedge actually my gap wedge. I birdied the last par 5s, three par 5s in the back, was able to birdie all of them. Hit a driver just in the left rough on 18 and I was able to hit my hybrid up there short right of the green, the pin was kind of on the right side down in the valley so I left myself a relatively benign pitch. Hit it about five feet and made a little downhill curler for birdie. And then turned around and birdied 2. I hit a 5 iron on the right fringe it was about 20 feet. Knocked that in and then hit it about a foot. Hit it couple feet on 7 chipped it in on 8, was about 20 to 25 feet two putted for birdie on 9. Yesterday I birdied all the par 5s. The par 5s have been treating me well. QUESTIONER: How was your 2 putt? JIM FURYK: A long way. Probably 90 feet. I was about ten yards on, got up there about five feet was a good putt from there and then I knocked it in good. NELSON SILVERIO: Thanks. QUESTIONER: If you look at the leader board after two rounds, you, Phil, Davis, Kevin Sutherland who won the match play, that's an impressive leader board. JIM FURYK: Yeah. I've got to be honest with you, I didn't look. At Poppy it's only some holes. Then when I finished I didn't get a chance to look. I knew that Phil was playing well, his name was up at the top all day. I have no idea where Davis was playing. I know Davis and Phil a lot better, also Kevin's a good guy. QUESTIONER: Do you find any problem in the revolving courses? You've played here for years you know the setup. Some guys just don't like to keep changing. JIM FURYK: Other than the traffic pattern I haven't had any issues. Can't figure out which way I'm supposed to go half the time. I think you want to stay off of... hopefully not be on Pebble Beach when it's howling. That's a given. Pebble on a perfect sunny day, 70 degrees and low wind, Pebble tends to yield some of the lowest scores at times. On a blustery day where conditions are tough it's the hardest place to play. It has no protection on a lot of holes, but that's part of golf. You get a good draw, bad draw, just go play. Hope you get pretty good conditions under there, but it is what it is. QUESTIONER: One other thing. Does being number 2 in the world mean something to you? I mean it's very impressive. JIM FURYK: It's a nice side note, but I'd rather be 5 and won four times last year than be number 2 and won twice, if that makes sense. I met the gentleman that started the world golf rankings and he kind of thinks I hate him. I don't. I try to downplay it as much as I can. I think they're a reflection. Never do you have a guy that's playing terrible that's up high in the world rankings. If you're playing well, there is a correlation. I don't wake up on Monday morning after a good tournament and see where my ranking went or if it moved. It's not that important. My goals are to win tournaments, to win Major championships, to become a better player and the rest of it will take care of itself. Is it a cool side note, sure. It would be a lot nicer to be number 1, but again being number 1 in the world has never been a driving force. It'd be something, you know, if I can use the word again, it'd be something cool that you could tell your kids or your family down the road, or your grandkids, but never been something that's true to me. I would much rather win a Major championship. If I had more Major championships or being number 1, not even close. QUESTIONER: You got the Major. Okay. That's something you've chased, last year you had a great open until the last couple of holes there. So I guess you feel that that second one isn't that far away. JIM FURYK: You never know. I've had my shots along the way. I was able to play really well at Olympia and got way out ahead and, you know I've had a couple good shots. I probably had three, maybe four good shots to win Major championships where I really felt down the stretch I could have won the golf tournament. I was able to win one of them, I'd like to keep knocking on the door, win more of those opportunities. QUESTIONER: One more thing. Once you win... JIM FURYK: You have a lot of questions. QUESTIONER: Once you win, does that sort of take the pressure off, okay, I've won one, just got out and played golf? JIM FURYK: That's actually a good question. I put a lot of pressure on myself that first time. I was never one... never having won a Major going into the final round and having a 3 or 4 shot lead, knowing that it was my tournament to win. I put a lot of pressure on myself that first time. I think I would be... I would still be very nervous but I think I'd be a little more relaxed the next time around. I didn't want to look at the negative side and say it was my tournament to lose or look at the possibility that I just didn't want to think I don't want to let this opportunity slip through my fingers. It was such a good opportunity. I was so far out ahead and there wasn't that many guys behind me chasing. I will say in one respect, yes, it was a little bit of a... for that event it was a little bit more of a relief rather than a happy moment immediately, just because of the pressure I put on myself to play well and compete that day. So I think, yeah, the next time around it would be, you know, the next opportunity... at the U.S. Open last year I was very disappointed to not win that, but I won't say it didn't hurt any less but I would have been crushed had I not won the one before, if that makes sense. Kind of like I was at the '98 Masters. I was pretty crushed after those two events and it doesn't mean that it affected the way I played for the rest of the year, but it hurts for a good day and then you get over it. QUESTIONER: Do you have a follow up. JIM FURYK: That was a good answer. I was trying to wear you out, get you thinking about something else.