Tag: 2021 Dominion Energy Charity Classic

How Jim Furyk realized the PGA Tour Champions was ‘where I wanted to be’

“It’s not as mentally and physically taxing, yet it’s still extremely competitive.”

RICHMOND, Va. — Last year Jim Furyk was anxious to give the PGA Tour Champions a shot.

He picked his first two starts strategically. First up in August 2020 was the Ally Challenge in Michigan because he loved the golf course, Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club, former host of the PGA Tour’s Buick Open (which Furyk won in 2003). Next up was the Pure Insurance Championship, an easy choice because as he said, “everyone likes going to Pebble Beach.”

Furyk took home the hardware from both events, joining Arnold Palmer and Bruce Fleisher as the only golfers to win their first two starts on the senior circuit. He then finished up his PGA Tour season and decided he wanted to come out and join his fellow 50-plus players on the Champions tour, and he hasn’t looked back since.

“It was just very apparent playing in (Champions tour) events, I enjoyed it. I didn’t have a lot of success here last year. I played solid, I finished 13th, but still really enjoyed the tournament, enjoyed the golf course and kind of had the feeling this was kind of my – where I wanted to be,” said Furyk ahead of this week’s Dominion Energy Charity Classic, the first of three events in the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs.

[listicle id=778063367]

“It’s fun. It takes a little bit less out of you,” Furyk continued. “A three-round golf tournament, we’re in carts for the pro-am and for the practice rounds – that’s a great invention, by the way – then I walk during the three days, but instead of walking five or six rounds a week, I’m walking three. It’s not as mentally and physically taxing, yet it’s still extremely competitive.”

Plus he’s gotten the chance to get reacquainted with his 8-iron, 9-iron, and wedges again.

“I missed those guys for about four or five years on the PGA Tour,” joked Furyk.

Earlier this month the 51-year-old hosted the Constellation Furyk and Friends, won by none other than 2021 PGA champion Phil Mickelson, who’s set to defend his 2020 Dominion title this week after a war of words online regarding the USGA and R&A’s new local rule for club length. A week after Furyk and Friends at the SAS Championship, the event’s namesake was without longtime caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan due to an injury. Instead, his son Hunter was on the bag, and the pair finished tied for third.

“Better. I’m actually surprised at how well he’s gotten around this week,” Furyk said of Fluff’s status. “He really was hobbled last week and wasn’t able to bear a lot of weight. He’s still got a little bit of a limp to his gait, but we went on — he was on the cart today for the pro-am and he put the bag on his shoulder a significant amount … He’s limping a little bit right now. I’m sure it’s a little sore. I’m sure he’s hiding it a little bit, too. He seems to be all right, thinks he’s going to be good to go.”

Furyk will need his right-hand man to be on his A-game this week as the pair take on the top-72 players from the season-long Schwab Cup points list, especially at 54-hole Champions tour events that are more of a sprint than a marathon compared to the 72-hole Tour stops.

“You can have a bad nine holes out on the PGA Tour, you’ve got seven more to kind of catch up. Out here you play a bad nine holes, you feel like you’ve put yourself behind the eight ball,” said Furyk, who enjoys the pressure and chance to be aggressive.

“I think playing a golf course that’s 7,000 yards gives me a little more chance to be aggressive, fire at more pins. I’ve got a little shorter iron in my hand. When we’re playing out on Tour and we’re sitting at 73, 74 and I’ve got 5-iron, 4-iron in my hand a lot, I’ve got to play a lot more conservative. Conservative isn’t fun, aggressive is fun.”

[mm-video type=playlist id=01es6rjnsp3c84zkm6 player_id=01evcfxp4q8949fs1e image=https://golfweek.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]

As the PGA Tour Champions grows, Bernhard Langer dishes on competing with the ‘young’ guns

Langer has run the senior circuit for a decade and a half, and he knows how to compete against the younger crop of players.

RICHMOND, Va. — After turning 50 in August of 2007, Bernhard Langer took his talents to the PGA Tour Champions where he has, over the last 14 years, solidified his title as the most decorated senior men’s player of all time.

How decorated? Two-time Masters champion (1985, 1993) and 42-time winner on the European Tour has amassed 41 wins on the Champions tour, including a record 11 senior majors.

Now 64, Langer knows he needs to step his game up to compete with the “young” guys on the 50-plus senior circuit. You know, players like Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Jim Furyk, Darren Clarke and oh yeah, 2021 PGA champion Phil Mickelson, who recently won the Constellation Furyk and Friends and will defend his 2020 Dominion Energy Charity Classic title this week at Country Club of Virginia.

“He’s had tremendous success. He’s only played, what, four or five tournaments and won three of them if I’m correct. That’s a very high percentage,” said Langer. “I just heard today that he won 10 days ago and he was 81st in driving accuracy, which blows my mind. If I was 81st in driving accuracy, I wouldn’t finish in the top 20 and he won the tournament.”

“Well, it’s been a very strong rookie class as we all know,” said Langer of his other competitors after a Wednesday practice round for the first of three legs of the tour’s season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs. “They’re proven champions, winners, major winners, and they’re going to have a big impact on this tour, no doubt about it, and we’ve already seen it.”

“What I notice is these guys hit it a lot further than we did 20 years ago, 10 years ago. So I used to be one of the longest guys out here about 15 years ago, 14 years ago, now I’m in the middle of the pack, trending the other way,” said Langer, who noted his drives top out around 280 yards these days. “So I’ve got my work cut out making up for that lack of distance somewhere else, either accuracy or better thinking or better short game or whatever, but it’s not easy because they’re good in all of that.”

The Champions tour is growing and becoming more competitive as the years go on, and the German who has been the man to beat for the last decade and a half is the first to admit it. Will the new names reach any of his marks? Depends how committed they are.

“Oh, they’ll all try and make a run. It all depends how committed they are to the tour and how much they play. We’ve seen Steve Stricker producing some tremendous results out here, but he hasn’t fully committed yet,” explained Langer. “Once he comes out here full time, he’ll win a bunch. I think Jim Furyk is fully committed and he’s going to continue his winning ways. So will Phil, I suppose, whenever that time comes from him.

“You have Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, they’re all working very hard. Mike Weir’s out here working his butt off, excuse my language, but so are many others,” he added. “They’re eager, they’re realizing there’s a second opportunity after the PGA Tour’s over now, and on the PGA Tour Champions they have another chance of playing some really good golf and showing how good they are for the next 10, 15 years.”

Langer drew the blueprint for how to find success in the next phase of his career, and some news players have hit him up for questions and advice on the transition to senior professional golf, not that he’ll tell you who asked or what was said.

“Not going to call any names now or whatever, but they asked what do you think and how did you feel and is there any difference. And there’s slight differences. Most of our tournaments are three days, so you’ve got to play aggressive from the get-go. You can’t afford to have a bad round and expect to win, that’s not going to happen when you play three rounds. That’s probably not going to happen when you play four rounds, but at least you have one more round to hopefully catch up,” said Langer, who has held the top spot on the Schwab Cup standings for 19 of the 36 regular-season weeks this year.

All without a win, shocking enough. Langer hasn’t lifted a trophy since the Cologuard Classic in March 2020, but he’s been in the mix, earning 26 top-10 finishes in 36 starts (with 36 cuts made) to top the season-ending points list with three tournaments to play. At the Country Club of Virginia, Langer has finished T-4 the past two years – runner-up in 2018 and he won here in 2017.

“They’re all special in their given time, but now being 64 years old, it gets harder and harder so it would mean a great deal, especially with the super season,” said Langer of the chance to win a sixth Schwab Cup. “You know, two years running to win one would be extremely special. But we’ve still got three big events ahead of us and I’m not going to get ahead of myself. Try and put my work in and hopefully get some good results.”

[mm-video type=playlist id=01es6rjnsp3c84zkm6 player_id=01evcfxp4q8949fs1e image=https://golfweek.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]