It’s one of the hardest things to achieve in the game.
The first one came in 1977.
It was another 14 years before someone did it again.
It was then eight years after that before it happened a third time.
Breaking 60 has always held mythical status in golf.
Al Geiberger (1977), Chip Beck (1991) and David Duval (1999) were the first three to pull it off.
Since 2010, there have been eight more PGA Tour golfers who shot a 59, including Jim Furyk, who also shot a record-setting 58 from in 2016. He remains the only golfer to shoot a 58 on Tour and he’s the only golfer to break 60 twice.
Bryson DeChambeau joined the 58 Club after his 12-under round in a LIV Golf event.
Scottie Scheffler is the latest to break 60 on the PGA Tour, shooting a 59 in the second round of the 2020 Northern Trust. It’s the 12th time that a Tour golfer broke 60.
On the LPGA, there has only been one 59. It came in 2001 and was accomplished by Annika Sorenstam.
Joaquinn Niemann’s 59 in the 2024 LIV opener made him the second on that circuit to do it.
And in 2024, a golfer on the Korn Ferry Tour became the first to shoot 57 in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
Here’s a closer look at the sub-60 rounds in pro golf.
Chris Kirk now has a chance to join the short list.
The PGA Tour’s 2024 season is off and running.
The first event of the new year is in the books with Chris Kirk winning The Sentry on the Plantation course at Kapalua in Maui. He bested a field of 59 golfers who vied for a $20 million prize in the first signature event of the new year.
With that victory, Kirk now has a chance to join a short list of golfers who have put the career Hawaii double dip on their resumes.
Here’s a closer look at the six golfers who have won both The Sentry and the Sony Open in Hawaii.
Former U.S. Open winner Jim Furyk is planning a nice practice spot for former British Open champ Cam Smith in Jacksonville.
Glen Kernan Golf and Country Club’s new ownership group has one Claret Jug to its credit, plus a U.S. Open trophy won by its new course designer.
The Jacksonville, Florida-based private club was purchased Friday by local developer Corner Lot, which counts 2022 British Open champion Cam Smith as an investor and 2003 U.S. Open champion Jim Furyk as heading up the course renovation. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
“I’ve had the pleasure of becoming friends with Cam and Jim over the past couple of years,” wrote Andy Allen, CEO of Corner Lot Development Group, a privately-owned real estate developer in North Florida, in a text. “When this opportunity came up, I wanted to put a team and partnership in place with an aligned vision for a golf club that will have a greater impact on our community by bringing a golf experience second to none in Jacksonville. Corner Lot’s mission is to build up our city through smart development and partnerships. This one may take the cake.”
Smith, who defected to LIV Golf shortly after winning the Open at St. Andrews in 2022, the same year he won the Players Championship, initially struggled to find a permanent place to play in his adopted hometown after losing access to TPC Sawgrass in the wake of his leaving for LIV. He has since become a member at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club and March Landing Country Club. But this will be Smith’s first foray into the golf ownership business.
“Andy Allen kept saying I want you to meet with Cam Smith, and that’s how it happened,” said Travis Norman, an executive with Hampton Golf, which will manage Glen Kernan. “I went and met with his business team, and he’s in.”
Smith may have to wait a little while to make Glen Kernan, which was designed by Robert Walker and opened in 1999, his home course. The plan is to shut it down for a year and renovate the course, which sits on 260 acres. Lot lines and home sites are more removed from the golf holes than on some other courses in the area, leaving wide corridors for the golf.
“There’s a significant amount of deferred maintenance to be addressed in the first year to make it a premier club in the area,” Norman said. “We know that demand is high for a high-end private club with limited membership, and the supply is lower in this market.”
Norman said they also will expand the clubhouse and freshen other amenities at its athletic park including pickleball, tennis and a fitness center.
Furyk, a 16-time winner on the PGA Tour who at age 53 remains active on PGA Tour Champions, already has been engaged by another course to be managed by Hampton Golf: Glynlea Country Club at Wylder, a new community planned for Port St. Lucie on the southeast coast of Florida.
“I got the opportunity to walk the first six holes at Glynlea with Jim, and just to hear him talk and see the shaping and his green complexes and bunker design, it was very impressive,” said Norman, whose company already manages Palencia Club, Blue Sky Golf Club and Eagle Harbor among others on Florida’s First Coast. “So his design ability coupled with his knowledge and passion for this golf course made him an obvious choice. Plus, he’s been around this golf course for 20 years. He’s played it with his son and father and he knows every mound on this golf course.”
Furyk has been a longtime member at Glen Kernan. His parents eat there regularly. Furyk said the course is one exit away from Pablo Creek Golf Club, where he practices often, and so it will be convenient to make regular visits.
“The golf course has a lot of promise and good bones,” Furyk said. “Our plan is to make a few holes a little more playable for our average golfers and extend some tee boxes to lengthen the course for our better players.”
Asked if he expects Smith to be involved in some of the design decisions, Furyk said, “I’m sure he’ll be interested. I think Andy has let him know that he can have some input on the practice facilities (at the double-sided range) and such, so I’ll talk to him a little bit about that. I’m sure Cam will want some privacy at the back of the range to get his work done and get ready for tournament golf.” (Smith’s management team didn’t return a call seeking comment.)
Friday was the last day the club was open for play as Corner Lot officially assumed control, and construction is scheduled to begin next week. “We want to create the premier experience in this market,” Norman said. “We think we have the right footprint, the right designer and we’re going to make something special.”
The seller (the Hodges family) also sold land to a local developer who plans to build in the neighborhood of 100 homes.
“It’s beaten every expectation I had. It was just incredible.”
BRADENTON, Florida ― After Friday’s second round of the World Champions Cup, which saw Team International clinging to a half-point lead over Team USA, International captain Ernie Els opined that any lead didn’t really mean anything until maybe the last putt.
The inaugural event at The Concession Golf Club didn’t come down to the last putt. But it did the last hole.
Trailing Team International on Sunday by 2.5 points with three holes to play, Team USA got clutch play down the stretch from David Toms and Billy Andrade and overcame the margin to win the inaugural event at The Concession Golf Club.
Team USA finished with 221 points, Team International was second with 219, and Team Europe third with 208. Over the final three holes, the 56-year-old Toms, who won 13 PGA titles from 1992 to 2017, earned 4.5 out of a possible 6 points. One match earlier, Andrade, filling in for injured Team USA captain Jim Furyk, registered 11 points, besting International’s Vijay Singh and Europe’s Miguel Angel Jimenez.
Team USA’s vice captain Bill Andrade, left, watches David Toms drink out of the World Champions Cup trophy to celebrate at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
But trailing by half a point after leading for much of Sunday, Team International had a chance to pick up two points and the tournament championship on the par-4 No. 9 closing hole when Toms and Team Europe’s Bernhard Langer bogeyed.
All International’s Retief Goosen had to do was make par to collect the two points and give his team the victory. But Goosen, a winner of two U.S. Opens, hit his approach shot into the penalty area. His double-bogey earned him zero points, while the USA and Europe each earned a half-point.
The format called for three points to be available for each hole. The lowest score earned 2 points, the second lowest 1 point, and the third lowest earned zero. If teams tied with a score, the points were split. If two teams tied with a low score, they each earned 1.5 points, with third place earning nothing.
After the post-match ceremony, each member of Team USA walked into the media interview room draped in an American flag. Later, they poured champagne into the championship trophy and drank from it.
Team International’s Stephen Ames reacts after his birdie putt on the ninth at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
Toms’ play over the final three holes keyed the USA’s victory. Before taking the half-point lead heading into the final hole, USA had trailed by as many as six points.
“I think, really, what I really liked about this team,” Furyk said, “and I always talk about the personalities and how easy these guys are to get along with, but this is a feisty group. I think we’ve got a bunch of guys who have good short games, good putters, guys that don’t give up, guys that will grind it out and finish a hole for you.”
Another big contributor to Team USA was Jerry Kelly, who played a bogey-free nine holes to earn 12.5 points, the most of any player during the morning singles. Team International captain Els, who earned 12 points during the bogey-free nine-hole morning singles, felt for Goosin, his teammate.
Team InternationalÕs Retief Goosen chips up to the eighth hole during their morning round at The Concession Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
“I really feel for Retief,” he said. “He had such a tough lie there. To be this close at the end of the day . . . yeah, we lost basically the last couple of matches.”
Even Toms didn’t think his team had a chance, particularly when USA trailed by 6 points.
“On No. 8, I had a putt to win the hole,” he said, “and one of the guys in the crowd said something to the effect that it was a big putt. I was like, at that point, I didn’t even know it would mean anything, honestly, because I didn’t know where we stood. I made the putt, so that was good. Then I got to the 18th tee and I heard “USA! USA!” after Billy (Andrade) made his putt and I was like, man, we have to be in good shape.”
Said Team USA Brett Quigley about the format, “It’s beaten every expectation I had. It was just incredible. It was way more fun than I thought it would be and just so much love. The team aspect of it, because every week we’re doing our own thing and we go home and we go to the next week. This week, to have our families here, our caddies so involved and all the players genuinely pulling for each other made it so special.”
“The U.S. guys kept grinding out the 18th,” Els said. “We just couldn’t make that one putt up the hill. I missed it, K.J. missed it, Vijay (Singh) missed it. Unfortunately, Retief had such a tough lie.
For his first signature layout, Jim Furyk plans to create a course focused on playability at Glynlea in Florida.
Jim Furyk has signed on to design a golf course at the recently announced Glynlea Country Club at Wylder, a new community planned for Port St. Lucie on the southeast coast of Florida.
Furyk, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and a 17-time PGA Tour winner, was hired by GreenPointe Developers, LLC to build his first signature course. Furyk has served as a consultant on several course designs in the past and has been interested in course design since he was a boy. Hampton Golf will manage the course.
The 53-year-old Furyk, who lives up the Atlantic coast in Jacksonville, said he is focused on designing a course that can be enjoyed by any level of golfer. Plans are for the course to open in late 2024.
“People may see a Tour player as the designer and immediately think it’s going to be hard, but we’re designing a golf course that’s fun and very playable at all skill levels,” Furyk, who has won three PGA Tour Champions titles, said in a media release announcing the news of Glynlea.
“I’ve played all over the world and have seen a variety of golf course styles. I’ve played a lot of golf with my mom and dad and in pro-ams on the PGA Tour, so I also understand how the amateur plays and gets around a golf course. Beginners, average players and pros alike will enjoy the great challenges of this course.”
Jim Furyk, third from left, with MG Orender of Hampton Golf, Ashley Larsen of Hampton Golf, Justin Kuehn of Hampton Golf, Travis Norman of Hampton Golf and Ed Burr of GreenPointe Developers (Courtesy of Glynlea Country Club)
Wylder is a master-planned community of more than 4,000 homes that was launched in 1975. As part of that community, the gated Glynlea will encompass some 560 acres and include a variety of lot and home sizes with prices starting in the $800,000 range.
Neither event is a major force, but they lend themselves to a more laid-back, casual atmosphere.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Two tournaments less than 90 miles apart have developed a sort of symbiotic relationship, mostly due to the friendship of the two hosts.
They’re on different tours with a different demographic of players and for different stakes. But they have a few things in common: they’re hosted by two of the top PGA Tour players of their generation, the old-school courses and clubhouses offer breathtaking water views and they’re all about the fan experience.
This week’s Constellation Furyk & Friends, which began on Friday, is a PGA Tour Champions event at the Timuquana Country Club. It’s in its third year and last December was voted the best tournament experience of the year by the Champions Tour membership. The tournament is hosted by Jim Furyk, a 17-time PGA Tour winner and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, and his wife Tabitha.
Forty days after the final putt on Sunday, the 14th RSM Classic will tee off at the Sea Island Club on St. Simons Island, Ga., on Nov. 16. It’s a PGA Tour event that began in 2010 and has quickly become a staple of the fall schedule. World Golf Hall of Fame member Davis Love III, who won the 1992 and 2003 Players Championships and the 1997 PGA, among 21 PGA Tour titles, is the host.
Neither event is a major force in worldwide golf. But because of that, they perhaps lend themselves to a more laid-back, casual atmosphere that appeals to some players who have been through the wringer this season with major championships, the FedEx Cup and international match play events.
Schwab Cup and FedEx Fall
The Furyk & Friends does come with a certain late-season cachet: the PGA Tour Champions Schwab Cup race has only two tournaments left for players to get among the top 72 for the Schwab Cup playoffs. But the stars, such as defending Furyk champion Steve Stricker, Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, Stephen Ames and Steven Alker are secure and the fight is at the bottom end.
For the record, the tournament host is the bubble boy at No. 72, with a scant $2,037 lead over Jason Bohn.
The RSM Classic is the final event of “FedEx Cup Fall,” a new competitive format for the PGA Tour in which players who finished outside the top 70 (which qualified them for the FedEx Cup playoffs) have seven tournaments to earn points to stay among the top 125 and keep their PGA Tour card for 2024.
Tournament host Jim Furyk talks with caddie Mike “Fluff” Cowan ahead of the 2021 Constellation Furyk & Friends at the Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida. Photo by Bob Self/Florida Times-Union
Tournaments share best practices
Love said the tournaments have something else in common: they borrow ideas freely from each other — with never a hard feeling — and go after experienced tournament organizers.
“Jim obviously saw us pop out of the ground as a really well-run tournament because we went and stole from people like [Quail Hollow Club president] Johnny Harris and the PGA Tour and we jumped right in with good operations,” Love said. “So, Jim and Tab did the same thing, they went and found the right people [such as tournament director Adam Renfroe, who ran the Web.com Tour Championship]. Obviously being here in town with the support of the Tour is very helpful.”
Furyk has no problem crediting the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions with helping the tournament evolve from his two-day pro-am at the Sawgrass Country Club between 2010-2020 to the Champions Tour schedule.
“Having [PGA Tour commissioner] Jay Monahan and [Champions Tour president] Miller Brady give us the stamp of approval and let us go out there and find Constellation and Timuquana has been wonderful,” Furyk said. “It seems like a big mountain to climb but it goes by so fast … we have a lot of fun with it. It’s a labor of love and I’m really proud of Tab and our team. We have a very small team but they work really hard all year.”
The Furyk & Friends has a staff of six people, including Renfroe and Tabitha Furyk.
Love’s structure at the RSM Classic is similar. His brother Mark is the executive director and his daughter Lexie Whatley is the event and merchandise manager. The tournament staff consists of 10 people but Love not only plays but has been seen vacuuming the merchandise tent floor to help his daughter close each night.
Both tournaments have been tireless in raising money for charity. The RSM Classic has raised more than $35 million in charity in the first 13 years and Furyk & Friends has raised more than $2.5 million in its first two.
Jim Furyk, wife Tabitha Furyk, Nicki Stricker and Steve Stricker celebrate with the trophy after Steve Stricker won the 2022 Constellation Furyk & Friends at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo: Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)
Fun outside the ropes
Then there are the activities for fans outside the ropes. Both have numerous hospitality venues, both private and public and being in the fall, neither tries to fight the pull of college football and the NFL.
A large courtyard behind the 18th green at Sea Island has huge TVs that are tuned into the games of the day on Saturday and Sunday, as well as the golf. There is also a sports bar-like venue on the back nine of the Seaside Course.
The Public Tailgate Village at Furyk & Friends offers multiple TVs to keep up with the games and it’s opening early on Sunday for Jaguars fans to watch the game against the Buffalo Bills in London.
There’s also the Kid Zone, with a petting zoo and playground equipment. And if kids want to climb one of Timuquana’s stately trees, no one’s going to stop them.
“Now I want to copy what they’re doing,” Love said. “They sell more than us, they build a lot more than us. It’s incredible. In the pro-am, I was just counting skyboxes and tents and venues. Shoot, my granddaughters want to come back because of the Kid Zone they played in last year. Little things like that, every tournament goes and looks at other tournaments and sees the successes. So we’re definitely doing that with Jim and Tab.”
Both tournaments have concerts. Both have highly successful pro-ams. And both take good care of the players.
Listening to the players
“We’ve all played many, many tournaments on the PGA Tour and around the world, so you know what works,” Ernie Els said. “They [Furyk and his wife] listen to the players. They listened to the players through the first couple of years and went from there. From day one it’s just been a fabulous experience. The venue helps so much, too. Everything works.”
Players and their families on the PGA Tour also enjoy the RSM Classic for its venue and atmosphere: in the heart of the Golden Isles, at a historic resort.
“It gets better by the year,” Zach Johnson said last year. “The community rallies behind it every year. Everybody’s just excited for RSM week. It’s a perfect synergy between the Tour, Sea Island, RSM and stewardship. That’s what the Tour’s all about.”
Furyk said the key is to give hard-core golf fans what they want, and a party atmosphere for people who are only casual fans.
“It’s really just about bringing people out,” he said. “The golf tournament itself is the vehicle.”
“Pat, he’s got a big noggin,” Furyk said. “We have a hard time getting him in a hat.”
An unfortunate narrative that often comes out after the U.S. loses a Ryder Cup is that there was either a lack of overall team comradery or outright dissension.
Jim Furyk, the host of this week’s PGA Tour Champions Constellation Furyk & Friends at the Timuquana Country Club, heard it as a Ryder Cup player and captain and he’s hearing it again after serving as one of Zach Johnson’s vice captains in Rome last week when the U.S. lost to Europe 16.5-11.5.
He said reports of disunity are “absolutely not the case.”
“I was in that team room each and every night,” Furyk said on Tuesday during a news conference to promote the World Champions Cup, a match-play event for PGA Tour Champions players in December. “Those 12 guys really bonded, really got along. I know we’re disappointed that we didn’t bring the cup back to the United States but I can say and I’ll stand by it, those 12 guys really got along well and supported each other. As captains, we couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
Furyk also said reports that Patrick Cantlay ostracized himself from the team and didn’t wear a USA hat during competition as a protest over not getting paid to play in the Ryder Cup were false.
The rumors were so viral that European fans on-site took their hats off and doffed them sarcastically whenever Cantlay passed their way.
Team USA vice captain Jim Furyk talks to Team USA golfers Collin Morikawa and Sam Burns during a practice day for the Ryder Cup golf competition at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club. Mandatory Credit: Adam Cairns-USA TODAY Sports
Furyk said that resulted in a show of U.S. bonding when the entire team and caddies took off their hats and waved them at the fans after Cantlay birdied his last three holes on Saturday to win a fourball match with Wyndham Clark against Rory McIlroy and Matthew Fitzpatrick.
“I’m not sure where [rumors of team disharmony] came from, especially after you saw the support Patrick had with the guys raising their hats in front of the green,” he said. “He took a lot of beating that day from, whether it was from the media, from the fans about not wearing a hat, the speculation that maybe he didn’t want to wear the American flag, whatever it may be. I think you saw the support from the players.”
Furyk said Cantlay’s decision not to wear a hat came down to being unable to find one that fit.
“Pat, he’s got a big noggin,” Furyk said. “We have a hard time getting him in a hat. He hasn’t worn one for three or four years in the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup. If he’s going to birdie 16, 17 and 18, he can wear whatever he wants, I’ll say that.”
The star of the U.S. Ryder Cup scouting trip? It was a blast from the past.
NAPA, Calif. — The star of the U.S. Ryder Cup scouting trip? It was a blast from the past.
Jim Furyk dug deep into his closet and resurrected the infamous 1999 Sunday singles shirt that the American side wore at The Country Club in its dramatic come-from-behind victory that became known at the Battle at Brookline.
“It’s quite vintage. I think it’s coming back now and style,” Johnson said on Tuesday during an interview with SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio. “And Jim can pull it off. He is kind of a fashion forward guy as it is, so, it’s awesome.”
Furyk, who was U.S. team captain in 2018, the last time the American side lost on foreign soil, is serving as a vice captain for Johnson later this month in Rome at Marco Simone. The burgundy shirts, created under the direction of U.S. captain Ben Crenshaw, were dotted with portraits of victorious U.S. teams from the past six decades. It’s a shirt that has to be included in any list of the ugliest uniforms in sports. Asked in 2004 by ESPN what he did with his shirt, Tiger Woods said, “I threw it in the fireplace over Christmas and burned it. It was sooo ugly. It provided more warmth for the house.”
Furyk saved his and once told Sky Sports that it’s “his party shirt.” Packing for the trip to Rome, he happened to come across it, tossed it into his suitcase and wore it to be funny.
“He texted me he’s like, ‘What do you think?’ I’m like, ‘Buddy, if there’s ever a place and time to wear that thing, it’s now; it’s so good.’… As an American golfer, as the guy that watched every second of that championship, you remember those shirts. You remember that team, and what happened so, it’s so much fun. I love seeing it.”
“I have worn it three times since 1999,” Furyk told Golfweek in a text. “Once at Halloween, one at New Year’s Eve to be funny and last weekend.”
Stewart Cink, another of Johnson’s vice captains, said Furyk was taken by surprise the night he wore the shirt to dinner when the team left the restaurant and walked about three city blocks back to the team hotel.
“It felt like Times Square, shoulder to shoulder with people in the middle of the city, wearing that shirt and having a lot of people say, ‘Hey, look at that Ryder Cup shirt.’ It was hilarious,” Cink said. “And I don’t know if he expected that.”
Since the FedEx Cup Playoffs began in 2007, 13 different champions have been crowned. Rory McIlroy leads the way with three FedEx Cups to his name, surpassing Tiger Woods’ record in 2019. The two all-time greats are the only players to claim multiple FedEx Cups.
Jim Furyk, golf’s Mr. 58, has company after Bryson DeChambeau shot that magic number on Sunday at LIV Greenbrier in West Virginia on the Old White Course at the Greenbrier Resort.
Interestingly, it was almost seven years to the day that Furyk set the record for low 18-hole score on the PGA Tour during the final round of the Travelers Championship on Aug. 7, 2016. Furyk didn’t see the broadcast of DeChambeau’s dream round but when he heard how he drained a long putt for birdie at the last to shoot 58, Furyk found the video online.
“I will say that Bryson has a much better leaping ability than Phil Mickelson and it is not even close,” Furyk said of DeChambeau’s celebration and a shot at Mickelson’s famous leap when he won the 2004 Masters with a birdie at 18. “He got some actual air under his heels.”
Furyk hasn’t had a reason to jump for joy on the course of late. In fact, he hasn’t played since he withdrew from the American Family Insurance Championship in June after rounds of 80-76. Furyk, 53, has been sidelined with an ailing back and a hip issue to boot. It had been a disappointing year prior to the injury forcing him out — he has gone 10 starts without a top-10 finish and 19 of his last 21 rounds have been in the 70s. He’s hoping to return to action shortly – the third edition of Furyk & Friends as a Champions Tour stop in Jacksonville, Florida, is just around the corner in early October.
“I’m trying to work hard at it. It’s just taken some time and I don’t know. I mean, I’d love to go play Ally (Championship in Michigan). That’s the plan,” he said of the PGA Tour Champions event scheduled to begin in just over two weeks at Warwick Hills, a course where he’s won on both the PGA Tour and in his senior debut among his 17 PGA Tour wins and three on PGA Tour Champions. “I really haven’t had any back issues before. So this one’s a little new for me. I’m kind of learning about it.”
Furyk hasn’t had trouble filling the void of not playing golf. Among the activities keeping him busy is a golf course design project in Port St. Lucie, Florida, which marks his first foray into building a course from scratch as the name designer. Furyk has been involved in some consulting work before on course renovations, and he had a couple of projects back in the 2008-09 timeframe that never got off the ground after the real-estate market crashed in the U.S. Furyk is teaming with veteran architect Mike Beebe, who opened his own shop in 1998 after working for Mark McCumber’s design firm.
“It’s going to be fun to play, that any level of player can get around,” Furyk said. “You have to understand who you’re building the golf course for and, so, I’m hoping that when people see my name, they’re not thinking of a hard golf course or tournament golf course.”
Furyk still plans to focus on competing for the time being, but he’s also heavily invested in the success of the tournament bearing his name as well as his role as a U.S. Ryder Cup vice captain in September and Presidents Cup captain next year in Montreal. He does, however, hope to squeeze in some more golf course design work in the years to come.
“It’d be nice to have one project going at a time,” he said. “One project where I could go spend a lot of time on it will be fun.”
