ABOVE: Highlights of Jim Furyk’s 59 at the BMW Championship.
GONE CAMPING IN THE NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS, I missed the weekend excitement at the BMW Championship, beginning with Jim Furyk’s 59 (nines of 31 and 28) on Friday, the sixth 59 recorded in PGA Tour history. Other members of the 59 club include Al Geiberger, Chip Beck, David Duval and Paul Goydos. Geiberger was the first, shooting his 59 in 1977 at the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic.
Furyk sank a 3-foot birdie putt on his final hole (the 9th) to get it done. Here are comments from the media conference that followed his record-tying round.
Q. Did anyone from the 59 fraternity reach out to you, get in touch with you?
JIM FURYK: Russell Knox from the Web.com Tour. He’s a friend of mine and he left me a text about welcome to the club, and I thought it was great.
Q. Anybody else that you hear from that kind of …
JIM FURYK: Goydos, as well. I heard from Paul. I got a text from Paul.
Q. What did he say?
JIM FURYK: His was just real simple. It was nothing about him. I texted him back and then said, hey, happy to join you. But Paul got a hold of me. But I don’t know Al real well or I don’t have Chip’s number and I didn’t hear from David. David is a good friend. I’m going to see him pretty soon here in a couple weeks.
Q. He’s in Italy.
JIM FURYK: Good for him. That’s one of my favorite spots to be. I’m jealous.
Q. After Al shot his 59 he got a phone number with 5959 as the last four digits. Chip got 59 in his email address. What, if anything, might you do to immortalize your 59?
JIM FURYK: I don’t know. That’s a good question. I haven’t thought about it. I had a lot of people call me Mr. 59 today, and it just feels wrong. That’s the best I can say. I always think of Al Geiberger as being Mr. 59, so I guess I’ll have to come up with something else creative, because he was the first and should be the only probably.
Q. You said you were going to celebrate and enjoy the round last night. How did you spend the evening?
JIM FURYK: I was worn out. By the time I got out of here and did some more media and got in the car and drove back, I had probably twice as many emails and texts last night than I have ever had after winning a golf tournament. I answered all of them. A lot of them were very short replies, thank you and such, but I answered all of them and just had some room service and watched some football on TV, which is difficult on Boise State’s field.