▶ There really isn’t anyone who doesn’t have some kind of story about playing golf for the first time with Jim Furyk. After all, how could you not remember that swing, the one David Feherty once described as looking like “an octopus falling out of a tree.”
▶ “I remember thinking, Boy, they teach the golf swing a lot differently in Pennsylvania than they do down here,” says Justin Leonard, who was 15 the first time he played with Furyk—a few days before an American Junior Golf Association event in Texas in 1988. Leonard laughs. “Then I noticed something else: He got everything up and down and made it look pretty easy.”
▶ Bill Calfee had played on the tour for 10 years in the ’70s and ’80s and had gone to work for the tour in the early ’90s. During the 1993 mandatory orientation session for rookies who had survived PGA Tour Qualifying School, he took two young players— Furyk and Pete Jordan—out to play nine holes at TPC Sawgrass after the day’s seminars were over.
▶ “I’d never met Jim before,” Calfee says. “Very nice guy. Very quiet. But when I watched him swing the golf club, I thought, Poor guy’s got no chance. I said that to Pete when we finished. He agreed. I laugh now when I think about it, because look how it turned out.”
▶ The way it has turned out is this: The guy with no chance, with the swing people didn’t know whether to laugh or cry about, will turn 50 in May and has done the following since making it to the tour at the start of 1994:
Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Golf Digest Middle East.
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Denne historien er fra March 2020-utgaven av Golf Digest Middle East.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Tempting Entrée
INDUSTRY IDENTITIES AND A FORMER SIX NATIONS STAR AMONG THE BIG NAMES ROLLED OUT FOR THE EAGL’S SUMMER DRESS-REHEARSAL
Year of the Comeback
Tour pros of all ages are rediscovering their mojo
THE GOLF STAYCATION PERFECTED
Golf Digest Middle East’s inaugural Play & Stay is coming to Radisson Dubai DAMAC Hills and Trump Dubai
THE GENIUS OF JORDAN
HE WANTED A CONFIDENT, RELIABLE SWING. HE FOUND IT IN A CLEVER WAY
The Starter
The Nairn Golf Club
Undercover Caddie
Think you could carry a 40-pound bag for a living?
DRIVE BLAST PUTT
THREE WAYS TO RAISE YOUR GAME
Get Set - Ball-striking success starts at address
AMATEURS OFTEN STAND OVER THE BALL with their feet too wide apart. I understand the appeal—they want to feel more stable throughout the swing, and a wider stance seems a logical way to achieve that.
Take 5
It’s hot but that’s no excuse not to warm-up before every round and range session
Classic Closer
Our monthly guide to taming the region’s stroke index 1 holes has gone off-piste. Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club professional Matthew Brookes heads to arguably the toughest finishing hole in Middle East golf