Keeping a healthy outlook
Injured wrist takes U.S. Open champ Furyk out of Masters
Web posted
Sunday, April 4, 2004
Jim Furyk (Stats | Bio) twice has made spirited runs at winning the Masters Tournament, and he would have been on the short list of pre-tournament favorites for the 2004 event. Instead, he'll sit it out with a wrist injury.
In 2003, Furyk finished fourth in the Masters, playing his final four holes in 3-under par.
Two months later, he won his first major championship, the U.S. Open, where he tied the tournament's 72-hole scoring record of 272.
Seven weeks after that, Furyk won again, in the Buick Open, and ended the year fourth on the money list with more than $5 million. He was also a career-best fifth in the World Golf Ranking.
The best year in his 10-year career on the PGA Tour was tempered by the pain he felt in his left wrist starting at the British Open in mid-July.
Furyk's doctors recommended rest over the offseason. He did that, and he also rested his wrist after the first two events of this season. When that didn't alleviate the pain, he underwent arthroscopic surgery on the wrist March 22. Furyk will be sidelined for three to six months.
Even before the surgery, Furyk had withdrawn from the Players Championship, which is played two weeks before the Masters in Furyk's current hometown of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
''I'll miss both of those events," said the 33-year-old, whose defense of his U.S. Open title in June is in serious doubt.
Missing the Masters will end a streak of 33 straight major championship appearances for Furyk, dating back to the 1995 PGA Championship. He had played in eight consecutive Masters.
''I'll probably watch a little bit of the Masters on TV," Furyk said. "I don't watch a lot of golf on TV at home. It will be tough to watch it. I play for a living. For me to take time off, it's not to play golf. Most people take time off from work to play golf."
Furyk is the first major championship winner since Payne Stewart to not play in the Masters the season after his victory. Stewart won the 1999 U.S. Open in June, then died in a plane crash in October 1999.
Paul Azinger, who won the 1993 PGA Championship but missed the 1994 Masters with lymphoma, is the last reigning major champion to miss the Masters because of illness.
Dr. Andrew Weiland, who performed the surgery on Furyk's wrist in New York, told Furyk that the surgery went well and that he should return to full strength.
''Right now, what's important to me is I play in the Masters, that I play in the U.S. Open 10 years from now and I'm healthy," Furyk said.
"There will be more U.S. Opens and more Masters that I can qualify for. If my wrist is hurt and it doesn't heal because I don't take care of it, then I'm not going to play in any more of them.
''If it was career-ending? Yes, that would be a bummer," Furyk said. "Knowing I'm going to be healthy again in three to six months, I can get over it."
It's amazing that Furyk played as well as he did after the British Open.
His Buick Open victory came two weeks after he first experienced pain in the wrist at Royal St. George's, the 2003 British Open venue.
''I played through some discomfort late last year, and it was bothering me," Furyk said. "I won't say it affected the way I played; I'd say it affected the way I prepared for tournaments because I couldn't hit enough balls and practice the way I wanted to.
''So I was a little unprepared for some events," Furyk said. "Even though I was playing good and finished OK, I felt like I was leaving a little bit out there. That's no way to prepare to play against Tiger Woods (Stats | Bio) and Phil Mickelson (Stats | Bio) and the best players in the world. I want to be 100 percent."
Furyk said he won't defend his U.S. Open title June 17-20 unless he is 100 percent healthy.
''I'm not going to push it," he said. "I'm not going to piece something together. It would be nice to have that opportunity to defend. I'm not going back there for a victory lap, just to wave to everyone."
The venue for this year's U.S. Open is Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southhampton, N.Y. Furyk missed the U.S. Open the last time it was at Shinnecock Hills, in 1995, when he failed to qualify.
"My first 10 years on the tour, that's the only U.S. Open I've missed," Furyk said. "Something about that must not be good for me, I don't know."
''You know what, the great thing about major championships is I'm always going to be the 2003 U.S. Open champion," Furyk said.
"I'd be lying if I would say it wouldn't be nice to play in the U.S. Open as the defending champion. But that was something I got over after I decided to have the surgery."
The more realistic goal for Furyk is to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team for the September matches.
Furyk was solidly in fourth place at the time of his surgery. The top 10 point-getters through the PGA Championship, which ends Aug. 15, make the team. They will be joined by two captain's picks.
''I'd have to say that is my main focus because that's at the end of my six-month recovery rather than the beginning," Furyk said. "There's going to be a lot of U.S. Opens, there's going to be a lot of Masters, PGAs and British Opens in the future. But the Ryder Cup is only once every two years."
Furyk said that if he qualified for the Ryder Cup team but didn't feel he was physically back to full strength, "I would rather someone else represent the team and try to get the cup back than for me to go in there and not be ready to play."
Being away from golf for three to six months will be tough on Furyk, who said in mid-March that he already had cabin fever. During his downtime, he won't be bored, though.
''I'm going to spend half my day rehabbing and getting my wrist ready and spend the other half playing with my kids and being at home and getting things done around the house," Furyk said. "Recovery and rehab, that will be a full-time job."
Reach David Westin at (706) 724-0851 or david.westin@augustachronicle.com.
