3/21/2010Jim Furyk’s first par on a par three Sunday proved to be the difference in his first PGA TOUR victory in 59 Tour starts and almost 32 months. Needing to get up and down on 17 from a greenside bunker 28 yards away, Furyk was faced with the same shot to the same pin on the same day in the same tournament one year ago…and he made a triple-bogey 6. However, this year in contention, he hit his bunker shot to within eight feet and made a putt to give him a two-shot cushion heading to 18. He would need it as he drove right, “half-shanked” his second shot and eventually tapped in for a bogey and a one-shot victory over K.J. Choi. Par threes were adventurous for Furyk who made three bogies and a birdie Sunday on Copperhead’s first four par 3’s before his tournament saving up and down par from the bunker on 17.
Furyk off-set three bogies on the final nine with three birdies each time giving him a three shot lead. “It seemed like every time today K.J. got close,” Furyk said in the post-tournament press conference, “I was able to bounce right back and hit some really good shots, make a bunch of birdies and get some more distance.”
The 12th was a key hole for Furyk over the weekend as he drained a pair of 33-foot birdie putts Saturday and Sunday on that hole. In shooting four rounds in the 60’s, he becomes the first champion of this event to accomplish this feat since Vijay Singh in 2004. His 13-under par total of 271 is tied for the third lowest 72-hole score in this event and sets the new mark for lowest score since this event moved to the spring.
Bubba Watson posted the best finish by a lefthander in tournament history with a solo third place finish at 11-under. Nick Watney(-9) was solo fourth with a weekend score of 132, equaling the lowest final 36 holes in tournament history. Defending champion Retief Goosen finished 8-under for solo fifth.
Despite almost five hours in weather delays, the crowds stayed strong on Sunday and witnessed yet another great champion in this event’s history. After two delays totaling almost 5 hours, the action on the course has been well worth the wait. The best players in the world are fighting through wind gusts but attacking unusually soft greens due to the earlier rainfall. At the turn, Jim Furyk (-13) has a 2-shot lead over both K.J. Choi (-11) and Bubba Watson (-11) who just birdied the tenth.
Choi made 4 birdies in a 5-hole stretch including a 58-foot bomb on the third hole. Furyk has mixed in three birdies with a bogey on 4, just his second bogey of the tournament. Choi and Furyk were tied heading to the 8th hole, but a Furyk 23-foot birdie combined with a Choi bogey gave Furyk a 2-shot lead. If he holds on for the win, it will be Furyk’s first win on the PGA Tour since July 2007 when he won the Canadian Open.
Others in contention include Retief Goosen making the turn at 9-under and Nick Watney 9-under through 12. Carl Pettersson is 8-under, solo 6th.
Crowds have been steady all day with some sticking it out since the early morning and others arriving for the afternoon action. Wind gusts could be a big factor on the final nine. It looks like Mother Nature is finally easing up on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort. After a morning delay of 1 hour and 15 minutes, players teed off at 9:00 am before the horn sounded at 11:02 am suspending play. Everyone in the field will be on the course when play resumes at 2:45 with the final group on the first tee. Hopefully, if there are no more delays, we will have a conclusion to the tournament in the final hour of daylight today. Players are currently getting loose on the driving range and putting green.
If you’re thinking about heading to the event, you should still be able to see four hours of championship golf, weather permitting, if you arrive by 3:30 pm. After a 75-minute delay to start the round, thunderstorms have hit the area so golfers were called off the course at 11:02 am. The final threesome of Jim Furyk(-11), K.J. Choi(-8) and Retief Goosen(-8) is the only group remaining that hasn’t started their fourth round. They are on the first tee when play resumes. The quartet of players tied for second at 8-under has been joined by Jeff Maggert and Padraig Harrington who both birdied #1.
Ping-Pong was the favored clubhouse activity during the early morning delay and the table action in underway again. After a 1 hour and 15 minute delay due to inclement weather, the fourth round of the Transitions in underway. The leaders should tee off just before 11:00 a.m. and finish around 4:30 p.m. weather permitting. It looks like the weather has cleared for now and the latest forecast shows it should be overcast without rain for the next 5-6 hours. It looks like the final round of the Transitions Championship will have some issues with Mother Nature on Sunday.
The PGA TOUR delayed the start of the round for 75 minutes, but play is now definitely expected to start at 9 am.
Stay here for the latest updates. 3/20/2010137 weeks and 6 days, that’s the time it’s been since Jim Furyk has been victorious in a PGA Tour event. Tomorrow, Furyk will go to the first tee with a three shot lead over the rest of the field. Over one-half of this tournament’s championships reside with the quartet of players tied for second at 8-under. Retief Goosen, defending champion as well as 2003, K.J. Choi, 2002 and 2006 champ, Carl Pettersson, 2005 champ, and Bubba Watson all start the day three shots back. One behind that group is Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington and Jeff Maggert.
Furyk, winless in his last 59 PGA Tour starts, has played the treacherous back nine of the Copperhead without a bogey in three rounds. Today, birdies on 11, 12, and 15 separated Furyk from the rest of the field.
“I want to go out and win a golf tournament.” Furyk said. “That’s what we play golf for. That’s what I practice hard for. And I haven’t been able to do that in over two years, 2 ½ years. I feel like my confidence is growing and building, I feel like I’m climbing back up the mountain.”
Furyk will start at 9:40 am along with the two, two-time champions of this event K.J. Choi and Retief Goosen. All tee times are moved up and the players are going off in threesomes due to potential thunderstorms in the afternoon. The tournament should finish around 3:00 pm.
Furyk’s three shot lead is the second largest in this event after three rounds behind K.J. Choi’s five-shot cushion in 2002. He will also attempt to win this event with four rounds in the 60’s for the first time since Vijay Singh accomplished the feat in 2004.
Fan favorite John Daly will tee off on number 10 at 8:27 am. Other notables playing the back nine first tomorrow are Adam Scott (8:37 am) and Sergio Garcia (9:09 am).
Temperatures are expected in the low 70’s but rain is expected beginning late in the morning, so rain jackets and/or umbrellas might be a good idea. The third round is well on its way at the Transitions Championship and we have begun to see some low scores already been posted. Geoff Ogilvy who was under the impression he was not going to make the cut when he was done with his round yesterday, took an early flight home to Phoenix and found out that he had actually made the cut when he was already on the plane. Not arriving back in the Tampa Bay area until around 5am this morning the jet lag seemed to have no effect as he shot a 6 under 65 to put him at 4 under for the tournament. Nick Watney also shot a 65 good enough for 5 under for the tournament.
Webb Simpson birded 6 of 7 holes, in a stretch from hole 8 to 14, to help boost him up the leader board with a finishing score of to put him strokes back of the leaders. Speaking of the leaders they have just all started their rounds as they look to improve their position heading until the final round tomorrow. They are currently making the turn with Furyk leading at 8 under and 7 others one stroke back.
It has been a picture perfect day here at the Innisbrook Golf Resort and Copperhead course providing the perfect backdrop to watch world-class golf. We also have some exciting activities sill planned at the Live Your Vision Pavilion behind the 18th green. Including 3:00-3:30 Swing Clinic with Kenny Perry and Matt Killen
3:30-4:00 The Zeiss is Right Trivia Game and 4:00-4:30 Photo Op - The Transitions Championship Trophy.
Tomorrow’s forecast is not as promising however. In anticipation of inclement weather later in the day on Sunday, March 21, 2010, the PGA TOUR, in consultation with the Transitions Championship, has elected to move up tee times for Sunday’s final round on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook. Play will be conducted in threesomes off the 1st and 10th tees, with the goal of a conclusion around 3 p.m. Depending on the results of the third round cut, play will begin at approximately 8 a.m. with the leading groups expected to tee off around 10a.m.
Best time to attend: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
NBC telecast will be tape-delayed, airing 3-6 p.m 3/19/2010• Local favorites John Daly, Bob Heintz and John Huston all made the cut. For Daly it was his third straight cut made this year, his longest streak in five years.
• Woody Austin missed the cut for the first time in nine tournaments. Jonathan Byrd made the cut for the eighth time to tie Austin’s tournament record.
• First round leader Garrett Willis followed his 65 with a 77 to end up at even par and tied for 41st.
• Six of the tournament’s eight sponsor exemptions made the cut, although one of the two who did not was Ryo Ishikawa of Japan who followed his opening 83 with a 71. His Japanese compatriot Yuta Ikeda, in the tournament on a commissioner’s foreign exemption did make the cut.
• Among those making the cut at the number of 2 over par were Sergio Garcia, Geoff Ogilvy, Lucas Glover and Heatlhy Sight Ambassador Trevor Immelman.
• Kenny Perry, also a Healthy Sight Ambassador, increased his steak to 33 consecutive made cuts – the longest current streak on the PGA TOUR. Padraig Harrington is beginning to find his way around the Copperhead course like an old hand. After only his third round ever on the course, he posted a six under 65 to put him at the top of the leader board at eight under par after two rounds.
Former Transitions champions continue to play well. Carl Pettersson, the 2005 champion, and two-time champion (2003, 2009) Retief Goosen following up their 67s yesterday with 68s today putting them tied for second place at seven under just one back from Harrington. Jim Furyk has also made a consistent start at this year’s tournament shooting a 67-68 putting him tied with second with Retief and Carl.
Bubba Watson will also start tomorrow’s round tied for second after shooting a six under 65. Watson had a tumultuous back nine bogeying three straight holes only to follow with a par and three consecutive birdies. “Instead of thinking you’re the best ever, you need some bad mistakes to get you back focused,” Watson said.
The talk of the day was David Tom’s’ eight under 63, an eleven-stroke improvement from his 74 yesterday. Tom’s goal for the day of “shooting a couple under and make the cut” tuned in to a complete flip-flop from his round yesterday stating, “that’s the beauty of the game, every day is a new day”
There were some tense moments as the last groups began to trickle in and the cut line was beginning to get clearer. After holding steady at one over for most of the day a late bogey by Matt Every pushed it to two over allowing sixteen more players to stay the weekend including two of the top twenty players in the world, Sergio Garcia and Geoff Ogilvy. | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XsnLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xsn | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.2 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.3 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.4 | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 255 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 256 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 256 |
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