Jim Furyk, with his wife Tabitha, was back in the area this week to do what needs doing when the success of a professional golf tournament is your goal.
The 2026 Constellation Furyk & Friends tournament is growing closer by the day, which is simple math. But the approach of that October week seems to gain more speed as it nears, which is one of those odd quirks of our charming universe.
The official dates are Oct. 9-11, Friday through Sunday, for the 50-and-over PGA Tour Champions tournament on the Ocean Course at Hammock Beach in Palm Coast. The Furyk & Friends tourney moved two counties south this year after a five-year run in Jacksonville.
But as happens at Tour events, the entire week, starting Monday, is blocked off for practice rounds, a pair of pro-ams (Wednesday and Thursday) and assorted meets and mingles with sponsors, guests, etc. It’s an important part of the fundraising efforts, which have generated well over $5 million through the past five years, organizers say.
Tuesday’s gathering at the Ocean Course was labeled a press conference. But these things are more of a two-months-out “check-in” to let everyone know everything is progressing well and, by the way, tickets are still available for an event filled with the variety of accessories modern golf fans have come to expect — including that Friday night Billy Currington concert.
(Single-day tickets and packages are available through Ticketmaster or the tournament’s website.)
For Jim Furyk, now 56 and largely done with competitive golf, this tournament has become a way to remain part of the game in a different manner and with different goals in mind. It’s also helped him develop a newfound respect for much of what we never see — namely, tournament operations, the all-important “busy work.”
He signed up for it, and he got it. What he didn’t see coming was a return to captaining the U.S. Ryder Cup team next year in Ireland, nine years after serving as U.S. captain in France. His longtime friend Tiger Woods, most assumed, had been penciled in as the ’27 U.S. captain, but that obviously didn’t work out.
Furyk will remain more plugged-in to the current Tour climate and Tour players than he’d probably expected.
With that in mind, and with another PGA Tour season approaching its conclusion at month’s end — not to mention the current state of things within that evolving ecosystem — it seemed like a good time to pull aside a man who played such a big role in it for some three decades.
Jim Furyk has questions about new PGA Tour structure
Furyk came out of the University of Arizona in the early-’90s and quickly became a PGA Tour regular in 1994. He won his first Tour event in 1995, his 17th and last in 2015, with the 2003 U.S. Open highlighting his trophy collection.
Under the newly announced PGA Tour competition structure, which starts in 2028, Furyk’s consistency would’ve surely locked him into the league of Haves, headlined by the likes of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler, who will play a different level of PGA Tour than the Have Nots.
“You’re always gonna have concerns. I understand the goal, to get the best players together more often,” Furyk said. “In my day, it was Tiger and Phil (Mickelson), 1 and 2. How many events did they compete against each other? It was … maybe 12? They’re trying to get Rory and Scottie, the best players in the world, together more often.
“That’s the idea. Surely, I’m nervous. Change is always difficult, and there are questions.”
Nervous about what, exactly? The rank-and-file, generally, and their opportunities to reach the elite events and what happens if they lose staying power.
“The questions are, how do I get on that tour? How do I stay on that tour? How do I fall off? Is there gonna be enough room for a young player to step on?
“There’s gotta be turnover. It can’t be an enclosed tour. You worry about sponsorships and sustainability. How is that gonna work?”
Questions don’t equate to a loss of confidence, though.
“I think we’re in good hands,” he said. “I think the leadership is great.”
FedEx Cup offers big money, but there’s also a trophy
Though he won the U.S. Open in 2003, Furyk’s best overall season came seven years later when he was named PGA Tour Player of the Year — he won three times, including the season-ending Tour Championship and the corresponding FedEx Cup — this year’s “playoffs” play out over the next three weeks.
The 2010 FedEx Cup was then in its fourth year of bankrolling a $10 million bonus to the champ — in the form of a tax-deferred deposit into his PGA Tour retirement account, which is good work if you can get it. And play some good golf, of course.
Might be easy to say now, but Furyk suggests the money isn’t what he thinks about when he recalls that 2010 capper.
“For me, it was more thinking about legacy, about stamping your name on a trophy,” he said this week. “When I think about the greatest moments of my career, when I think about the U.S. Open and think about putting my name on a trophy with Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan … go down the list, and my name will always be on that trophy, it’s special.
“When you think about the FedEx Cup, the Tour wanted to create that kind of legacy. To have my name on that trophy forever, it’s really cool.”
A Tiger Woods tee time? Doubtful, but phone lines are open!
And finally, back to Tiger, with whom Furyk has a longtime friendship.
A couple of months ago, the Furyk & Friends tournament director — Adam Renfroe — said yes, there’s a contingency plan in case the Furyk friendship leads to Tiger tip-toeing back into tournament play this October.
Furyk says he’d obviously take that phone call but suggests it’s more likely to be “sometime next year.”
However …
“I have not reached out, but if I got wind that he was talking about playing, then yeah, I’d send a note,” Furyk said. “The ability to have a cart, ride some and walk some, would be beneficial. Even if he came out next year and played … seven events, it’d be huge for the Tour. We all know it’d be a great benefit for us.
“But his health and happiness are most important.”
Email Ken Willis at ken.willis@news-jrnl.com
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: How Jim Furyk’s golf tournament is coming along ahead of Palm Coast debut
Reporting by Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ken Willis, Daytona Beach News-Journal | USA TODAY Network
