Zach attack pays off at Conway Farms

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Monday, September 16, 2013

    Zach Johnson said earlier in the week that Conway Farms Golf Club’s yielding of low scores reminded him of TPC Deere Run, site of the John Deere Classic.
    “I’m not complaining,” Johnson said.
    Especially now. He completed a career Illinois Slam by grabbing the BMW Championship title on Monday, his bogey-free 6-under-par 65 for an aggregate of 16-under-par 268 beating fast-closing Nick Watney to the finish line by two strokes. Watney’s 7-under 64 was the round of the day, and got him to 270 – and to the Tour Championship at East Lake – but Johnson, who trailed overnight leader Jim Furyk by three when he teed off, passed both Furyk and Watney in the course of a frantic delayed-a-day finish to the 110th Western Open.
    Johnson took the lead for the first time when Furyk lipped out a par putt on the 13th hole and dropped to 13-under. Johnson was at 14-under after sinking a 8-footer for birdie on the par-4 12th.
    Watney was a few holes ahead, and birdied the par-3 17th to tie Johnson, but Johnson converted for birdie from 19 feet on the par-4 16th to regain the advantage. He doubled the margin to two strokes with a birdie on the par-3 17th, and coasted home, his 10th career victory placing him fourth in the PGA Tour’s playoff standings and thus within reach of the $10 million bonus if he wins on Sunday at East Lake. (He collected $1.44 million from Monday’s $8 million purse.)
    Johnson accomplished it, he said, by not thinking of the goal, just the process.
    “I was trying to make the Presidents Cup team (in Boston) without trying to make it,” Johnson said. “I was trying to make the top three (in the standings) without trying to make it. Now, I’m not going to try to win that $10 million. I’m going to try to play four solid rounds of golf.”
    As he did at Conway Farms. Rounds of 64-70-69-65 varied between solid and spectacular. He was bogey-free his last 31 holes, but never held even a share of the lead until the birdie at the 12th.
    Johnson has played stupid good golf since the Deere, where he lost to Jordan Spieth in a three-man playoff. After that second place, tied for sixth at the British Open, tied for fourth at Firestone, tied for eighth in the PGA Championship, tied for fifth in the Wyndham, and tied for 27th, his worst finish in two months, at the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second playoff tournament.
    Where was he during the Barclays? Not at Liberty National. There was a more pressing engagement.
    “I mean, you’re not going to miss your brother’s wedding, especially when you’re the best man,” Johnson said. “Especially if I’m going to get along with my new sister-in-law.”
    That included a scouting round at Conway the day before, when he charted places to hit it and not hit it for his yardage book. And that seemed to pay off. He only missed 11 of 54 fairways, and his 27 of 36 greens in the final two rounds.
    Johnson said a bad four-hole stretch dropped his standing at the Deutsche Bank, but making a putt on his last hole advanced him to Conway Farms, and from here, it’s off to East Lake with a shot at was old-timers would call bagging the whole bundle of boodle.
    Furyk failed to win for the fifth straight time while holding the 54-hole lead. Winless since 201, he was at even-par 71 on a day a number in the 60s was mandatory. Finishing third at 13-under 271, he was 12-under on his Friday 59 and 1-under the other three rounds.
    “I never looked at (the final round) as I have to hold on to the lead,” Furyk said. “That’s a definite bogey waiting to happen. Today the idea was to go out aggressive, hit the ball at the pins, try to shoot 4- or 5-under, make the rest of the field chase me.
    “I’m playing really well, on a golf course I like next week in Atlanta, and a win there could do some damage.”
    Furyk won the FedEx Cup in 2010. He’s 11th in the standings. The top five (Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Johnson and Matt Kuchar) cop the Cup if they win the Tour Championship. Everyone else has to win or finish high and depend on the kindness of strangers.
    Watney’s sparkling 64 started with birdies on the first three holes, and closed with birds on four of the last seven holes, but he needed to be below that when Johnson stepped up. A birdie that slid by the cup at the last and flew away stung.
    “I figured I had maybe an outside shot, but there’s so many good players ahead of me that I knew I’d need something special,” Watney said. “All you can ask for is a chance there, and I hit a good putt. It was really, really fun. I haven’t been in this position for a while, and to get back in the heat is awesome.”
    Watney improved 22 places in the playoff standings, rising to 12th from 34th, one of two players to jump into this week’s Tour Championship. The other? Read on.

    Donald to East Lake

    Conway Farms member Luke Donald didn’t win the tournament, but he won a ticket to East Lake after a 5-under-par 66 on Monday. That placed him at 11-under 273, tied for fourth, and when the rest of the marbles filtered down the Plinko machine, he was 29th of 30 qualifiers. And relieved.
    “I had to fight hard on that back nine,” Donald said after coming in in 4-under 32, a bogey offsetting one of his five birdies. “I figured at the beginning of the week top five or better was probably going to do it for me. I knew I had to go pretty low today. Fortunately I got it going a little bit on the back nine.”
    Donald has a history of low final rounds when he’s out of contention, but usually in less familiar surroundings. This was on his home course. But he was in a field of guys who are quick studies.
    “I had a bunch of lipouts this week,” Donald said. “If they had gone in I’d probably be contending for the title. I was hoping that being a member here would help me, and I think it did a little bit.”
    He got a member’s bounce on the par-4 15th, missing the fairway right, but carving a shot toward the green that hit the hillock to the right and bounced onto the green, rolling to within seven feet. He converted that for birdie to go to 11-under, and 5-under for the day. But a bogey at the 16th dropped him from hinting at contention. But he birdied 17 after a splendid iron to six feet, and gave the cup on 18 a scare as well.
    “There were nerves from 15 onwards,” Donald said. “I knew I got myself into position where I had a chance. That’s why we practice hard, to get in those positions.”
    And now, after Monday night’s stop at Wildcat Golf Day in Evanston, to East Lake, where, Donald said, “I’ve notoriously played pretty well.”
    He tied for third there last year, with a pair of 67s on the weekend.    
    Donald, 54th at the start of the Western, was one of only two players to climb into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings. The other was Watney (34th to 12th). They displaced Lee Westwood (30th to 41st) and Harris English (20th to 31st). Tiger Woods replaced Henrik Stenson at the top of the ladder. D.A. Points, the pride of Pekin, skidded from 21st to 28th with a 57th place finish at Conway, but advances. His heart sank when a birdie putt at the last hung on the left edge of the cup, defying gravity, but it proved a harmless miss in the end.

    Around Conway Farms

    Biggest job the next few weeks goes to Conway Farms superintendent Chad Ball and his tireless crew, who got the course ready for Monday after Sunday’s downpours, and now have to get the area covered by structures back into shape as the city for a week is taken apart. ... The field averaged 70.557 strokes in the fourth round, and 70.811 strokes for the week, the field thus beating the course, albeit barely. ... Presuming there’s no uproar from the membership, Conway Farms will host the tournament again in 2015. Next year’s edition, the 111th going back to 1899, is at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo., outside of Denver, and famed for Arnold Palmer’s comeback victory in the 1960 U.S. Open. ... The WGA said over 130,000 fans came out for the week. There appeared to be about 7,500 on hand on Monday, a decent crowd considering the last-minute rearrangement of the schedule because of Sunday’s downpour, and a late shift in the parking to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, another 10 miles to the north.

    – Tim Cronin

Monday finish at Conway Farms

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Sunday, September 15, 2013

    They played. They stopped. They squeegeed.
    Rinse and repeat.
    But don’t think of drying out, because that was impossible on Sunday at Conway Farms Golf Club. The final round of the 110th Western Open / BMW Championship, expected to be played for the most part in a light rain, was instead interrupted twice by downpours, and the second of them halted festivities for the day.
    That’s not unusual in golf – especially this season on the PGA Tour, where the opening Tournament of Champions didn’t finish until Tuesday – but it was unfortunate. Aside from having 70 players primed and ready to go, untold thousands likely decided to sit at home and click their remotes between the golf and the Bears, rather than navigate – and we use the term literally – the now-muddy spectator areas at posh Conway.
    Two rain delays totaling 5 hours 3 minutes before play was called for the day kept the final 11 groups, and all the leaders, was taking to the course.
    Play resumes Monday at 8 a.m., weather permitting. Leader Jim Furyk, at 13-under-par 200, and chaser Steve Stricker, at 12-under 201, will tee off at 9:40 a.m., the last to start their rounds.
    Sunday tickets will be honored and tickets will be sold at the gate at the usual $55 price. Parking lots and the free shuttle from the Lake Forest Metra station will be in operation, as well as some hospitality areas.
    There was a reasonably good gallery on the course despite the light rain that had been falling since about 6 a.m. when play began at 7:15, Charley Hoffman and Scott Piercy starting the parade. But the rain began to get harder at times, and after several downpours, the horn stopping play blew at 10 a.m sharp. The third green was taking on casual water.
    “We had a forecast of a half-inch of rain over a six-hour period,” said PGA Tour rules and  operations VP Slugger White, explaining there appeared to be no need to switch to a two-tee start. “It was raining when I got here. We didn’t get concerned until about 6:30, quarter to seven.”
    The rain came in two main waves. Play resumed at 1:01 p.m. after the cleanup for the first one, but the hardest deluge of the day hit at 2:26 p.m., and two minutes into it, play was suspended again. This one flooded the ninth, 10th and 12th fairways, not to mention the third green again. The downpour wasn’t long, but it was effective.
    “We looked at 4 p.m., and it wasn’t even close to what it was at 1:30 p.m.,” White said.
    The ground was saturated, with nowhere for the water to go. But little rain is expected between now and tomorrow morning, perhaps only a rogue shower.
    While the rain pelted down, players lolled about the locker room. Football games were a distraction, with the Bears on the big screen and others on a DirecTV-equipped iPad.
    “There were a lot of good NFL games on,” Furyk said. “I’m anxious to get out there and play, as if everyone else, but the good news is no one wants to go out and play in this and slop it around on a golf course where we’re playing the ball down and it’s probably a little too wet out there.”
    Said Stricker, “I think we got the better end of the deal by not even playing in it. But I wish we could have got it in.”
    Zach Johnson was among the 64 players dealing with the practicalities of it.
    “When should we eat our next meal, trying to figure out hotel reservations, do I need to change my flight,” Johnson said. “All those scenarios are popping up. Just something you roll with.
    “I certainly feel bad for the WGA and BMW because it’s such a great championship up until this point. You want to see a great climactic finish on Sunday, and we’re going to see it on Monday now.”
    It’s the first Monday finish under the BMW imprint, and the first final round played at least in part on Monday since 1983, when the Western Open’s final 36 holes were played on Monday. Mark McCumber won that edition, and beat Peter Jacobsen on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff that took place on a Monday in 1989 thanks to a long rain delay.
    WGA tournament VP Vince Pellegrino said he believed some spectators stayed away because of the rain.
    “We had people come in waves,” Pellegrino said, pun not intended. “Actually I was really surprised the amount of people we had come out considering the forecast. I think it was a good crowd considering the weather.”
    Pellegrino said there will be an unknown financial hit because of extra staffing and transportation for Monday, but expects “a good-sized crowd” because of a leaderboard that includes Tiger Woods, Furyk, Stricker, Dustin Johnson – Western Open winners all – plus U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, Conway Farms member Luke Donald, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler with 14 or more holes remaining in their rounds.
    “We had a great week through Saturday,” Pellegrino. “You can’t help Mother Nature.”

    Tee times for players yet to start

    8 a.m.: Brendon de Jonge (209), Jordan Spieth (209)
    8:10 a.m.: Henrik Stenson (209), John Merrick (209)
    8:20 a.m.: Roberto Castro (208), Nicholas Thompson (209)
    8:30 a.m.: Jimmy Walker (207), Matt Kuchar (208)
    8:40 a.m.: Sergio Garcia (207), Jason Day (207)
    8:50 a.m.: Luke Donald (207), Matt Jones (207)
    9 a.m.: Rory Sabbatini (206), Nick Watney (206)
    9:10 a.m.: Ryan Moore (205), Hunter Mahan (206)
    9:20 a.m.: Tiger Woods (204), Charl Schwartzel (205)
    9:30 a.m.: Brandt Snedeker (202), Zach Johnson (203)
    9:40 a.m.: Jim Furyk (200), Steve Stricker (201)

    Around Conway Farms

    Defending champion Rory McIlroy’s back-to-back 68s came too late to salvage his Tour Championship hopes. That’s because he opened with a 78-77 double-play combination, and that killed his opportunity to advance to Atlanta. McIlroy exited Conway Farms as the leader in the clubhouse, or at the airport, or back home, with a total of 7-over 291. After Friday’s disaster, he said, “I feel like I’m hitting the ball pretty well, I’m just not scoring. I felt really good after the PGA. When I’ve actually gotten myself into contention, that’s when I’ve played my best this year. That’s a good sign. The bad sign is that I’m not in contention too much.” ... Scott Piercy finished dead last in the 70-man field with a score of 18-over 302. Don’t feel bad, for he still earned $16,000. ... Only six players finished, with only the first two twosomes getting in before the first rain delay, at 10 a.m.

    – Tim Cronin

Furyk leads pack of birdie-baggers at Conway

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Saturday, September 14, 2013

    There were some crazy numbers on Saturday at leafy Conway Farms Golf Club, but not among the overnight leaders.
    Matt Kuchar posted a 10-under-par 61 before lunch. Steve Stricker fired a 7-under 64 to climb into second place. But co-leader Jim Furyk, whose dizzying 12-under 59 on Friday made worldwide headlines, settled down and scored 2-under 69.
    He now leads alone, sitting at 13-under-par 200, but only by a stroke, for Stricker, the world’s best part-time player, is at 201 after his 64, and Brandt Snedeker, the co-leader with Furyk through 36 holes, is at 202 after his even-par 71.
    If that’s not enough of a crowd entering the final round of the 110th Western Open – or, from the looks of the props around the set, the BMW Championship – Zach Johnson’s at 10-under 203 following a 69, and one Tiger Woods, five times a previous champion of this turkey shoot, is lurking at 9-under 204 following a penalty-free 5-under-par 66.
    What this means is what it usually means entering the final round on a course that yields birdies: A Sunday shootout. Throw in Charl Schwartzel and Ryan Moore, hanging in at 8-under 205, and there are seven players within five strokes with 18 holes to go. Any of them could win, and look who’s tied for 11th at 207 after a quiet 67: Luke Donald, the Conway Farms member whose influence helped bring the Western Golf Association’s big deal to his club in the first place. Stranger things have happened.
    Longtime Chicago favorite Furyk was lauded with every step he took in the third round.
    “It kind of felt like a victory lap,” Furyk said. “People kept cheering for me all the way around. It’s always difficult to follow that up with a low number, and it probably took me a few holes to really get in the flow out there. Made a couple mental errors, shortsided myself a couple times. But I felt I played a very, very good nine holes on the way in.”
    The inward nine totaled 2-under 34, tarnished only by a three-putt bogey at the last, a hole that started with his first missed fairway off the tee since the 12th hole on Thursday. He had hit 32 fairways in succession.
    “I tried to hit that shot a little too hard for some reason,” Furyk said.
    The miscue halved his lead to a mere stroke over Stricker, whose 64 was punctuated by an eagle 2 on the par-4 15th. He holed out from 99 yards, brandishing a sand wedge, and also had a half-dozen birdies, plus a bogey on the penultimate hole. In all, a good move on what Ken Venturi labeled “Moving Day.” He started the day tied for 57th, but it wasn’t easy.
    “Some greens are firmer than others, depending on where you hit it on the green,” Stricker said. “Some are more exposed so they’re firmer. Some are softer and holding. So it’s a challenge to figure out what’s going to release and what’s going to hold, and then the speed is pretty fast.
    “And it’s a course we haven’t played very much.”
    And still, there’s been a 59, a 61, a 63, a 64 and a handful of 65s. Imagine how the pros will score once they figure out how to play it.
    For the moment, they know enough. There should be some testing pin positions on Sunday, when the $8 million purse – $1.44 million to the winner – is awarded, and the final 30 spots in the FedEx Cup playoff final are determined. But the placements will hardly be pernicious, for the greens have little slope in them, none of them are multi-tiered, and they’re in perfect shape. Or, as the pros would say, “they’re fair,” which translates to easy to putt.
    So expect more low, low, low scoring from the leaders on Sunday, and for the winner to score no worse than 65. Oh, and it’ll probably rain, so they’ll also be holding even more than they have.
    The final six pairings:
    11:50 a.m.: Luke Donald (207), Matt Jones (207)
    Noon: Rory Sabbatini (206), Nick Watney (206)
    12:10 p.m.: Ryan Moore (205), Hunter Mahan (206)
    12:20 p.m.: Tiger Woods (204), Charl Schwartzel (205)
    12:30 p.m.: Brandt Snedeker (202), Zach Johnson (203)
    12:40 p.m.: Jim Furyk (200), Steve Stricker (201)

    Early bird gets the 61

    Matt Kuchar fell out of bed on Saturday morning and shot a 61.
    Playing in the day’s fifth pairing, Kuchar went out in 5-under-par 30 and was 6-under for the day after 10 holes. He warmed up again toward the end of the round, making a birdie on the par-5 14th and the last three holes to return home in 5-under 31 for a 10-under 61.
    It would have been a Western / BMW and Conway Farms record, except for the fantastic 59 authored by Jim Furyk on Friday. But it was fine by Kuchar, who had been on the outside looking in for the first two days, scoring 74-73, about five strokes over the field average.
    “I was just shocked seeing the scores that were posted the first two rounds,” Kuchar said. “I thought this course was challenging even without the conditions, but with 15-20 mile-per-hour winds all day, I thought the place was really tough.”
    Conditions were more docile on Saturday – it was about 55 with a 5-mph wind from the southwest when Kuchar teed off – and he took advantage, hitting 16 greens in regulation and one-putting nine of them, plus holing out from the fringe on the second hole.
    All the dramatic shots, including a 21-footer for birdie on the second, his longest putt of the day, added up to 61. But he had a vision of something else in the 18th fairway.
    “I had a thought on the last hole, gosh, if I hole this out from the fairway (for double-eagle 2), it’s a 59,” Kuchar said. “I think I got it to at least scare the hole a bit.”
    It did, stopping about 15 feet behind the cup. He two-putted for birdie from there.
    Ho hum, a 61.

    Around Conway Farms

    Hunter Mahan had the shot of the day, an ace on the 208-yard 17th hole. He used a 5-iron, and won a $100,000 bonus grant from BMW for the Evans Scholars Foundation – effectively, a full scholarship for a fortunate caddie – and a electric-powered BMW for himself. ... The showcase pairing of Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia featured handshakes at the start and finish, and little communication between the two otherwise. Garcia shot 2-under 69, hearing a few “fried chicken” catcalls from the gallery, catching the same phrase he used for Woods at the Players Championship. ... Woods on his two-stroke penalty on Friday: “I was pretty hot because I felt like, as I said, nothing happened. I felt the ball oscillated and that was it. I played the rest of my round grinding my tail off to get myself back in the tournament and then (to) go from five to seven behind, that was tough.” ... A reliable source reports Saturday’s gallery was 31,000, with the galleries for the first two days about 25,000 and 28,000, respectively. That makes our original estimate of 40,000 for Thursday off the mark. The final round crowd may exceed Saturday’s, if they come out early. Rain is forecast for most of the day, with a 70 percent change from noon on.

    – Tim Cronin

59! Furyk runs the table at Conway

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Friday, September 13, 2013

    It was just after Jim Furyk marked his approach shot on the ninth green at Conway Farms Golf Club, his 18th hole of the day. He was about three feet from the cup – and a share of golf history.
    Make it, and he scores a 59.
    Then the voice rang out.
    “Jimmy, I’ll give it to you!” said the South Side-accented man.
    The crowd cheered. Furyk waved at him. Then, after Jason Dufner and Gary Woodland had holed their putts, neither of them more than six feet, Furyk stepped up and the crowd stilled itself.
    Center cut. Fifty-nine!
    The man who first broke the barrier of 63 in the Western Open / BMW Championship with a 62 at Bellerive Country Club in 2008 had scored golf’s magic number, the sixth person to do so in PGA Tour competition.
    And with a bogey on his card. Al Geiberger, David Duval, Paul Goydos, Chip Beck and Stuart Appleby all had bogey-free rounds en route to their 59s.
    The 59, 12 under Conway Farms’ card of 71, is the greatest round of golf ever shot in Chicago, standing above the 62 scored by Ben Hogan at Ridgemoor in the Hale America National Open of 1941, the 62 Tiger Woods put on the board at Dubsdread during the 2009 Western / BMW, and any other low number from the history books.
    This one goes in the frame above the fireplace.
    Furyk did it the hard way, that bogey coming on his 14th hole of the day. Now he needed to birdie two of the last four holes. And he did it, a rally consisting of a routine par, a birdie and an up-and-down par on the par-5 eighth before the final drama at the ninth hole.
    He hammered a drive 281 yards down the right side of the fairway, with 103 yards left to a flag waving tantalizingly from the front left of the green.
    “I knew the pin was in a benign spot,” Furyk said.
    For Furyk, 103 yards left is a “smooth” gap wedge. He struck it purely. The crowd was roaring when it was halfway to the green, and got even louder when it hit about seven feet behind the cup and spun toward the hole. ShotLink measured it at 3 feet 3 inches. Furyk thought it a little under three feet. The gallery? Measured in decibels.
    “I noticed how many people came out to watch,” Furyk said.
    They were four deep on the right side of the green where almost nobody had stood for two days, and filled the ground and grandstands, including the back of the grandstand at 18, where Tiger Woods was finishing at about the same time. Everyone wanted to see history.
    Everyone did. He didn’t need the gimme from the fan. Furyk poured it in. He pumped his right fist several times. He doffed his cap and waved. He soaked it in.
    “It reminded me of the putt to win the FedEx Cup (in 2010),” Furyk said. “I always try to daw on times when I’ve done something well. Hell, I knocked that one in. I thought, ‘Left-center and let’s see what happens.’ I don’t remember really even striking the putt or what it felt like when it left the putter or anything. It went in the middle, I believe.”
    It did. And then into his right pants pocket. Furyk signed his glove for the World Golf Hall of Fame after signing his card, then signed some balls for those who walked with him, scorers, standard bearer and the like, but not the last ball of the round, the 59 ball.
    “That’s the one that went in on 9, and it’s staying with me,” Furyk said, holding it up. “I’ve got a place for those at home.”
    The path to that trophy case was fascinating. Furyk scored 1-over-par 72 on Thursday and stood nine strokes behind leader Brandt Snedeker at daybreak. Now, after his 59 and Snedeker’s ho-hum 68, they’re tied for the lead. (Oh, by the way, there is a golf tournament going on, and those two lads will play together in the last pairing at 12:50 p.m. Saturday.)
    Furyk started on 10 and birdied his first three holes, the longest putt a 9-footer on No. 10. He his his third shot on the par-5 14th to three feet and sank that. He holed out from 115 yards with a 9-iron on the par-4 15th, the eagle making him 6-under for the day in as many holes.
    “I knew the pin was only cut about five from the right edge there and really I watched the gallery,” Furyk said. “They started standing up and the arms went up and that’s how I knew it went in.”
    The game was afoot. A birdie on 17 – his second 2 of the round – and another on 18 brought him in with a 7-under-par 28 on Conway’s back nine. He had done that before, during his 62 at Bellerive five years ago, but didn’t recall it.
    “I’ve never shot 28 before to start with,” Furyk said. “It kind of dawned on me at the turn that it would only – only is a tough way to say it – it only takes 4-under on the (par 35) front to break the barrier of 60.
    “The way I played it out in my head was, the back nine was over,” Furyk said. “I was just going to play the front nine and shoot as low as I could. I was trying to take the nerves out of it. Heck, I’ve shot 4-under on nine holes probably 100 times in my career. Probably even more.”
    Furyk than ran down birdie putts of 13, 26 and 5 feet on the second, third and fourth holes to reach 11-under for the day and 10-under for the championship. He was chasing history and close to catching Snedeker.
    Then came the fifth hole, the lonely hole near the railroad tracks where the gallery rarely ventures. And where Furyk, after hitting the back of the green – he missed only the 16th, and hit all 14 available fairways – three-putted. Bogey.
    “A little bit of a blip,” he put it. “Shoulda made the first putt (from 29 feet). That pin was tough and icy.”
    His par-saver lipped out on the low side. So he was 10-under for the day. Four pars equaled a 61. But there were birdie chances ahead, notably the par-5 eighth and the par-4 ninth.
    But he birdied the par-4 seventh, hammering a gap wedge to 11 feet from 126 yards in the middle of the fairway.
    “Seeing that putt go in was a big help mentally, knowing I figured eight was going to be reachable (in two) and 9 was going to be a short iron,” Furyk said.
    His approach on the eighth landed on the grassy edge of the big sod-faced bunker in front of the green, with the cup directly behind. He rapped the ball up and out to the back of the green and two-putted for par, and wasn’t happy.
    “I was bummed that I didn’t do it on No. 8, but was excited about the opportunity on No. 9 after I drove it down the middle,” Furyk said.
    Golf fans are an interesting breed. They root for birdies even when it’s not their favorite. Jim Furyk has been a Chicago favorite ever since he won the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields. He doubled up with a victory in the 2005 Western Open at Cog Hill. His fans agonized with him and the rest of the American team when his putts didn’t fall down the stretch at last year’s Ryder Cup at Medinah.
    Now here he was in the right center of the fairway, 103 yards from golf’s version of perfection – even with a bogey. Everyone was in his corner, and everyone let loose when, first, his approach covered the flag all the way, and second, when it disappeared into the cup.
    “Not many cities have treated me this well,” Furyk said.
    Not many players have accomplished what he has. No other scorer of a 59 has a U.S. Open title on his resume. Of the other five worthies, only Geiberger and Duval have won majors, a PGA and British Open respectively. None of them have won a Western Open, and Furyk now is in great position to win a second – this time under the BMW moniker.
    With the best round of a splendid career, he was the dominant player of the round, and by a wide margin. Furyk’s 59 was six shots better than the next-best score of the day, the 6-under 65s registered by Jordan Spieth and Jimmy Walker. And it was a dozen strokes ahead of the average of 71.086 turned in by the 70-player field.
    That’s how brilliant Furyk was on Friday at Conway Farms. Eleven birdies, an eagle, five pars and that bogey, just for laughs.
    “I always scratch my head and try to figure out how you get to 59,” Furyk said.
    Now he knows. Now we all know.

    Tiger, meet Sergio; Sergio, say hello to Tiger

    Maybe it was golf karma. Maybe it was negligence or stupidity.
    But Tiger Woods’ mistake on the first hole on Friday morning dropped him into a pairing with Sergio Garcia thanks to a two-stroke penalty administered late in the afternoon.
    Woods his his approach on the first hole into the wood chips under bushes behind the green. He moved one little twig, but when he touched another, his ball moved. He said nothing about it, but the movement was captured by a PGA Tour Entertainment video crew. When someone at PGA Tour Productions saw it, they forwarded it to the rules officials here, and Woods was questioned after his round.
    He said the ball had oscillated, and perhaps it had from his angle, looking down, but from the side angle on video, it was obvious the ball moved downward.
    Said PGA Tour rules official Slugger White, “He knew there was movement there, but he was very adamant that it oscillated, it stayed there. The ball did, in fact, move.
    “In that situation, had he put the ball back, it would have been a one-stroke penalty. He didn’t, so he gets a two-stroke penalty.”
    Woods made a hash of the hole anyway, dubbing the chip and making double-bogey. The penalty turned it into a quadruple-bogey 8, a snowman, and landed him at 1-over 72 for the day and at 4-under 138 for 36 holes. That’s where Sergio Garcia stood.
    And guess who are paired together for Saturday’s third round. Yep, Woods and the guy who made the “fried chicken” crack in Woods’ direction earlier this year.
    Instead of a starter at the first tee, maybe they need a bell and a girl in a skimpy outfit holding up a “Round 3” card when the two protagonists step into the ring for their 11:50 a.m. tee time.

    Around Conway Farms

    Don’t look now, but Winfield native Kevin Streelman is tied for fourth a 6-under 136 after adding a 70 to Thursday’s 66. He goes off with Jordan Spieth, whose quiet 65 on Friday was a six-stroke improvement on his opening round, at 12:30 p.m. ... Zach Watney (69 for 136) and Zach Johnson (70 for 134) are in the penultimate twosome, at 12:40 p.m. ... Defending champion Rory McIlroy is lucky there’s no cut in the 70-player field. He added a 77 to Thursday’s 78 and stands at 13-over 155 entering Saturday’s third round. That’s his highest score on the PGA Tour after 36 holes. He and Charley Hoffman are the dew-sweepers at 7:25 a.m. ... Along with the six 59s in PGA Tour history, there have been 28 60s scored by 28 players in Tour history. Two 59s have been scored on the web.com Tour this year. ... Even with all the low rounds, the scoring average each day has been over the par of 71. Patrick Reed’s 78 was Friday’s high round, followed by the 77s of McIlroy and Ken Duke.

    – Tim Cronin

Full barn of birdies at Conway Farms

Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The first clue came less than a half-hour into play on Thursday morning, when John Merrick, not exactly a household name in most households, dropped his wedge shot on the par-4 third hole at Conway Farms Golf Club into the cup for an eagle 2.

The cascade of red numbers had begun.

Before it ended, Brandt Snedeker had surfed a wave of seven straight birdies into the lead of the BMW Championship, Zach Johnson was a stroke behind him after a similarly bogey-free round, and a trio including Tiger Woods was three off the pace.

Snedeker had visions of a really low number after his putt on the first hole, the 10th of his round, dropped for his seventh straight bird – tying the Western Open / BMW mark set by Hubert Green at the start of the third round in 1985.

“A 61 or 60 was very doable,” Snedeker said.

He settled for an 8-under-par 63 and the lead.

Johnson, crediting recent improvement to better driving, birdied the par-5 18th to finish at 7-under 64. For him, the low scoring at Conway Farms is a reminder of that other tournament in Illinois, which he won last year.

“It’s not quite the John Deere Classic, but it reminds me of the John Deere Classic, at TPC Deere Run,” Johnson said. “I’m not complaining.”

Nor is the sponsoring Western Golf Association. Spectators turned out in huge numbers, causing traffic jams and forcing the WGA to close the gates during the lunch hour, because it ran out of parking. If one person was traipsing across the leafy acreage, 40,000 people were.

The high attendance contributing to the bottom line will eventually benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, but for the nonce the low numbers being posted will contribute to the mad rush to the pay window in this $8 million turkey shoot. The winner gets $1.44 million, and the way Snedeker posted birdies on Thursday – eight of them – each birdie might end up being worth its weight in gold.

For Snedeker, there wasn’t a great deal in his recent resume to anticipate such an outburst.

“It kind of came out of nowhere,” Snedeker said of the birdie binge. Given that he holed out from off the green on the 13th, 14th and 17th holes, the first two times from about 14 feet and the third time from 37 feet, a right-to-left curler from the fringe of the green, that’s understandable. Snedeker’s a good guy, but he’s not unconscious. On this day, his play was.

“When I do have these days, I try to go as low as I possibly can,” Snedeker said.

Everyone expected low numbers, and most delivered. Those who did not included Lee Westwood, whose 9-under 80 was exaggerated by back and neck problems. Said Westwood before trudging up a staircase, “I feel sick.”

Scott Piercy went him one worse, with a 10-over 81 lowlighted by a nine on the par-4 16th. Water was involved. He played with Rickie Fowler, whose neon blue shirt didn’t hide a 6-over 77, and Nick Watney, who fired a 4-under 67 and had to wonder why the pro-am extended over to Thursday.

Then there was defending champion Rory McIlroy. His mysterious year continued. A 7-over-par 78 featured a double-bogey 5 on his second hole, and a mid-round stretch of 5-over in three holes, including a triple bogey on the first hole. He was in a greenside bunker in two and made a hash of it.

But up front, everyone was smiling. Well, almost everyone. Woods, who annexed five Western Open / BMWs on Cog Hill’s demanding Dubsdread course, the most recent in 2009, found fault with his effort, never mind that 5-under-par 66 places him third after one lap of this 6,997-yard bull ring. (While the scoring average was an over-par 71.314, that’s surely the shortest course setup for a Western since the turn of the century; Dubsdread was listed as 7,051 yards in 2001. Since the move to the fall, the shortest setup had been for the first round in 2007, with Dubs at 7,196 yards.)

“I certainly wasted a lot of shots out there today,” Woods said. “I missed three short putts and played the par-5s ‘stupendously.’ One of those days. It was a golf course in which you could be really, really aggressive.”

Woods, who parred the three par-5s, said 3-woods were traveling over 300 yards, partly because the fairways were fast. But whereas it was 82 and sunny on Thursday, with a 21-mile-per-hour wind from the north-northwest much of the day, Friday is slated to be nippy, with a high of 62 and the wind from the northeast, almost a 90-degree shift and the opposite of what prevails in the summer. That will mean a new golf course in terms of clubs into each hole, and a wind the pros haven’t practiced with.

But will that mean low scores? A betting man would lean in that direction.

The object of this week’s game is both to win and to advance to next week’s 30-man Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. That means players like McIlroy, ranked 40th coming in and tied for 66th in the tournament after one round, need to step it up over the last three rounds.

Snedeker is a lock, a far cry from the situation he found himself in at Cog Hill in 2009. With one hole to play, he was headed to Atlanta. He four-putted Dubsdread’s last green and fell out of the final field. Last year, he won the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it. This year, even if he withdraws, he’ll be ranked no worse than 17th heading to Atlanta.

Nice guys do finish first sometimes.

Traffic a nightmare, but ...

... that’s a good thing in the long run. First, it means the tournament, which languished in the fall at Cog Hill, largely because fans used to coming out in the summer no longer did so, has renewed its Chicago base, and in one fell swoop.

Second, there are plans to open auxiliary parking lots adjacent to the main lot for the weekend to lessen the strain on the main parking lot on Everett Road, which was filled by about 12:30 p.m. At 12:40 p.m., the WGA announced a sellout for the day – daily tickets are $55 at the gate – the first time they’ve had to do so. It had the look of a Masters practice round crowd in places. The IG estimate for the day is 40,000, the largest crowd for the tournament in Chicago since it moved to the fall in 2007. That equaled the WGA’s estimate for last year’s final round at Crooked Stick last year, which was whispered into NBC’s ear.

(There was no limit to the crowds at Cog Hill, which often topped 50,000 in the summer, because of the huge parking lots across the street.)

The morning’s headache, however, included a backup of about 1.5 miles on the northbound Tri-State Tollway at the Route 60 (Town Line Road) exit. The problem was increased by a lack of police overriding the traffic lights on the overpass or at the turn from Town Line to the parking lot. With poor traffic flow, there was no flow at all. Traffic also backed up to the east of the main entrance.

Around Conway Farms

Phil Mickelson, who didn’t play in the pro-am because of a family issue back home, rolled in Thursday morning and posted a 1-under-par 70 on his first trip around Conway Farms. (Luke Donald, who has played the course more than anyone, came in with the same number.) ... One must hope that the WGA is getting a cut of the concessions this week. Aside from a glass of wine, the most expensive item is a $7.50 veggie wrap that likely costs no more than a dollar to wrap together. ... Friday’s round starts at 10:20 a.m., the same as the first round, when the last tee time 12:21 p.m. Leader Brandt Snedeker will be off the first tee at 11:48 a.m. ...  The longest drive of the day belonged to Ernie Els, who belted his tee shot 361 yards on the par-5 eighth hole, which had a following crosswind.

– Tim Cronin