Tag Archives: furyk

Golf: in awe of 59

September 14, 2013 By in Shumpty Speaks Tags: , , Leave a comment

I awoke this morning and, as is my usual practice, spent the first 5 minutes of my waking moments scrolling through the overnight sport news. That alerted me to the fact that as I awoke American golfer, Jim Furyk, was on the precipice of a historic round in the BMW Championships at Conway Farms. The score of 59 in a round on the PGA Tour had only been done 5 times before Furyk's round and with a tap in round he become the sixth, joining Al Geiberger, Chip Beck, David Duval, Paul Goydos and Stuart Appleby in the 59 club.

 

For the uninitiated this is a round of golf that there are not enough superlatives to describe. On a course where the par (or average) score has been deigned to be 71, Furyk defeated that score by 12 shots. For comparison, scoring 59 in golf akin to the following sport feats (in my unlearned opinion):

 

  • Scoring over 400 runs in one innings of cricket.
  • Taking the fabled “double hatrick” also in the cricket.
  • Scoring 5 tries in a game of rugby league / union.
  • Hitting 4 home runs in a game of baseball.
  • The perfect break in a game of snooker.
  • The 9 darter in a game of darts.
It is a brilliant performance. One which the ordinary hacker like me, who is happy if he shoots in the 80s and the one day he shot 79 had one of the happiest days of his life, can not even countenance it is so far ahead of anything we could ever shoot. The added bonus of a player with Furyk's swing (which is akin to a frog in a blender) doing it is that golfers everywhere will be thinking “if he can do it, why not me”.

Performances like these are one of the things that I love about sport and watching sport. Every so often, even professionals break new ground in their chosen sports as they strive to get better or they get so close to breaking new ground that one can only think that it is only a matter of time before the next record is broken. For professional golfers that number is 58 and one suspects that sooner rather than later we will be awaking in Australia to the news that that number has been scored.

 

Performances like this also have the flow on effect of inspiring the amateur to play more which can only be a positive! I only need to hark back to when Tiger Woods first came to Australia and played in the Masters: the week after I could not get a bay at my local driving range at 8pm on a Wednesday night for all of the hackers inspired by Woods and his performance out having a hit!

 

On that note: kudos to Jim Furyk on a wonderful golf round and hand my 3 wood … It is time to go for a hit!