FEDEXCUP
The FedExCup T A Playoff to savor and remember. By Ward Clayton
They converged late in the 2010 season as the Comeback Kids in the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, all working with different timelines and styles. Meet Matt Kuchar, the ever-smiling amateur star from more than a decade ago who reinvented his game as a pro. There’s Charley Hoffman, the stereotypical Californian with the long blond locks and green get-up who persevered to move up the competitive ladder. Welcome Dustin Johnson, the laid-back South Carolinian with the physique of a basketball power forward who was making up for an “almost” glorious summer. Lastly, greet Jim Furyk, the man with the loopy swing who went from an embarrassing oversight to overwhelming ecstasy in one month’s time. These were the leading characters as
the 2010 Playoffs came to a conclusion in a season of extreme parity. Entering the late September finale at THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola in Atlanta, no player had more than two victories, and everybody felt like he had a shot at the FedExCup title. Two-time champion (out of three FedExCups) Tiger Woods didn’t qualify for THE TOUR Championship field, hampered by off- course personal difficulties and on-course rustiness. Phil Mickelson, the 2010 Masters Tournament champion, was inconsistent due to concerns about the battle his wife, Amy, was waging with breast cancer and his own health issues. That left the door wide open for a free-for-all in Atlanta. Furyk was one of five players with two
24 PGA TOUR OFFICIAL ANNUAL 2011
victories. The 40-year old has long been one of the game’s most consistent and steely performers. He won the Transitions Championship and Verizon Heritage early in the 2010 season and entered the Playoffs and in the initial tournament, The Barclays, seeded a hefty third. However, somewhere in the middle of the night on August 25 in a Paramus, NJ, hotel room, the battery in Furyk’s cellular phone died. His wakeup call for the following morning’s mandatory Wednesday pro-am never came and his FedExCup chances also seemingly expired. He rushed to Ridgewood Country Club in a desperate effort to make his early morning tee time, without a belt and his golf shoelaces undone, but he was disqualified from the tournament for being late (a PGA TOUR rule that would be amended the following week). He also had to break the news to his father and instructor, Mike, who was about to undergo hip replacement surgery later that day. “Hundreds of people told me that I was
going to get alarm clocks for Christmas, so that one got beat in pretty good,” Furyk said. “I heard one (player) saying the over- under was 11 on the alarm clocks.” So as Furyk and the other contenders
headed through the remainder of the Playoffs, good timing was essential. Kuchar was the first to make a positive
impression in the Playoffs. He became a household name in 1997 when he won the U.S. Amateur at Cog Hill near Chicago as a sophomore at Georgia Tech. That led to a memorable Masters debut in 1998
when he captured low-amateur honors and followed with a tie for 14th at the U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco. He won the hearts of fans with his beaming smile and aw-shucks personality. But after playing college golf for a couple more years, Kuchar couldn’t find the consistency to remain on the PGA TOUR, eventually playing the Nationwide Tour in 2006. He had won just once, at the 2002 Honda Classic. “I think there’s the old saying, to appre-
ciate sunshine you’ve got to go through rainy days,” Kuchar said. “And I think it holds true with just about everything in life. I think if all you know is playing great golf, I don’t think you appreciate it near as much as the guy that’s seen some of it all, had ups and downs, and it kind of makes the good times all that extra special.” The good times were developed via a
2006 swing change that new instructor Chris O’Connell oversaw. A proponent of the one-plane swing, he worked with Kuchar to craft a more reliable action. Kuchar’s 6-foot-4 height made the new move appear on an extremely flat plane, à la Ben Hogan’s vaunted move. But the only thing similar to Hogan, according to O’Connell, was that Kuchar became a better ball-striker, evidenced by a season highs in top-10s (11), the All-Around statistical ranking and scoring average entering THE TOUR Championship. Kuchar needed to anoint his new golf
game with a victory, which he did. The 32- year-old won the first Playoff event, The Barclays, in a sudden-death playoff with
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