At Firestone, Jim Furyk lets another 54-hole lead slip
Since the 2011 Tour Championship, Jim Furyk has held at least a share of the 54-hole lead on the PGA Tour 10 different times. He’s yet to walk out a winner on Sunday, including again this time at Firestone Country Club.
Furyk shared the lead with Justin Rose after three rounds of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, but ended with 2-over 72 to wind up in a tie for third place with Bubba Watson, four shots behind winner Shane Lowry.
The 2003 U.S. Open champion said he played poor golf for most of the weekend.
“I hit the ball poorly for the last 27 holes,” said Furyk, who posted his 10th top-10 finish in this event since 1999.
“I did the best I could to manage yesterday on the back nine even par. Today, I had some opportunities, but really, in the middle of the round, I hit it all over the place. … I covered a lot of it up with putting, and I wasn’t able to do that over the weekend.”
The 45-year-old took the outright lead from Rose early with a birdie at the par-5 second hole, but bogeys at the fifth and eighth holes sent him in the opposite direction of Lowry, who shot a bogey-free 4-under 66 to pick up his first PGA Tour win.
Furyk had two other very good chances to win on one of his favorite courses on Tour, losing a seven-hole playoff to Tiger Woods in 2001 and ceding the title to Keegan Bradley with a 72nd-hole blunder in 2012.
Now it’s on to Whistling Straits, a course Furyk doesn’t especially like.
“I can take some good out of it that I’m playing well, I’m scoring, I’m getting the ball in the hole,” he said, “but I need to hit more fairways and greens and give myself more looks.”
Ryan Ballengee is a Yahoo Sports contributor. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.
