Jim Furyk Looking to Make a Splash with his First Course Design
Like many Tour pros that have come before him, Jim Furyk has entered the golf course design game. His first-ever, signature course is being designed in Port St Lucie, Florida at the brand-new Glynlea Country Club at Wilder.
On October 25, myself and a few other select members of the golf media sat down with Jim at the groundbreaking ceremony to talk to him about how he got involved with the project and what he envisions for his first signature golf course, among other topics.
Q: First off, how did the project get started?
Furyk: Ed Burr (President and CEO of GreenPointe Developers), developers of the land and MG Orender (President of Hampton Golf), friend of the PGA of America. Both friends of mine from Jacksonville. I’ve known these 2 gentleman for a long time. And so this project came to fruition for me a few years back, probably 3 or 4 years ago when MG mentioned to me that they may be developing some land down here and maybe one of the communities would have a golf course involved and he was gauging my interest in being considered for the designer job and it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while and he knew I was interested and trying to get into that business being later in my career. So I drove down and talked to Ed’s son Austin who runs the Southeast areas for Greenpoint.
Got down here and we got out in his truck and ran out in the dirt and mud and crawled through trees and king of looked at what we had. And so it’s been a couple years in the making drawing some pictures at home with my architect and then they hired David Johnson as well. So it’s been a good team effort.
Q: How has your designer’s eye developed over the years?
Furyk: I can remember being in high school and maybe not paying attention to my teacher as much as I should have and drawing golf holes on my notebook. I was real fortunate, in my opinion, with growing up in the northeast part of the country. I grew up in the Philadelphia area and my dad was a club pro, sold golf equipment. He took me to play some very nice courses. The best course in our hometown in Lancaster, PA was Lancaster Country Club. It’s an old William Flynn design. The ladies have the U.S. Open there next year in 2024.
So I started really enjoying that as a younger player and then fortunately I was able to travel the world and play some amazing courses, whether that was the British Open or heading to Australia or wherever it may be. And so, you know the joke is as a Tour pro you tend to criticize designs your whole career and then they turn over the keys to you and then you kind of chuckle and say now everyone gets to criticize me.
It’s a flat piece of land out there. We’ve got some natural areas and so Mike and I went about designing the course and laying it out on paper. You’ll have a lot of holes against your natural areas, so protected areas on one side.
Q: Do you lean towards more of a classic golden age kind of philosophy?
Furyk: I’ll say yes, but you know what I don’t think you’re ever going to meet an architect that says no to that question. I think Pete Dye was a genius and really good at what he did, but he considered himself golden age but he seems very modern, right? So I think everyone probably considers themselves golden age because you’re drawing from all those experiences and all those wonderful courses that were built in the 1800s, early 1900s and you’re drawing from that.
When I talk about golf course design everyone always points out that I go to the bunkers first. To me that is the bones and structure of every golf hole. And I don’t really look at bunkers as a penalty. I look at them as framing the whole thing, framing the targets. As an architect and the architects in my mind are trying to tell me where to hit it by the bunker placement. How does it set up angles into the green? I might not always know how far they’re trying to get me to hit it until I look at my yardage book or I’ve played the hole but I’ll look out there and go “ok they want me to hit it at that bunker.” They’re telling me I need to go here and that’s going to set up an angle.
Q: Having a blank slate like this as opposed to maybe walking onto a piece of property that has all kinds of different features, does that give you more freedom?
Furyk: It’s a blank canvas like you said so it does give you a lot more freedom but you also have to create some land movement. You have to create some interest and some beauty. The shaper really comes in handy there because you can draw it, you can imagine it, but you have to actually be able to move dirt and make it look natural, that’s the key.
It’s a flat piece of land and a lot of the trees that were on the property were stuff that you’re not going to really use in the middle of a golf course so a lot of it was cleared. We’re using the perimeter for a buffer and then we’ve got some water features obviously and we’ve got drainage and we used a lot of the dirt from the ponds that were dug and we had some pretty good soil.
So it’s a blank slate but really I think they key is trying to make it be natural, to look and flow here in Southeast Florida. I’m not trying to build a golf course that looks like the middle of North Carolina in Port St Lucie. So trying to make it flow.
Q: You’re working within the framework of a developer here. So how much freedom is there within that or are the developers kind of calling the shots?
Furyk: I give Greenpoint a lot of credit. I still hear it every day in meetings. Every time I’m down here and I’m in a meeting I’ve heard the golf course comes first. We need X, Y, and Z, ok the golf course comes first. So I think they gave us a really good avenue. Here’s your track of land, design us a golf course. We’re going to see how we can fit a neighborhood into that. So yea, I think we’ve got a really good opportunity to build a layout here that we wanted and then work with the community to make sure that we can fit the homes in properly.
Q: You mentioned as Tour Pros you guys tend to criticize golf courses. So with that in mind now that the keys have been handed over to you are their things you’re already thinking about like ok well I absolutely hate this about golf courses and I absolutely love this?
Furyk: When you’re building a golf course like this what are we creating? Who am I designing the golf course for? What are you thinking? And so there’s going to be families, there’s going to be kids, but we see a community that probably is going to be a lot of 55 and up as well. So my mind goes to we have to design a playable course. We’re not going to have a lot of forced carries. I need to make it interesting. I need to make it so that if your bringing out your kids or bringing out a strong golfer they need to have a good time but also be challenged. But also, how do I get my beginning golfers around? How do I get my weaker golfers or higher handicappers or someone that’s you know maybe 80 years old that doesn’t hit it as far as they used to, how do I get them around the golf course? And so trying to make sure that forced carries aren’t there, creating a lot of areas around the greens. We’ll have some chipping areas, some short grass areas, areas that blend from green to tee nicely. But also all those golfers can put a putter on it, they can put a wedge on it, they can put a 7 iron on it, they can put a hybrid on it. It’s kind of an equalizer in the game that you can get folks around the golf course. Now, could there be a back-left pin on a short hole over a bunker? Absolutely, but there’s always going to be a place to hit it over there on the right. If you look at the strategy of the golf hole, you can still hit it over here, 2 putt, and make par. So trying to get them around is really key.
Our tips are going to be a little over 6700 yards, that’s the goal. They don’t need to be any longer. My buddies that I play with are 40-60 years old, our club the tips are 7200 and then we go to 6700 and all of them play from 6700 and that’s still too much for a lot of them.
Q: Tour players who become architects tend to design golf courses that fit their game. Is that something you’ve thought about or do you just say whatever fits the land?
Furyk: I think whatever fits the land. My biggest fear is probably that folks will see that it was designed by a Tour pr and they immediately think it’s too hard. And there’s a couple of Tour pros that design courses and they’re brutally hard. That’s what they’re known for. So my goal is I want folks to think fun when they think about my golf courses. I want them to have a good time. I want them to get around. And again, challenge the stronger player but make sure that your weaker player has a chance to have a good time and play the golf course and enjoy it.
At the end of the day, as much golf as I’ve played in pro-ams and as many shots as I’ve seen over the last 20 years I do understand the challenges and I understand the basic misses that most amateurs have. I really want a community that when we're done and all these houses are sold and this is an active club they’re proud to bring their friends to the golf course.
Q: Was golf course design always something that you saw yourself getting into one day?
Furyk: I dabbled some in my early to mid-30s. Had a course that we were about to break ground on in ‘08-’09, you can imagine what happened there. And then saw a lot of my friends through my early 40s who were in the business struggling for work. But now that you see golf kind of flourishing again, it’s really a good time in my career. I’m playing the Champions Tour, I’ve got 2 kids in college, my wife and I are empty nesters, we run a Champions Tour event in Jacksonville, but at the end of the day I’ve got a lot of time now to do the work and I enjoy doing it.
And it takes time. If you’re going to do it right you have to be down here a lot and it takes a bunch of time. Being here on site often, and this construction hits me perfect, November-February we hardly play on the Champions Tour so, you know, Mike can give me a call and say you need to look at something and I just get in the car and I’m here in 3 hours.
I’m thankful for Greenpoint and Hampton for giving me the opportunity to kind of get my foot in the door and it’s actually opened a couple more avenues for me and we’re bidding on some other projects and have some good leads right now. So it’s been a lot of fun and something I’m looking to grow with.