The Deane Beman Award: Jim and Tabitha Furyk have made charity on First Coast their passion

If Jim Furyk had not been acting like an overgrown kid one spring afternoon at the Muirfield Village Golf Club near Columbus, Ohio, he might have never caught the eye of his future wife.

"He wasn't just signing autographs," Tabitha Furyk said. "He was playing catch with golf balls with them, pulling their hats down over their eyes, laughing and joking with them. He was having just as much fun as they were."

But Furyk wasn't having so much fun that he didn't notice Tabitha Skartved, an Ohio State elementary education major who was working for a realtor at the time who also had his own golf radio show. She and some other employees of the real estate company were at the tournament with their boss, who scored an interview with Furyk.

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"No one knew who I was," he said. "It's not like there was a crowd of guys wanting to interview me."

And while Furyk was talking into the tape recorder, his eyes were elsewhere.

"Wow," he said about his first reaction to meeting Tabitha.

He asked her to dinner that night. And the next night. And the night after that.

Nearly three decades later, 22 of them married and living on the First Coast, one of golf's most vibrant and visible couples will be honored for their charitable works by the Jacksonville Area Golf Association.

First Beman award since 2019

Jim and Tabitha Furyk will receive the Deane Beman Award on Wednesday during the First Coast Celebration of Golf banquet at the Sawgrass Country Club, the first time the award has gone to more than one person at a time since it began in 2014.

The banquet and the award were put on hold for the last three years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last person to receive the award was the late John Tucker in 2019.

The Furyks also received the award on the same day the World Golf Hall of Fame announced he would be a nominee for the Class of 2024.

The Beman award was presented at the inaugural Celebration of Golf banquet to its namesake and the former PGA Tour commissioner whose groundbreaking achievements in golf also included making Tour events non-profits and emphasizing charitable giving in the communities where they're played.

The Furyks have lived and breathed that concept.

The Jim and Tabitha Furyk Foundation, which was formed after Furyk won the 2010 FedEx Cup, has donated around $7 million in charity through a two-day pro-am tournament held at Sawgrass from 2011-2020, which then morphed into the Constellation Furyk & Friends, a PGA Tour Champions event at the Timuquana Country Club that has been responsible for more than $2.5 million donated to charity in only two years.

The primary charities that have been assisted by the Furyk Foundation are the MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation, First Tee — North Florida, Blessings in a Backpack, St. Johns Riverkeeper and Beaches Habitat for Humanity.

Also benefiting are First Charities such as Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Operation Shower, Jacksonville Humane Society, Hope for the Holidays, City Year, K9s for Warriors, Guardian ad Litem Foundation and Guardian Catholic School.

The Furyk Foundation has raised money for children and the elderly; the homeless, hungry and sick; for education from college level to teaching life skills to developmentally challenged people; the environment, animals and yes, the sport that enabled them to do it all, golf.

And it's a hands-on partnership.

Tabitha Furyk is a whirlwind of activity in the weeks before and the week of the Furyk & Friends, tending to the smallest detail, including stuffing gift bags for pro-am players or media credentials and parking into evelopes.

During the recent Hope for the Holidays drive, Jim Furyk was among the crew loading food bags into trucks to be transported to community centers and schools. He didn't stop until more than 5,000 bags were shipped out.

"Shifting their tournament at Sawgrass to become a Champions Tour event at Timuquana has put their efforts into overdrive," said Michael MeKenny, who co-chairs the Celebration of Golf banquet with Duke Butler III, and chairs the Beman Award selection committee. "The Beman Award is to recognize long-term impact to the community and the game of golf and Jim and Tabitha have done an outstanding job of that."

Beman said the Furyks embody the vision he had for PGA Tour players and their relationships with the communities in which they live and the communities which host Tour events.

"What Tabitha and Jim have done for our community is a reflection of what the Tour stands for and what the players stand for as a group," Beman said. "It all springs from what every tournament does and almost every player has followed the same pattern. But I've really admired what they have done in the spirit of giving back."

Furyk says his wife is "the Rock"

Jim Furyk, still playing on the PGA Tour Champions, maintains that his wife is "the rock" in the partnership and does untold hours of work behind the scenes.

"I'm riding the coattails of my wife," he said. "She's the real hero when it comes to our foundation and the charity and how hard she works for the event. I wouldn't be able to do a lot without her. I'm really proud of her."

Tabitha Furyk, in turn, makes a strong case that none of their work could have happened had her husband not turned into a PGA Tour superstar with the accompanying fame and fortune.

Furyk has won 17 PGA Tour events, the FedEx Cup, the 2003 U.S. Open and three PGA Tour Champions events. He is the only player in Tour history to break 60 twice, the last time in 2016 when he set the 18-hole scoring record with a 58 at the Travelers Championship.

The seeds for the Furyk Foundation were sown when Furyk won the 2010 Tour Championship and with it, the FedEx Cup and an $11.35 million dollar payout.

"We would not be able to do it without Jim and his career," she said. "Plus, his passion for supporting what we do. It wouldn't be possible without him and what he's done."

Strong friendship with the Bemans

Recognition is one thing but the Furyks are especially proud of the name on their award. Beman had just stepped down as the PGA Tour commissioner in 1994 when Furyk was a rookie but the two met and formed a strong friendship mainly because both of them are range rats.

"I still love to practice and Jim is a big practice guy," Beman said. "He'd be there at the TPC [Sawgrass] or at Pablo Creek [where they're both members], working with his Dad [Mike Furyk] almost every day when he wasn't out there playing."

Beman said he couldn't help but notice the now-famous helicopter move at the top of Furyk's backswing but he also noticed one other thing.

"I started watching where the ball was going," Beman said. "Straight, every time. It looked pretty good to me."

But it was more than just practicing together. The Furyks were new to the area and Deane and Judy Beman embraced them and did whatever they could to help ease their transition to the First Coast.

"They were so welcoming to us," Tabitha Furyk said. "As we got to know them, we realized Deane's passion for building the Tour into what it had become. To have his name on this award is very special to us."

Putting down roots

Once Furyk started winning, he and his wife could have lived at any golf hotbed: Orlando, Jupiter, Dallas, Houston, Scottsdale, Southern California. But both of them came from small towns (the Furyks from Western Pennsylvania and Tabitha's family from Ohio) and they loved the combination of weather and community they found on the First Coast.

Both of their children graduated from Bolles. Their daughter Caleigh, the oldest, is a junior and a pole vaulter on the Belmont University track team and Tanner is a freshman midfielder for the Sewanee University lacrosse team.

"This is home and it's been home for a long time," Jim Furyk said. "It becomes home when you start raising your kids here. Your roots take hold where your kids are born and this area and the people have been very good to us."

And the Furyks have been good to the First Coast. The Furyk & Friends tournament has quickly grown into a popular community event, with golf at the center of a crowded week that includes concerts, activities for the military, three pro-ams, exhibition events involving NFL players, good food and a party atmosphere.

The end result is many people who never set foot on a golf course are helped.

On Wednesday, First Coast golf, through its organizations such as JAGA, the Northern Chapter PGA, the Jacksonville Women's Association, the First Tee and the North Florida Junior Foundation, will get their chance to give a huge "thank you" to Jim and Tabitha Furyk.

"Jim and Tabitha have gone a step above in giving," Judy Beman said. "It's wonderful what they've done and we're very proud of them."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Passion for giving: Jim and Tabitha Furyk will be honored with Beman Award