One step closer: Jim Furyk among World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2024 nominees

Garry Smits, Florida Times-Union
·5 min read

When Jim Furyk was beginning his professional career in 1994, he was striving mainly for consistency.

“I wanted to see where my talent would take me,” he said. “But coming out of college [at Arizona], no one would say that was a kid destined for the Hall of Fame.”

The Jacksonville resident is now one step away.

Furyk, a 17-time PGA Tour winner and the 2003 U.S. Open champion, is among 12 finalists for the World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2024 announced on Wednesday, joining PGA Tour contemporary and three-time major champion Padraig Harrington, Dottie Pepper, Cristie Kerr and Sandra Palmer, plus the late Tom Weiskopf, Johnny Farrell and Beverly Hanson.

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Also nominated as contributors are teacher Butch Harmon, administrator Peter Dawson and career amateur Jay Sigel; and the final seven founding members of the LPGA who have not yet been inducted — nominated as a group — Alice Bauer, Bettye Danoff, Helen Detweiler, Helen Hicks, Shirley Spork and Sally Sessions.

The final selections will be announced on March 6. The next induction ceremony will be June 10, 2024 at Pinehurst, the new site for the World Golf Hall of Fame. The move from St. Augustine was announced in July of 2022.

Furyk, the son of a PGA professional, could become sixth Hall of Fame member with First Coast or Golden Isles ties. Former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman entered in 2000, followed by three-time major champion Vijay Singh (2006), TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course architect Pete Dye (2008), two-time Players champion and 1997 PGA champion Davis Love III and former Tour commissioner Tim Finchem (2021).

Padraig Harrington of Ireland has won three major championships and 21 worldwide victories.
Padraig Harrington of Ireland has won three major championships and 21 worldwide victories.

In addition to his Tour record, Furyk holds the 18-hole scoring record with a 58 in the final round of the 2016 Travelers Championship. He also became the first player to break 60 twice in competition. He shot a 59 in 2013 during the second round of the BMW Championship at Conway Farms near Chicago.

He won the 2010 Tour Championship and with it, the FedEx Cup, at East Lake in Atlanta. Furyk was later voted PGA Tour player of the year by his peers.

He has won three PGA Tour Champions events, including the 2021 U.S. Senior Open. The Constellation Furyk & Friends, a Champions Tour event and his wife Tabitha host at the Timuquana Country Club, has raised more than $1.3 million in charity in only two years.

Furyk is a nine-time member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, played on seven Presidents Cups and was the 2018 Ryder Cup captain. He also received the 2016 Payne Stewart Award, the Tour’ highest honor for sportsmanship and charitable works and on Wednesday, about eight hours after his Hall of Fame nomination was announced, he and his wife received the Deane Beman Award at the First Coast Celebration of Golf banquet at the Sawgrass Country Club.

Furyk said he began getting more questions about the Hall of Fame when he turned 50 years old in 2020.

“At first I thought about it a little bit when it got mentioned,” he said during an interview with the Times-Union on Feb. 3. “I was flattered when people first asked me about it. It gets mentioned more, which forces me to think about it. If that were to happen it would be a pretty amazing thing.”

Furyk said the competition he played against every week on the PGA Tour, against Hall of Fame players such as Love, Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and one of last year’s inductees, Tiger Woods, made him a better player.

“Competition is a good thing,” he said. “But they got me a lot more than I got them.”

Dottie Pepper won the Kraft Nabisco Championship twice, the highlights of her 17 LPGA victories.
Dottie Pepper won the Kraft Nabisco Championship twice, the highlights of her 17 LPGA victories.

The competition in the players' category for the 2024 Hall of Fame should be every bit the battle. Harrington, the affable Irishman, has won 21 worldwide events, highlighted by the 2007 and 2008 British Opens and the 2008 PGA. Weiskopf, who passed away last August, won 18 times, including the 1973 Open.

Farrell, who died in 1988, won 22 PGA Tour titles, including the 1928 U.S. Open at the same Olympia Fields course where Furyk won his only major. Farrell outlasted Bobby Jones in a 36-hole playoff.

Pepper won 17 LPGA titles, Kerr 20 and Palmer 21. All three won two majors each.

Hanson, who passed away in 2014, won 17 times, including three majors. She also won the 1950 U.S. Women’s Amateur.

Sigel won 27 amateur tournaments, led by two U.S. Amateurs, one British Amateur and three U.S. Mid-Amateurs. He’s the only player to win a U.S. Amateur and a Mid-Amateu rin the same year (1983) and he played on nine Walker Cup teams.

Dawson served as the chief executive of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club for 16 years, served as a key figure to return golf to the Olympics and led efforts to admit women as members at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.

Harmon has coached Hall of Famers such as Woods, Mickelson and Greg Norman. Woods won 40 Tour titles, eight majors and three U.S. Amateurs during the time period he worked with Harmon, from 1993-2004.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jim Furyk among 12 finalists for World Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2024