Furyk returning to his roots at Aronimink

Jim Furyk was born in West Chester in 1970. He moved to Pittsburgh 2 years later. When he was 7, his family relocated to Lancaster. For 11 years, starting in 1999, the man who now calls Jacksonville, Fla., home hosted the four-player, 1-day Exelon Invitational at four different courses throughout the Philadelphia suburbs.

So next to Sean O'Hair, he's the closest thing we have to a local rooting interest at the AT & T National, which is being played at Aronimink for the first time and begins today.

"Well, obviously it's great for me," said Furyk, who broke a 30-month winless drought earlier this season with two victories in less than a month.

"I'm excited about being back in Southeast Pa. I have a lot of people out there pulling for me, a lot of friends here this week. I haven't had that opportunity very often in my career, and there are a ton of people out there right now for a Wednesday pro-am. It's amazing.

"You can tell there hasn't been a lot of golf in this area. It's a shame. There's a lot of history here, a lot of great courses, and it's nice that we'll be back here for . . . 2011 at Aronimink and the U.S. Open is coming in 2013 to Merion. So I think it's great that this area has a [PGA Tour] golf tournament."

Even though he had played well at Congressional Country Club, in Bethesda, Md., the past 3 years.

"My caddie [Mike 'Fluff' Cowan] is a member there, so it's dear to my heart," Furyk said. "I think this golf course suits my game. Congressional probably suits it a touch more. But I'll be anxious to see the setup and how it'll play once the gun goes off tomorrow.

"It's very, very tough. I knew its history. I knew it hosted a major championship [1962 PGA], and was supposed to host another one [1993 PGA]. I think the scoring is going to be difficult. It's tough to get the ball in the fairways. They're pitched at a lot of angles from left to right and right to left. You have to work the ball well off the tee. The greens are very big, but are cut up into smaller sections. There's a lot of slope, a lot of undulation, and they're already quite firm. Add to that, there's probably the thickest and the longest rough we've had for a PGA Tour event this year. It's a . . . good test."

Sounds almost like a U.S. Open, which Congressional will be hosting next June.

Furyk had never been to Aronimink before this week. So he really wasn't sure what to expect. But what he found caught him off guard.

"I think what I imagined in my mind was different," he admitted. "I know they renovated it [before the 2003 Senior PGA]. You think of old, something that's been here for over 80 years, I don't imagine greens this size. So it's just not what I pictured in my head. I knew it would be a good course. And it's definitely [that]. It's just a little different style than I had projected. As a kid, I'd heard it was long and narrow. And I knew Jay Sigel was a member here . . .

"The difficult part is figuring out the pin placements and the greens, because there's going to be a lot going on out there. And I think that goes along with the surprise. It's a Donald Ross course. I feel like you can go to Pinehurst No. 2, play it a couple of times and those greens are pretty easy. You aim at the center every time because you're afraid the ball is going to fall off the sides.

"Here, there's more [to it]. You have to figure out which pins you can attack, which ones you can't. As in any Ross course, you really don't want to go over the greens. You'd rather be on the front fringe or 10 yards short than probably 2 yards long most of the time."

After going so long without lifting a trophy, Furyk said that getting his 14th and 15th career wins was more like a deep exhale than anything else. Especially at his age, in a year when 10 guys in their 20s have won.

"What's important to me is trying to win golf tournaments," said Furyk, who tied for 16th at the U.S. Open in his last start. "I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform. I was disappointed. I think just getting over the hump, if you go back and watch the tape of that, I don't really look all that extremely happy. I look a little bit more relieved. It was kind of letting the air out.

"Later on that night, I was happy, but the first emotion was probably a big sigh of relief. That, OK, I don't have to answer that question. And I think it allowed me to win so quickly afterwards because my mind frame was better and I was a little bit more free with my game."

He would like to do well this week, too. Just because.

"I'll put a little extra pressure on myself," Furyk said. "It's the same thing I experience now when I play in the Players Championship every year, since it's near my home. It'll be a lot of fun."

Getting back to your roots usually is. *