It’s spring and it’s golf season: These ‘old-timers’ ready for full swing of PGA Tour

Younger players on the PGA Tour beware: The older guys can still play.

Jim Furyk became the latest veteran to show that he still has some game, finishing second in The Players Championship last week in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., 1 shot behind Rory McIlroy.

That came after Vijay Singh finished sixth recently in the Honda Classic at age 56, and Phil Mickelson won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am earlier this season at age 48.

Furyk, who will turn 49 in May, isn’t surprised that older players are doing well, and he intends to keep playing on the PGA Tour as long as he can play well.

“If I’m competitive and I feel like I’m knocking on the door and having opportunities to win, I’d like to play some out here,” Furyk told reporters after The Players Championship. “If that’s not the case, I’ll go to the Champions Tour and see if I can be competitive out there.

“As far as Vijay, (he) is amazing. What is he, 56? To have an opportunity to win at Honda, and I think he was going to be the oldest winner on the PGA Tour, if that were the case, that’s a pretty amazing feat. You start putting your name up there with the likes of Sam Snead, it’s got to be pretty cool. I wouldn’t hold it past him. I’ve seen how hard he’s worked in his career and I know how talented he is.

“As far as Phil, I really haven’t seen that falloff yet, so no surprises there. He seems to be timeless, as well. ... What it basically boils down to is if you have the will, and these guys are putting the hours in as talented as Vijay and Phil are, I think they’re going to last as long as they want to.”

Furyk said it is important for him to have a good work ethic and be as consistent as possible as he tries to do battle with younger guys who can hit the ball well over 300 yards.

“I think there’s going to be golf courses that are going to make that a lot more difficult. A long, wide-open golf course is going to be difficult for me to compete on,” Furyk said. “Not that I can’t, but my opportunities and my percentage goes way down.”

Furyk spent a lot time in 2018 as captain of the United States’ Ryder Cup team that lost to the Europeans in France, but he doesn’t blame that for not playing as well as he would have liked last year.

“It’s a labor of love being the Ryder Cup captain,” Furyk said. “But it did take a lot of time and pulled me away from golf at times.

“But I wasn’t healthy, either, honestly. I haven’t really had a healthy season since 2015, and I was playing great at that point.”

Furyk believes that things are looking up for him after dealing with chest and collarbone injuries.

“I’m pretty sure my first name is now 48-year-old, my middle name is Jim and my last name is Furyk because every time I heard that on TV for the last two days that’s all I heard, which made me laugh,” he said after the final round of The Players. “I don’t take it offensively, I am 48. But I guess my whole goal was I knew this year that I was healthy.”

Furyk has finished in the top 10 in three of his last six PGA Tour events, with just one missed cut.

“If I could go out and be competitive out here on the PGA Tour and give myself opportunities to win, that’s what I consider competitive,” Furyk said. “I want to try to win golf tournaments. And if I could do that, then I’ll play some on the PGA Tour. And if I can’t, well, I turn 50 pretty soon and I’ll go hang with my buddies out there (on the PGA Tour Champions) and see if I can be competitive out there.”

Micekelson showed that he can still be competitive when he won at Pebble Beach in February. He’s only made the cut in two of four events since, but after The Players Championship said he believes his game will return to form.

“I don’t feel like it’s far off,” Mickelson said. I actually felt like I hit a lot of good shots this week, but I’m having some trouble with the putter and I’ll have to work that out.”

Singh said he is also striving to be competitive when he plays on the PGA Tour instead of the Champions.

“Playing the regular Tour is a lot more pressure, I think, to play well,” Singh said. “There’s a lot more work required to go out there and be ready to play. I practice more when I play the regular Tour. So the preparation is a little bit different than when I play the Champions Tour. But I really want to win, too. If I play well I have a good chance of winning, and that’s my goal is to see if I can win.”

Singh said he enjoys playing with younger players. Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood were in a grouping he enjoyed at the Honda Classic.

“Tommy’s a pretty long hitter, so I mean, he was getting it quite a ways by me,” Singh said. “But Francesco, he’s kind of the same as me. So it kind of gives me a little bit of encouragement when I know that I can still hit it with the guys.”

Singh likes to work out with trainer Jeff Fronk to keep in shape, and his workout videos have become popular on social media.

“He gave me a new routine and started treating me like I was still 30, but I started enjoying it,” Singh said. “(The workouts) were really dynamic, and it got me going again. It got my feet moving a little bit.

“And to get it on social media was my son’s idea. He’s taken over and he said, I want to promote you the right way, and he’s done a good job so far.”