Funk eschews Senior Open in favor of regular tour
This is a week when senior golf truly matters, when even the most jaded of 50-and-over golfers get serious. There are no carts, but there is a cut at the U.S Senior Open. And they play 72 holes, too.
As sure as there is a tavern on every corner in Wisconsin, you'd be hard-pressed to ignore Fred Funk at Whistling Straits. He hits it straight enough to avoid the sinister rough the USGA likes to grow. At 51, he is playing some of the best golf of his career. And he remains competitive on the PGA Tour, where earlier this year he became the sixth-oldest player to win in history.
The problem is, if you placed such a wager on Funk -- and who could blame you for doing so -- the money already would be gone.
Funk is not even entered in the U.S. Senior Open. Instead, he's teeing it up close to his old stomping grounds at venerable Congressional Country Club outside of Washington, D.C., where the inaugural AT&T National begins on Thursday. It is the same venue where he played his first PGA Tour event, the Kemper Open, back in 1982.
Instead of playing a tournament where he certainly would be among the favorites and might even walk off with some of the most coveted hardware in the sport, Funk will play a long, par-70 course against the best players in the world, including Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Head scratcher? Well, to Funk, not really.
"I'm not playing the Champions Tour full time, I'm playing the regular tour full time," he said. "It's odd to see me out on the Champions Tour more than it is to see me here. Right now, I'm committed to playing the regular tour and I'm going to do it next year the same way. Until I'm not competitive, I want to stay out here as long as I can, so I'm trying to push myself as hard as I can and see what we can do. I don't want to relax. As soon as you relax, you get run over."
Funk is a late bloomer who still wants to see how his game stands up against the best competition. A former golf coach at the University of Maryland, he gave the PGA Tour a shot nearly 20 years ago when his own players noticed how good he was and told him he'd be a fool not to try.
So Funk managed to get his tour card in 1988 and has never looked back. The problem -- if you want to call it that -- is that Funk already was into his 30s when he joined the tour. He lacked experience, but is making up for the late start on the back end of his career. And he's not ready to let go.
Three of Funk's eight PGA Tour victories have come in the last three years, including the 2005 Players Championship in his new backyard of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. That win, just a year before he was going to turn 50, gave him options. It meant a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour and it motivated him to keep striving to beat the youngsters.
"It's nice to have options," Funk said. "Funny how life is totally backwards. When I won the Players Championship, it screwed up everything. I was planning on just moving right on over."
Funk finished 11th on the PGA Tour money list in 2005. Last year, he was a very respectable 48th, earning more than $1.5 million. He also won the AT&T Championship on the Champions Tour. This year, in just four Champions starts, Funk has three top-10s, including a record 11-stroke victory at the Turtle Bay Championship in January.
A month later, he captured the Mayakoba Golf Classic in a playoff over Jose Coceres despite being hobbled by a back injury that forced him to withdraw from the next two tournaments. It was only recently that Funk started to feel better, which might explain why he's missed six cuts this year.
"I have an attitude I've played my whole life and fought my whole life to get on the PGA Tour, and when I finally made it I was late, a 32-year-old rookie at the time," Funk said. "I still love what I do out here. I love being with the competition that's out here and putting myself up against that. If I'm not competitive, I'll walk away really quick, but not right now. I still feel like I'm competitive and that's the bottom line. But until my game tells me to leave, I'm not going to go."
One of Funk's goals this year was to make the U.S. Presidents Cup team, one he had in sight until his back problems forced him to miss so many tournaments.
But he's in the midst of a stretch that is seeing him play his fifth straight event. He tied for 30th at the U.S. Open, was fifth at the Travelers Championship and last week tied for 20th at the Buick Open. He is still just 27th in the standings and needs to be in the top 10 through the PGA Championship in order to make the President's Cup team.
This is both good and bad for the Champions Tour. It shows how good players can be in their early 50s. Of course, it doesn't help if they are not playing on that circuit. Both Jay Haas and Loren Roberts went through similar stages of wanting to compete against the younger players.
"I know for me it was very difficult to leave the PGA Tour and focus on the Champions Tour," said Haas, 53, who has four Champions Tour victories this year and 10 total. "Fred is obviously playing very well and capable of winning … But his game, to me, is made for the Champions Tour. He's very straight, hardly ever missed a fairway. And his lack of length -- and I'm in the same boat -- doesn't seem to hurt us nearly as bad on the Champions Tour. To me, Fred will be a dominant force on the Champions Tour when he decides to show up."
That, apparently, won't be for a while.
Bob Harig is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at BobHarig@gmail.com.
