Headline: Jim Furyk Uses Putter from Joe & Leigh's Discount Pro Shop to Capture FedEx Cup and Win the $11.35 Million Prize
For Immediate Release: September 28, 2010
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Jim Furyk (left) made an important purchase at Joe & Leigh's Discount Pro Golf Shop in South Easton while in town for the Deutsche Bank Championship. |
Norton, MA — For those who were watching the end of the FedEx Cup this past weekend, they may have heard winner Jim Furyk talk about the Sophia model putter that he used to sink his final putt.
Surprisingly, the PGA Tour star mentioned that he bought the putter for $39 while he was in Massachusetts competing at the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Although Furyk couldn't recall the name of the store at that time (who could blame him, really, since he had just won the $11.35 million prize), everyone back in the Bay State knew where he had picked up that club... at Joe & Leigh's Discount Pro Golf Shop in South Easton!
Leigh Bader, co-owner of Joe & Leigh's and one of the most influential golf owners in the country, was one of many who enjoyed watching Furyk take that used putter on a journey to the PGA Tour.
The Boston Globe's Michael Whitmer tells us more about Furyk's important purchase!
A secondhand putter, an $11.35m jackpot
Pro's purchase at Mass. shop pays off
By Michael Whitmer
Globe Staff / September 28, 2010
For weeks, an unremarkable putter sat with scores of other used models on a golf club display rack, waiting to be bought, bargained down, or traded for before being banished to the warehouse.
It's hard to say how many shoppers picked up the club. Some probably practiced with it on the store's four-hole artificial-turf green. All of them put the plain blade back on the rack.
Until 23 days ago, that is, when a professional golfer with 15 victories on the PGA Tour unceremoniously walked into Joe & Leigh's Discount Pro Golf Shop in South Easton. He liked how the putter looked, liked how it felt. So Jim Furyk paid $39 for the used putter — a Yes! Sophia model — and went on his way.
Two days ago, when Furyk stood over a 2-foot par putt at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, that $39 putter did not fail him. With it he claimed an $11.35 million prize. When Furyk's putt dropped to win the FedEx Cup, a handful of people who had an indirect role in placing that once unwanted club into his golf bag reacted almost as demonstratively as he did.
"He made the putt and we got excited, and I'm sure people thought we were a little crazy that we were getting so excited over a golf tournament," said Leigh Bader, co-owner of Joe & Leigh's, who was watching at a Brockton restaurant with his wife, Diane. "[Winning $11.35 million], using ‘our' putter? We were rooting for him, because he was such a nice guy when he came in. Friendly, humble, unassuming."
Paul Szep has never met Furyk, but he's a golf nut, plays to a 7 handicap, and admits that he's a "putter addict," estimating the number in his possession at any one time at roughly 100. Szep, who was the editorial cartoonist at The Boston Globe from 1967-2001 and twice won the Pulitzer Prize, lives mostly in Largo, Fla., now, but has been a longtime customer at Joe & Leigh's. He discarded the putter that Furyk bought.
"I can't believe it. It's quite amusing," said Szep, who watched the final holes on Sunday at a friend's house in Siesta Key. "I said, ‘Hey, you've got to come see this. There's my putter right there.
"It's pretty neat. Usually I'm the one who's going to the tour guys and trying to get their clubs, not the other way around."
Szep doesn't remember the specifics of the transaction, only that the putter was one of a number he brought to Joe & Leigh's in June or July, and he probably traded them in for a driver. Trading in golf clubs has become big business.
Joe & Leigh's, which started as a 240-square-foot shop in 1981, now operates out of an 8,000-square-foot building. An online off-shoot (www.3balls.com) was launched in 2000. According to Bader, combined revenues from the two businesses topped $20 million last year
Most touring professionals, however, rarely resort to such options. The golf equipment companies cater to PGA Tour pros, making clubs and building them to the specifications a player requests.
When Furyk entered Joe & Leigh's after the third round of the Deutsche Bank Championship at nearby TPC Boston in Norton, Mark Petrucci noticed him right away. A club professional, Petrucci made sure Furyk wasn't bothered as he spent some 20 minutes trying different putters, even bringing over three of the golf balls that Furyk plays with.
Furyk began with some new putters, then made his way to the used section. He had an idea what he was looking for.
"He didn't want any sight lines on the top of the putter, strictly traditional, which we don't see a lot of anymore, because alignment aids are so popular," Petrucci said. "Fortunately we had that one Yes! putter that didn't have anything on there, so once he putted with it for a while, we brought it to the front counter and we rang him up."
Surprising Bader and Petrucci — Szep didn't know about the purchase until the following week — Furyk used the putter in the final round in Norton. He then put it in play during the next tournament in Chicago and, finally, Atlanta, when he used that same club that Szep didn't see a need for anymore, culminating in the last, lucrative stroke.
Furyk was kicking himself for not remembering, during a postround interview with NBC, the name of the store where he bought the putter. It's quickly becoming one of his most trusted clubs.
"It's got a nick on the back flange, a little ding on the top," Furyk said. "I like it. I guess we were meant to be."
He'll have the putter with him this week in Wales, when he tries to help the United States retain the Ryder Cup against Europe in the biennial event. It was his spot on the team, Petrucci joked, that enabled Furyk to get such a good deal on the putter, which was originally priced at $69.
"We give all the Ryder Cup players a discount in the shop. That was no surprise," joked Petrucci. "We've always said that anybody who plays for the Ryder Cup, we'll take a little off the price. So he got the Ryder Cup discount."