When Jim Furyk was capturing 17 PGA Tour titles, including the 2003 U.S. Open, over a 20-year period and firing a record 58, the process in doing so was all about using his strong suit as a tactician to precisely navigate a golf course with straight-arrow driving and precise iron shots.
Overpowering that week’s layout wasn’t a part of his skillset. That turned out to be quite a successful avenue for the 55-year-old native Pennsylvanian who has called Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, home for most of his adult life.
This plotting manner created an equally adept way to tackle the next phase of his golf career. While serving as captains and vice captains of various United States Presidents and Ryder Cup teams — including serving in an assistant role to captain Keegan Bradley at the 2025 Ryder Cup — and running a PGA Tour Champions event in Jacksonville in early October, Furyk has been beset with injuries, including a hip replacement earlier this year. The time away from competitive play allowed for his new passion.
In late August, openings of Furyk’s first two course designs — the original Glynlea Country Club at a gated community in southeast Florida’s Port St. Lucie and the renovated private Glen Kernan Club in northeast Florida’s Jacksonville — were fashioned so that they will test the better player yet allow for a fun experience for the newcomer.
“This is a huge high and an adrenaline rush for me,” said Furyk in early September after a casual round at Glynlea. “When I was deep into my PGA Tour career, if I won it was exciting but then the next day you go back to the drawing board. I never sat around and enjoyed each win enough because my nose was always to the grindstone.
“In this process of designing golf courses, this is a tremendous way to leave my mark. Obviously, I want to make it a challenge for the good player, but I also want to make the course accessible for folks to enjoy from generation to generation. The sense of accomplishment is different — it will last. When the courses have been finished it’s rewarding to sit on the back porch and watch the people go by with smiles on their faces.”
According to MG Orender, the PGA of America president in 2003-2004 and a longtime friend of Furyk’s, the golf architect instinct was evident early on. Furyk was influenced by playing Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Country Club, a 1920 William Flynn design, as a youngster. When Orender traveled to majors in the late 1990s and during his PGA presidency, he would catch up with Furyk.
They didn’t discuss results or golf swings, but instead their in-depth love of old-school architecture, preferably pre-1960s. Orender and Furyk talked about “angles” and how Golden Age architects like Donald Ross and A.W. Tillinghast gave golfers plenty of room off the tee and then made the green surrounds the biggest test of the day.
That carried forward as Orender witnessed Furyk playing golf with his father Mike at the original Glen Kernan layout. Orender and Mike Furyk would pair up and play from the middle tees in casual matches against Jim and former PGA Tour player and broadcaster Bill Kratzert, who both played from longer distances.
Orender, a co-founder of Hampton Golf, a golf course management company in Jacksonville, realized that Furyk would be perfect for these first two projects. So, in association with Hampton Golf and Jacksonville developer GreenPointe Holdings, whose chairman is Ed Burr, another co-founder of Hampton Golf, a collaborative effort was born.
Furyk not only talked shop with Orender, but he also bent the ears of Tour stars turned successful architects Davis Love III and Ben Crenshaw to find out their focus. He has also partnered with veteran course architect Mike Beebe, who has been located just south of Jacksonville since the late 1990s, to learn even more about the business.
“So many Tour players become architects and look at the course from their skill level — as in harder,” Orender says. “Jim doesn’t view it that way. He watched his dad get older and shorter. Same as me, now at age 70. He could watch those things change over the years. He understands what makes challenges but also what makes it playable from shorter distances.”
Glynlea is more suited toward recreational golf with a course built from scratch and made up of five par 3s and five par 5s. Water is in play from the back tees but not as much from the forward tees. Green fronts are open for shots to bounce into greens that have subtle undulations. One unusual feature about the property is a lighted aqua Toptracer Range, the first of its kind in the country. Advanced floating golf balls can be hit to multiple manufactured island greens.
“The words fun and enjoyable come up a lot,” says Bill Rehanek, Hampton Golf’s temporary on-site general manager at Glynlea. “The course doesn’t beat the hell out of you. Add that to the place being in great shape and it’s a win-win.”
Glen Kernan is the reworking of a 1999 Robert Walker design with the original routing. Greens were lowered and redone with firmer and faster TifEagle bermudagrass surfaces, and trees were taken down on some holes and between holes to create better sight lines.
With 2022 British Open winner and Jacksonville resident Cam Smith involved in the reinvention of the entire Glen Kernan property, Furyk lengthened the back tees more than 400 yards (to just more than 7,200 yards) to challenge himself, Smith and other Tour-level players, but also moved shorter tees up an equidistance for higher handicappers. Furyk and Smith also created four chipping greens near the putting green and driving range to improve the practice area. Caddies will also be implemented.
“A lot of folks upon first seeing it describe as sort of a blend of Augusta National with Whistling Straits,” says Mike Giammaresi, Glen Kernan’s head golf professional. “There’s Bahia grass around the many lakes we have and pine straw makes the single cut throughout really stand out. When you go way back, different angles are presented which challenges the low handicappers.”
One design characteristic of Furyk’s is tightly mown areas around greens and runoffs that call for a decision: either lobbing the ball with a wedge, a bump and run or even a putt.
Furyk is already eyeballing another project. Treasure Cay in the Bahamas, an original late 1960s Dick Wilson-Joe Lee design, was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Dorian in 2019. Burr and GreenPointe purchased the resort in 2024 and have Furyk in place to start work as soon as this year. The opening is scheduled for 2027. Orender says he has been approached about Furyk doing a couple more courses, even though he admitted that Furyk is a “free agent” in the architectural landscape.
To exemplify Furyk’s dedication to the process, just look at his attention to detail. When Furyk and Beebe presented for the Treasure Cay bid to GreenPointe, they exceeded expectations by having plans already drawn up.
When Glen Kernan opened in late August, Furyk was acting like the superintendent by setting up tee markers to align properly just before the soft opening to the membership. At Glynlea, he reconfigured one bunker at least six times on completion deadline until Orender told him, “We’ve got to get some grass in place here while we can.”
