JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jim Furyk’s new golf tournament is quickly approaching.
The Constellation Furyk & Friends event at Timuquana Country Club is less than five months away and more and more details on the event are coming into focus.
One very big one: get ready for a spotlight on Downtown Jacksonville for the Oct. 4-10 event on the Donald Ross-designed course. While most events in the area tend to be held in St. Johns County area, Furyk is bringing this one into the heart of Jacksonville. The Champions Tour includes some big names, with the likes of Furyk, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, John Daly and Vijay Singh all playing on that circuit.
The big shift in playing in a tournament at TPC Sawgrass and one in Jacksonville’s Ortega community is obviously locale. Sawgrass is nestled across from the beach and St. Augustine is an easy 25-minute commute down A1A.
Timuquana is right in the thick of Jacksonville, so why not use the perks of Duval County in the event. Furyk, whose 2003 U.S. Open championship is one of his 17 PGA Tour wins, and his wife, Tabitha, have been putting the pieces in place for the event since they announced it prior to the 2020 Players.
“I talked to a lot of the players on the PGA, or on the Champions Tour and they said, ‘Hey, I can’t wait for your event, where are we going to stay?’ I said, ‘you’re going to stay downtown.’ Almost every one of them goes, ‘I’ve never seen downtown,’” Furyk said.
“They might have played in 20 Players Championships, but have never seen downtown Jacksonville. So, we kind of want to showcase our city, what it has the offer. The beautiful river. We want to bring some fans in via the waterway.”
The event shifted from the initial Furyk & Friends charity angle into a full Champions Tour stop and five-year agreement with Timuquana. The three-day tournament will have a national broadcast on the Golf Channel.
Furyk said on Tuesday that he thought the setup on the Ross course during the first year of the event at Timuquana would be conservative.
“I think you could see some big momentum swings coming down the last four holes, you see a little bit of that with the water at The Players, 16, 17, 18,” Furyk said. “You’ve got a lot of risk-reward on the way in and I think it’s going to provide for a great finish for the tournament.”
The tournament includes an Oct. 5 concert at Daily’s Place. The musical act hasn’t been announced yet, but previous headliners have included Scotty McCreery, Chase Rice and Darius Rucker.
It’s the first Champions Tour event in the region since the Legends of Golf event’s five-year run ended in 2002 on the World Golf Hall of Fame courses. That event later moved to Savannah.
Tickets for the event are on sale now. Some of the highlights include:
• Tickets for daily rounds are $25. Three-day passes for the Oct. 8-10 event are $60.
• Youth 17 and under are free with a ticketed adult.
• Military tickets for active duty, reserve, National Guard, retirees and veterans are complimentary.
• Tickets to Club 58, a venue named for Furyk’s best round on the PGA Tour, are available as upgraded hospitality purchases. It includes a fall bar and complimentary food and beverages.
• More detailed information on tickets and purchasing them can be found here.