Procore Championship is testament to the hard reset

NAPA, Calif. – It’s a working vacation and the FedExCup Fall lid-lifter.

Most crucially, perhaps, the Procore Championship in wine country is a testament to the value of the hard reset.

The leaderboard’s northern latitudes are filled with players who had some time off during the FedExCup Playoffs and used it to get away, thereby rekindling their love of the game before coming back to light it up at Silverado Resort.

“I had my bachelor trip over the break, and I felt like it was an amazing reset,” said Wilson Furr, who shot a third-round 64 on Saturday. “We went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, went fly fishing and exploring Yellowstone and Grand Tetons.”

He had gone from barely making the cut to second place as he signed his card Saturday.

Furr’s rookie PGA TOUR season has been rough – 18 starts, four made cuts – but he is the latest example of how it can pay off to get away from golf. He made six birdies, an eagle, and no bogeys Saturday – the value, perhaps, of having a clear mind. While the recent FedExCup Playoffs went on without him, his party of 12 spent five days slaying trout and savoring Jackson’s jagged mountain vistas and blue-ribbon trout streams.

(He and his fiancé, Shelton James, who met at Alabama, will get married Dec. 28.)

“I think that was about as good a reset as I could ask for,” Furr said. “Got to see a lot of my friends I hadn't seen in a long time. … We crushed it. Dry flies and we flew a couple nymphs and we as a group caught over 100 trout. It was a great week.”

There was no golf talk, and nobody cared about anyone’s FedExCup number. (Furr is 197th.)

This type of story has played out repeatedly at Silverado.

Patton Kizzire has also struggled this year and came into the Procore at 132nd in the FedExCup and in danger of losing his PGA TOUR card. But after starting with a new mental coach, who has him going barefoot in the grass and hugging trees to reconnect to his lighter side as well as nature, he’s been the man out front at Silverado.

“It's been really cool to just get organized,” he said, “and try to be more playful out there and be unflappable, that's kind of my word.”

David Lipsky, just behind Kizzire going into the weekend, had a similar story. Partly to escape the heat in his hometown of Las Vegas, he went back to Chicago to play and practice with his old coach at Northwestern, Pat Goss, and his young players.

“Sometimes you have to realize golf can be fun,” Lipsky said, “and I think I sort of forgot that along the way. … Being around (Goss), and I practiced a little bit with the team, and just being around those guys and seeing how carefree they are not knowing what's coming for them yet.

“It's sort of nice to see that,” he added. “I was almost energized by their youthfulness.”

By mid-afternoon at Silverado, Kizzire, Lipsky, and Furr made up Nos. 1-2-3 on the leaderboard – a ringing endorsement for living and playing with joy, and the rejuvenating benefits of getting away from the grind. Furr could have missed the cut after making a triple-bogey 8 at the 15th hole Friday, but he eagled 18 to make the cut, then got his revenge with another eagle, this one from inside 3 feet, on the 15th hole Saturday.

He doesn’t know where he and his fiancé will take their honeymoon because he doesn’t know where he’ll be playing, PGA TOUR or Korn Ferry Tour, next year. But he’ll always have Jackson Hole and the memory of that trip with his crew.

“They cheer for me, they're my biggest supporters, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter if I shoot 80 or 60, they're going to be my friends,” he said. “I mean, we had a great time. I mean, it's been a tough year for a lot of them, too. They're working, they're just starting off in whatever they're doing.

“We're all kind of going through it together,” he added. “Yeah, it's pretty cool actually.”