When the PGA Tour announced the new AT&T National golf tournament hosted by Tiger Woods and played at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda would be played the same week as the Senior PGA’s U.S. Open, Fred Funk, a 1980 graduate of this university and former Terrapin golf coach, didn’t sweat the decision.
The Takoma Park native who has lived in Ponte Vedra, Fla., since 1993 wanted to come home.
The result was a July 4 week that saw Funk finish his first round one shot off the lead and advance to the weekend right on the cut line, while enjoying great crowd support and playing in front of family and friends. He even attended President George W. Bush’s birthday celebration at the White House.
Funk ultimately finished tied for 62nd, 17 shots behind winner K.J. Choi, thanks to shooting a combined 11-over par in the tournament’s two middle rounds, but he said he has no regrets about skipping the senior event where he would’ve been regarded among the favorites to win.
“I was always intending on playing at Congressional for numerous reasons,” Funk said. “One, it was Congressional. Two, it was home.”
The 51-year old’s PGA Tour career started at the course in the 1982 Kemper Open, where he earned $947 for tying at 51st.
“It’s just a special course for everybody,” Funk said. “It’s a traditional golf course that’s very difficult. There’s a lot of history to it. It’s hosted a few majors. It’s just a grand golf course.”
That was just after Funk became the Terp golf coach, replacing his former coach, Randy Hoffman, who had been promoted to assistant athletics director. Upon graduating in 1980 with a degree in law enforcement, Funk tried to play on a mini-tour in Florida and “went broke.” His coaching position allowed him to keep working on his game and improving until he finally qualified for the PGA Tour in 1989.
Since then, Funk has eight PGA Tour wins, including this year’s Myakoba Golf Classic in Mexico, and moved up to 11th on the PGA Tour’s career earnings list.
Local fans haven’t missed those achievements or forgot about his ties to this university. Even though he was in the second pairing out of the clubhouse on Saturday and Sunday with an 8:39 a.m. tee time both days, he was still greeted by a strong crowd each morning.
“The whole (first) hole was surrounded with people, so it was pretty neat support for that tournament,” Funk said.
He even gave the crowd something to cheer about with two rounds in the ’60s, including a 67 in round one, which put him on top of the leaderboard for awhile.
“It felt really good,” Funk said of posting a good opening round score. “That was fun. It was disappointing that I didn’t follow it up with good rounds, but it was fun to be there. Everything was a positive.”
That includes the trip to the White House. He and six other golfers received special invitations to join the President for his birthday bash. Funk said it was “really special” to be included in the group.
Funk just hopes that with AT&T as a sponsor and Woods as a host, the tournament will be able to stay in the Washington area for a long time to come. He loves the course, and he especially loves the homecoming.
“It’s great,” Funk said. “It’s always fun to come back and see a lot of the people I grew up with.”
Contact reporter Eric Detweiler at edetweilerdbk@gmail.com.
