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You Can Keep Your Hat On: Nice guy Jim is one of my faves, until he takes that cap off!

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Bill Elliott on Jim Furyk, the thinking man's golfer, who tees off as fourth favourite in the Wachovia Championship odds

Some golfers weave their way into our affections because (a) they have character and (b) talent but a rare few make this trip because they are (c) also good company. Face it, the majority of pro sportsmen are even more self-obsessed than the rest of us.

I have a colleague who a few years ago helped one of our biggest names to write his autobiography. It was a project that took the best part of a year to complete and at the end of it my pal felt he knew just about everything it was possible to know about this player. This, of course, is how it should be but the disappointment vibrated in his voice when the journalist then admitted to me that this superstar ended up knowing next to nothing about the bloke who was scribbling down his life story.

"I don't think he ever asked me a question during all that time or at least nothing personal. At the end of it he still had no idea where I lived, who I lived with or if I had any children. I gave the book the working title 'ME, ME, ME!' while I was putting it together, " he said.

Which brings me to Jim Furyk. Here is one American golfer who definitely falls into the Decent Chap category. I don't know him well at all but I do know him enough to assure you that if you needed a reason to occasionally root for this golfer then you now have one: He is the man you'd most like to have sit beside you at a dinner because you'd actually have a conversation. It wouldn't even need to be about golf. He may, I believe, at least once have read a book.

This week Jim is one of the big names playing in the Wachovia Championship in North Carolina and I wish him well. Mind you, I doubt he needs any good wishes from me to do well. Furyk won at Quail Hollow two years ago and has enough current form to suggest he might just turn out to be The Man this weekend.

Trawl through the PGA Tour website and you come up with more statistics about Quail Hollow than anyone reasonably needs. The Yanks are like this when it comes to sport. The first time I went to a football game in America (the Miami Dolphins) the five hours it took for this laborious thing to grind to a conclusion were brightened every two minutes by some attractive young woman sashaying her way through the press box while she handed out another A4 piece of paper littered with endless stats about some player moving forward three yards and five inches or the last time someone caught a ball without throwing up.

I quickly got to look forward to her appearances - believe me, you would too - but I never got to grips with the bits of paper. British sportswriters are not used to stats or even too many facts. We like to just throw in words like 'rubbish', 'brilliant' or 'boring' and then try to find a decent bar. Anyway, the point here is that Quail Hollow seems to be one of the toughest courses on the US circuit.

As such, of course, it will suit Furyk who has made a wonderful living playing steady, if unspectacular, golf. He finds more fairways than almost anyone else and when his putter works well then he is almost always in the mix. Okay, he swings the club like it is giving off a bad smell but he repeats his ludicrously twirly action and rarely buckles under pressure.

The only bad thing I can think of to say about him is that he needs to buy a decent wig. I don't usually advocate a golfer never taking off one of those bloody baseball cap things but I make an exception for Jim. Having prematurely lost his hair and having decided to keep the bits of hair he has on the side intact, he transmogrifies into Max Wall when he bares his head to an unsuspecting world. It's not a pretty sight but he still remains one of my favourite players and always a serious betting consideration.