Well it only took 2 weeks for Justin Rose to get accustomed to those new clubs. In only his second tournament after making a questionable decision to change clubs (Insert picture of money truck backing up to his house), Justin won the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. After becoming number one in the world a few weeks ago while not even playing, Rose held off Adam Scott (Yes that is not a typo) by 2 strokes in a tournament that looked a lot closer than it was with Scott birdieing his last 4 holes while Rose had it in cruise control.
Rosie wasn’t only winning a tournament yesterday, he was multitasking as he was also debunking the theory of “look good, feel good, play good”. He definitely did not look good on Sunday with those fresh new sponsor threads and he decided to show them off in the color of peach…..peeyou. For his trouble, Rose took home a shade under $1.3 million and a couple trophies, one that looks like a tree and a surf board. I am really starting to kick myself that I was chirping the barrel trophy from the Safeway open as that is one of the best of the year it seems.
Top 10
The top ten was filled with high end players this week. Adam Scott turned back the clock and had one of his best weeks since he won the masters. His week was so good it got people talking about how silky his swing is again and not about how he is a bottom 5 putter of all time. He seems to be another guy who is pro-putting with the pin in and it only backfired on him once from 18 inches ha. Talor Gooch, that’s Talor with no Y finished tied for 3rd and has had great start to 2019 with 3 of 5 cuts made and has already made more money than he did all of last year.
Hideki Matsuyama was also tied for 3rd with Talor which isn’t new for him during this stretch of the schedule. However, he did catch the biggest break of the week when he flat our duck hooked a 3 wood and it was left of left into a hazard but managed to “land” just inside the boundaries of the course and he managed to get it up and in for a par. I see you PGA. Tied for 5th was the big rig John Ram, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy. Rahm looked like a guy who was one more missed shot away from murdering someone on Sunday. The known hot head was trying his darndest to keep his cool. Rory on the other hand just needs to put it all together and we will see dominant Rory again. He is getting closer but fizzled on the weekend yet again, but also I could just watch him on the driving range for 8 hours a day every day.
Finally, Jason Day was in that grouping I watched pretty much the entire round on Sunday and kept wondering why they were showing Jason Day then saw he was 5th. What an unmemorable top 5 for team dad bod Jason Day. William “don’t call me Billy” Horschel finished in solo 8th which is nice to see him finding his game. Gary Woodland quietly finished tied for 9th, I don’t even think they showed one shot of his on the weekend. Three others tied for 9th as well. The mannequin boy Cam Smith, PGA Journeyman Scott Brown and soon to be Friend of the Pod Joel Dahmen and his bucket hat rounded out the top 10.
Canadian Contingent
It was another strong week for the Canadian contingent this week. Mac Hughes was the most consistent player in the entire tournament shooting four straight rounds of 70 to finish tied for 29th. Adam Svensson continued his strong play finishing tied for 35th and if it wasn’t for a stumble on Sunday, he could have been much higher up the leaderboard. Nick Taylor probably isn’t happy with his finish but still cashed a check in 43rd and Ben Silverman played with Tiger on Sunday and it looks like he might have been star struck as he shot 75 and fell into a tie for 52nd. The lone Canadian to miss the cut was our boy Roger Sloan but the guy has been grinding for weeks so a missed cut was bound to happen after playing that many tournaments in a row. All in all, a good week for the Canucks.
Notables
Some other notable finishes this week were: Tony Finau was one birdie away from his first top 10 finish of the 2019 season instead he finished tied for 13th with a slimmer version of Patrick Reed. Reed made headlines Saturday when Jordan Speith hugged him on the first tee to squash the Ryder Cup beef that may or may not have been a thing. I cannot believe it has taken me this long to mention Tiger Woods. Tiger finished tied for 20th and slowly got better all week. If Tiger can keep building on this, he should definitely be in the hunt come major time. More importantly though, my dude Chucky 3 Stix cashed another cheque. Just under 80K this time. Sung Kang was also in that clump at T20, no word on whether he cheated or not this week.
Jordan Speith looked like he had things figured out after round 1 and then he found out there were 3 more rounds and while he kept making birdies he also had a few large numbers to balance them out. Rickie Fowler pissed off the golf gods with that disgusting untucked bowling shirt on Thursday and he finished T66, don’t try and tell me that is a coincidence. Alex Noren, who lost in a playoff here last year, missed the cut. Fun fact: the low score last year was -10 compared to Justin Rose’s -21 this year. In the bad break of the week, Patrick Cantlay needed a birdie on 18 to make the cut and he hit his approach, it was looking really good, then it hit the pin in the air and spun off the side of the green and Cantlay could not chip it in and ended up missing the cut.
That begs the question, should caddies be tending the flag on makeable approach shots? It might sound meaningless but hitting the pin in the air is much more detrimental than a ball rolling over the cup with no pin in. Bryson if you are reading this, make sure you credit DTG when you do this down the road. Finally, the thanks for coming out award goes to Dicky Werenski who was right in the hunt after Thursday then a Friday round of 80 had him miss the cut by 5 shots.
Wrap It Up
The Farmers Insurance Open did not disappoint in terms of quality golf, that’s for sure. The only thing that could have made it better was if it was night golf. But we got our night golf fix this week with the Omega Dubai Desert Open which was won by none other than Bryson Dechambeau for his 4th win in his last 9 starts. That is a Tiger in his prime like winning percentage. Take that for what you will. Bryson also gave us a new term this week: He was discussing an approach shot with his caddy and they were discussing the air density. I am not even sure how you measure air density let alone how it fluctuates hole to hole or affects a shot. But hey whatever he is doing it is working. This week, the PGA makes one of its more popular stops with the Waste Management Phoenix Open. If it is anything like the golf that went down this week it should make for a good recap article come Monday.