Few golf tournaments (outside of the major championships) have carried as much anticipation as the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines did this year.
The reason?
Tiger Woods is back!
Tiger played in his first official PGA Tour event of the season, at a place where he has enjoyed tremendous success. Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and has recorded an additional 7 victories at regular PGA tour events, including most recently the 2013 Farmers Insurance Open.
Woods, now 42 and coming off of spinal fusion surgery in 2017, says that he feels better than he has in years. If the Hero World Challenge was an indicator, he has his speed back and is ripping drives past much younger players.
I mean just look at Tiger; he’s in fantastic shape for a 42-year old, and if his back holds up, 2018 could be an incredible year, all starting this week. Here are the Farmers Insurance Open 2018 Results and tournament recap.
Farmers Insurance Open 2018 Scores: Round 1
After the completion of round 1, Tony Finau held the lead at 7-under par after shooting a stellar 65. Hot on his heels is Ryan Palmer (66) as well as Ted Potter Jr (66), and a host of other world-class players.
The South Course at Torrey Pines is known as a challenging golf course, so while the scores were fairly low on day one, it’s expected that the scores at the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open probably won’t go lower than 10 or 12-under par for the week.
Tiger Woods Farmers Insurance Open News & Highlights on Day 1
In Tiger’s first PGA Tour round of 2018, he shot a respectable even-par 72. While Tiger’s ball-striking (and directional control) wasn’t as sharp with the driver or irons as he would like it to be, he was still able to put up a decent score.
The video below shows Tiger’s Farmers Insurance Open news and round 1 highlights:
As you can see Tiger’s putting looks solid, and he’s swinging the club with a lot of speed. However, after such a long layoff, his rhythm needs some work so that he’ll be able to keep the ball in play more consistently and be able to once again contend week in and week out on tour.
Farmers Insurance Open Leaderboard Notables After Day 1
Tony Finau (-7)
Ryan Palmer (-6)
Ted Potter Jr.(-6)
Jon Rahm (-4)
Hunter Mahan (-4)
Rory Sabbatini (-4)
Patrick Reed (-4)
Tom Lovelady (-4)
Francesco Molinari (-4)
Grayson Murray (-4)
Sangmoon Bae (-4)
Peter Uihlein (-4)
Farmers Insurance Open Recap: Round 2
Ryan Palmer continued his great play after his first round 66 by shooting a 5-under par 67 in the 2nd round of the Farmers Insurance Open.
Tiger Woods Farmers Insurance Open News & Highlights on Day 2
After an even-par 72 in the first round, Tiger improved by a shot, firing a 1-under 71 on Friday. Here’s a video highlighting Tiger’s news and highlights from day 2 of the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open:
Tiger Makes the Cut on the Number
Tiger birdied his final hole on Friday to post a total score of 1-under par heading into the weekend. This put him in a tie for 65th; and ensured that he made the cut on the number.
Making the cut is always important, but it was especially important this week for Tiger, as he wants to continue to get “more reps.” Playing all 4 rounds gives him more of the reps he is looking for and desperately needs to knock the rust off of his long game.
Jason Day Shoots 64 on Friday
Apparently, Tiger Woods isn’t the only golfer who gets his own highlight reel at the Farmers Insurance Open. After struggling with a sore back during the first round and battling his way to a 1-over par 73, Day came out of the gate firing on Friday and ending the day with a sizzling 8-under par 64.
Here are a few highlights from Day’s second round at the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines:
Torrey Pines Golf Tournament Leaderboard After Day 2
Ryan Palmer (-11)
Jon Rahm (-10)
Tony Finau (-9)
Luke List (-9)
Alex Noren (-8)
Jason Day (-7)
3rd Round Torrey Pines Golf Tournament Scores from The Farmers Insurance Open
After brilliant rounds of 66-67 on Thursday and Friday, Ryan Palmer held a one-stroke lead over John Rahm heading into the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open. Of course with a victory this week, Rahm would take over the #1 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, a spot which Dustin Johnson has held for 49 weeks.
Tiger Woods Farmers Insurance Open 2018: News from Day 3
When asked to describe his third round 2-under par 70 on Saturday, Tiger used an interesting phrase; “gross.”
While Tiger hit it all over the lot (hitting just 3 fairways the entire round), his short game and putting bailed him out time and time again.
Back in Tiger’s prime, it wasn’t just his “A game” that made him better than everyone else; it was the fact that he could always grind out a decent score even when he didn’t have his best stuff. While Saturday’s 3rd round score at the Torrey Pines golf tournament certainly wasn’t pretty for Tiger, it was good to see him grind it out like he used to do so often!
Here’s the news and a few highlights from Tiger’s third round at the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open:
Leaderboard Notables After the Third Round
Here’s how the scores looked at the 2018 Torrey Pines golf tournament after Round 3:
Alex Noren (-11)
Ryan Palmer (-10)
Jason Day (-9)
J.B. Holmes (-9)
Michael Kim (-9)
Jason Day (-8)
Justin Rose (-8)
Luke List (-8)
Jon Rahm (-7)
John Rahm Plays Badly on Day 3
Without question, the surprise of the day was the poor play of John Rahm. After winning the CareerBuilder Challenge last week, and being just one shot behind Palmer heading into the weekend, it seemed that Rahm was the favorite to win this week (not to mention he’s also the defending champion).
However, all Rahm could manage was a 3-over par 75, which plummeted him down the leaderboard.
Torrey Pines Farmers Insurance Open 2018 Results and Final Scores
Jason Day Defeats Alex Noren in a Monday Playoff
Five extra holes weren’t enough to decide the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open results on Sunday night. To get all of the final scores, a Monday morning sudden-death playoff would be required. On the first playoff hole, Alex Noren went for the aggressive play, trying to carry a 3 wood 250+ yards over water. He came close, but the ball rolled back down off of the greenside slop and into the water.
After seeing Noren’s ball end up in the water, Day layed up, and then stuffed a wedge inside two feet for a tap-in birdie, which was enough to win the golf tournament this week at Torrey Pines.
Tiger Woods Torrey Pines 2018 Finish & Round 4 Highlights
At one point in the final round, Tiger got it all the way to 5-under and was only 5 shots out of the lead with 7 or so holes left to play. While it seemed a long shot, there were whispers of “can he pull this off?”
Those hopes were dashed as Tiger made two closing bogeys to finish his 2018 Torrey Pines golf tournament at 3-under par, which netted him a T-23 finish.
All things said, T-23 is a pretty good finish considering it’s the first time he has made the cut and played the weekend at an official PGA Tour event since the 2015 Wyndham Championship.
We give Tiger a B+ this week for his 2018 finish at Torrey Pines, and are looking forward to see how he plays the rest of the year. Here are the full highlights from his round on Sunday:
The Results from our 2018 Farmers Insurance Open Predictions
Tiger Woods
It was probably a little silly and far-fetched to pick him as one of my favorites this week, but I don’t regret it.
A T-23 is nothing to be ashamed of, considering just a few months ago at the Presidents Cup we heard Tiger say he didn’t know whether or not he would ever be able to play competitive golf again.
Justin Rose
Justin Rose was a pretty good prediction for the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open. Rose finished the tournament T-8, just 4 shots off the winning score of 10-under par. Solid pick this week.
Gary Woodland
Gary Woodland had me a little too excited heading into the final round. Sitting at 8-under par through 54 holes, he trailed the leaders by only 3 shots.
Unfortunately, Woodland had a bit of a rough day in some tough conditions and posted a 3-over par 75 on Sunday. Overall, a T-12 finish. Still, not a bad pick.
Ricky Fowler
This was our worst pick of the week. Ricky shot back to back round of 72-72 on Thursday and Friday to miss the cut by a single shot. There’s not much else to say, we put our faith in Ricky this week and he let us down (although we still love him!).
He certainly didn’t get the results at the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open he was looking for (especially since they are one of his sponsors).
Jon Rahm
This pick may actually be more disappointing than Fowler, just because of the position Rahm was in through 36 holes. Rahm trailed Ryan Palmer by a single shot headed into the weekend and then shot 75-77 on the weekend to finish T-29.
So Rahm, started the weekend 9 shots ahead of Tiger, and ended up actually losing to him by a shot; not a great weekend for Rahm, but he’s a talented player and will come back strong.
And again, congratulations to Jason Day on a fantastic win this week at the Farmers Insurance Open 2018 golf tournament at Torrey Pines!
Torrey Pines Golf Tournament Preview: The Farmers Insurance Open 2018
