Tag: Torrey Pines (South)

‘He found a better way’: Bryson DeChambeau flipped the script (in more ways than one) to win the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot

Bryson DeChambeau simply found a better way when it came to winning at Winged Foot last fall. Can he do the same at Torrey Pines?

Editor’s note: This is the first story in a three-part series.

Throughout his 27 years, Bryson DeChambeau has discovered answers to problems confronting him by racking his brain and body, whether devouring a textbook, during strenuous workouts or laborious experimentation.

Simple old observation didn’t hurt, either.

But with the clock ticking ahead of the start of the 2020 U.S. Open at merciless Winged Foot Golf Club in New York, he found a solution in the dark.

DeChambeau was lost as he sent one ball after another after another into the Tuesday night sky the week of the U.S. Open. While he couldn’t see the golf balls land, he had his feel and determination and kept at it until something, anything, felt superior.

“He was struggling and was clearly frustrated. He was 36 hours from teeing off in the first round,” said Ben Schomin, director of Tour Operations for Cobra Puma Golf who has worked with DeChambeau on all things equipment for the golfer’s entire pro career. “I know it’s a cliché that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but if you were reading the first few chapters earlier in the week, you would have been hoping this guy would make the cut.”

DeChambeau, however, turned the page.

“It was tough, it was grueling, it was disappointing,” he said of that Tuesday night. “There were a lot of emotions ahead of this big event you’ve worked so hard to get ready for and you feel like you have a great chance. And I just had to get the driver right. Wednesday, I got to a point where I was somewhat comfortable and then Thursday, I teed it up and felt really comfortable.”

The Tale of DeChambeau at Winged Foot got a late rewrite and took hold the first round as the transformed monster with driver in his hands started to demolish the rugged layout full of tight fairways, hefty rough and unyielding greens.

PGA: U.S. Open - Final Round
Bryson DeChambeau chips up onto the eighth green during the final round of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club. (Photo by Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports)

With a 1-under-par 69, he was within touch of the leaders. A 68 in Round 2 put him one shot out of the lead. A third-round 70 set him back two shots and set him back to the range.

“The lasting memory for me from Winged Foot will be the practice session on Saturday night. I was struggling and not doing well and going to the range I had to figure this out,” DeChambeau said. “Worked a couple hours and finally got something I got comfortable with. I was the only one on the range and I wasn’t going to leave until I got comfortable.

“Next morning I felt comfortable. I wasn’t hitting it great but by the sixth hole I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I wouldn’t have been able to get to the sixth hole and figure out what I needed to figure out if it wasn’t for the practice session the night before. That was a testament to the resolve, dedication and perseverance that I have, and my team has, to win.”

Win he did, indeed, as DeChambeau proved his blueprint to go full bore and hit the ball as far as he could, a pre-tournament strategy that was met with doubts and a few laughs, was the proper plan.

His late-night range session Saturday night led to a final-round 67 – he was the only player to break par that Sunday – and it capped a week where he outmuscled bruising Winged Foot and toppled Matthew Wolff by six shots.

DeChambeau reckoned correctly that his speed and strength would save him in the thick rough. His stellar touch on and around the greens made a difference, too.

Despite hitting just 23 of 56 fairways, DeChambeau was the lone player in the red at 6-under 274. With his first major triumph, DeChambeau joined Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods as the only players to win a U.S. Amateur, the NCAA individual title and a U.S. Open.

Bryson DeChambeau
Bryson DeChambeau looks over his putt on the first green with his caddie Tim Tucker during the final round of the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club. (Photo by Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports)

The Golden Bear was impressed. The 18-time major winner basically was Bryson before Bryson and could get the better of any rough during his heyday. Nicklaus understood DeChambeau’s reasoning – you’re going to miss a fair share of fairways anyway, so get the ball down as far as you can to have shorter irons in your hand for approaches.

“He figured out that he would be better off with a wedge out of the rough. And he was. He won the U.S. Open with that. That was his philosophy,” Nicklaus said. “Bryson’s a cerebral guy, as you know. Nobody else is going to think about that, to change their whole body to play at a U.S. Open. But he did. And you got to give him credit. You give credit where credit’s due and he did a great job with it and he performed well, he won the tournament, and well done.

“I pretty much did that naturally. I had tree trunks for legs and so it allowed me to really just drive through any rough. There were a lot of golf courses I didn’t worry about much about the rough. I thought what he did was fantastic.”

As did Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee.

“I thought it was brilliant,” he said. “He drove it longer and straighter than anybody in the event by quite a distance, even though his driving distance showed he finished sixth. If you measure every single drive he hit where he hit driver, he was considerably longer than everyone else.

“And then if you measure the dispersion of his shots, he was straighter than everybody else. And then he hit his irons beautifully and putted beautifully.

It was cool to see. Golf had always been taught anecdotally and Bryson was the first person to come along that really did use science to plot out a path to another level of the game.”

Or as on-course commentator and former LPGA star Dottie Pepper said: “He found a better way. He found a way to take what he knew and made it work.”

Especially out of the rough. While Rory McIlroy, who finished eighth that week, was stunned earlier in the year with the hulked-up DeChambeau’s length when the game returned after a 13-week quarantine due to COVID-19, the work he saw his peer do out of the nasty, dense high grass was just as impressive.

“The one thing that people don’t appreciate is how good Bryson is out of the rough,” McIlroy said. “Not only because of how upright he is, but because his short irons are longer than standard. So he can get a little more speed through the rough than other guys.”

That was part of the calculations that led to Team DeChambeau’s plan. Let the big dog eat, if you will, and then, with the ball closer to the green, rely on your other talents.

“It was very rewarding to trust in the process of our game plan even knowing that it may have been considered somewhat unconventional,” said Chris Como, DeChambeau’s coach. “We went in there and had a game plan and trusted it. The results of the win were icing on the cake, the cherry on the top of a sundae.”

DeChambeau never wavered from the plan despite the repeated warnings in the golf biosphere that the rough would eventually wreck his scorecard.

“The swing speed is massive; it just gets the club through the rough better,” Como said. “And the strength and the mass help because he’s able to get his muscles though it. And he also had the strategy of, as the greens get faster, you’re more inclined to stop the ball through trajectory, through the angle of descent than you are through spin.

“So to be able to kind of hit these higher lofted clubs and just throw the ball up as high as he could and basically aim to the middle of the green more or less when you’re coming out of the rough worked.”

This week, DeChambeau, the world No. 4 who counts eight PGA Tour titles and another on the European Tour on his record, defends his U.S. Open victory at Torrey Pines in San Diego. There will be those who will point to DeChambeau’s limited history at Torrey Pines and say he can’t win. And others, despite his success at Winged Foot, will continue to insist his power strategy won’t work on a U.S. Open setup.

Bring on the doubters, said DeChambeau, who missed the cut in the Famers Insurance Open in 2017 and 2018; in his two rounds on the South Course, he shot 78 in 2017 and 76 in 2018. But he finished second in the Junior World on the South Course in 2011.

Farmers Insurance Open - Round One
Bryson Dechambeau plays his shot from the 18th tee during the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines South on January 26, 2017, in San Diego. (Photo by Donald Miralle/Getty Images)

While he said he has yet to develop his strategy to attack Torrey Pines, he very well might incorporate the same blueprint he followed at Winged Foot.

“I’m totally fine with people saying Torrey Pines doesn’t fit me,” he said. “I’m quite comfortable with the golf course but I’ve never had the speed I do now going into the South Course. Length was a problem. In 2017 and 2018, I wasn’t hitting it as straight and certainly not as long as I can hit it now.

“And I didn’t have as good a putting game. With my length, with my control out of the rough, with my putting game, I feel I have a great opportunity this year.”

His biggest challenge might be the Poa annua greens, which will get bumpy.

“You have to figure out how to roll the ball well. I’ve always struggled on it but since going to the Sik putter and arm locking and figuring out how to launch the ball more correctly, I’ve become way better on Poa,” DeChambeau said. “Not my favorite, but I have had success on Poa before.”

He very well may again.

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Jon ‘Rambo’ Rahm says he’s cleared to play in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines

After being forced to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament thanks to a positive COVID test, the U.S. Open is a go for Jon Rahm.

Last Saturday, Jon Rahm held a six-shot lead after 54 holes in the Memorial Tournament before being told he had tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw.

This Saturday was much better.

The world No. 3 tweeted that he has been cleared to play in the U.S. Open starting next Thursday on the South Course at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

“After two negative tests in a 24 hour span and being cleared by health officials, it’s time to get ready for the US Open. Vamos!!” Rahm tweeted. He added a GIF of Sylvester Stallone as the movie character Rambo.

Rahm’s status for the U.S. Open was in doubt. He was forced to quarantine for 10 days but two negative PCR tests 24 hours apart ended the quarantine.

Rahm is one of the pre-tournament favorites. He has five PGA Tour titles, the first coming at Torrey Pines in the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open.

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Golfweek 2021 Father’s Day Gift Guide

From cool golf gear to stylish clothing to cool gadgets and great bourbon, there is something here for every golf-loving Dad.

Father’s Day and golf have become synonymous because so many dads love to play and, traditionally, the final round of the U.S. Open is contested on Father’s Day Sunday (June 20). This year, with the West Coast time advantage as the tournament is played at the South Course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, many dads have plenty of time to get in 18 holes in the morning before settling in to watch the game’s best players tackle one of the most beautiful and challenging venues in golf.

If you are struggling for ideas about what to get a golf-loving father this year, Golfweek has you covered. Check out the cool gear and accessories in the 2021 Father’s Day Gift Guide.

We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.

‘We do go in with a game plan’: USGA’s John Bodenhamer talks U.S. Open setup at Torrey Pines

Before the Farmers Insurance Open, the USGA’s John Bodenhamer took time to talk about course setup for the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

This year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, one of the country’s finest municipal golf facilities, located in the tony enclave of La Jolla, California, returns to the site of one of Tiger Woods’s most memorable major triumphs when he beat Rocco Mediate on one leg in a Monday playoff.

This will be the third year that John Bodenhamer is charged with the course setup. Bodenhamer, 60, joined the United States Golf Association in June 2011 and oversees the USGA’s Open championships in his role as senior managing director or championships. He took time to speak to Golfweek about this year’s national championship before heading to San Diego to see how the pros handled the South Course during the Farmers Insurance Open.

Golfweek: What made Torrey Pines an appealing venue for the USGA to return to?

John Bodenhamer: History is something you can’t buy; you can only earn it. Torrey has it because of what happened in 2008. That never goes away. That was one of the greatest championships in the history of the game. That putt Tiger made lives in the minds of so many. That makes us very proud to come back and be able to tell that story again.

As a U.S. Open venue, it’s Southern California, the weather is so ideal if we can avoid the fog. Torrey is a big footprint. We can have a big celebration of the game. We can get in front of a lot of folks. It allows us to provide a traditional U.S. Open that is the ultimate examination.

Tiger Woods celebrates on the 18th green after sinking a putt for a birdie and to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate during the final round of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. (Photo by Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

What are the most significant changes that have been made to Torrey Pines in preparation for this U.S. Open?

JB: Nothing significant. If memory serves me right, it will play 42 yards longer. We’ve got three new tees. One of them is on No. 10 that will play 449 yards; it played 415 before. There’s another new tee on No. 15 that will play 510, which is 35 yards longer and a new tee on 17 that will play the same yardage but it’s down on the left near the barranca and it’s a new angle, which we really like. It’s a long golf course. It’s 7,680 yards. We won’t play it that long on any day of the U.S. Open. Depending on the weather and the wind, it will play anywhere from 7,200-7,400 yards.

What the city did to bring in Rees Jones and his partner Greg Muirhead to renovate, restore the golf course, give it a facelift, is magnificent not only for the U.S. Open but for the Farmers and to enhance that asset for the city of San Diego is a nice thing to do.

It included everything from drainage to irrigation systems to maintenance roads and paths. On the golf course itself, bunkering not just around the putting greens but in the fairways. They restored all the putting green collars. They had gotten tired and needed to be upgraded. They brought back some of the closely mown areas on Nos. 7, 9 and 15, which will be nice. It won’t be a whole lot different, more of a facelift, but it will provide us what we want to do at a U.S. Open and make a premium on driving.

Q: How do you do that?

JB: The fairways will be narrow. We’re coming out to check on what the Tour does, but I expect the fairway widths will be similar. The difference is January versus June and the weather patterns are much different, the length of the day, temperature and wind patterns are all different. We’ll have a lot more kikuyu in June. They overseeded last fall and so you’ll see a lot more bent and rye and so in the spring the kikuyu will take form again. We’ll probably have a bit longer rough.

Q: What will be the height of the rough you will be looking for?

JB: With kikuyu, 4-plus inches is our starting point. Kikuyu is pretty tough. It could be 3-3 ½. We were planning to come out last summer after the U.S. Open for the California State Amateur to see what the kikuyu was like but we couldn’t because of the pandemic. If it is as dense as we saw this spring, we’ll be in that range. At Winged Foot, we were between 4½-5½, but with kikuyu that’s too much.

Q: Have you considered making the rough longer from, say, 300-plus yards versus shorter distances?

JB: No. It’s very difficult from a maintenance standpoint. You’d have to change mower heights and that’s untenable for the maintenance staff. It would add hours and hours to their job. We have talked about it and there could be ways to do it robotically in the future, but what we do is we have graduated rough. No. 6, which will play as a par 4 in the U.S. Open at 515 yards, will have graduated rough. If you drive it just off the fairway there may be a swath of rough 2½-3 inches where players can hit 5-, 6-, 7-iron out. Frankly, we don’t want them pitching out all the time. We want them to try to knock the ball on the green. We think there will be more birdies but also more double bogeys. On holes like No. 2, you probably won’t see any graduated rough at all. It just depends on the width of it and how much you’ll see.

Going into Pebble (in 2019) we changed our philosophy and we have less graduated rough and want to put more of a premium on driving accuracy and less emphasis on green speeds to allow us to use a few more hole locations. It’s something I feel strongly about. We want it to be about driving the ball in the fairway. That’s something we want to achieve. It’s a strategic choice. We want to slow the greens down a little bit and use more of the hole locations and restore the importance of driving it in the fairway.

Adam Scott plays his shot from the sixth tee during the second round of the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines Municipal Golf South Course. (Photo by: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

Q: What was the thinking behind that change of philosophy, including to slow the greens?

JB: Well, first of all, let me just say that 12.9-13.4 (on the Stimpmeter) isn’t slow. But it really came about from talking to players. We talked to a lot of our past champions, myself, Jason Gore on our staff and Jeff Hall. We want to create something special and very challenging so when a player wins he feels like he did something special but that is also fair and we don’t want green speeds to get away from us, especially if the wind kicks up. With certain hole locations, if the wind kicks up, it can be a problem.

There’s a quote that I think about from Geoff Ogilvy after he won at Winged Foot (in 2006). He was asked after he shot 67 one round, did you enjoy shooting that score on a U.S. Open golf course and he paused and he said, “I don’t think I necessarily enjoyed or had fun doing what I did today, but shooting 67 on a U.S. Open golf course I really feel like I achieved something. It was meaningful. I achieved something special.”

That’s the essence of what we’re trying to achieve. The goal is to drive it in the fairway most of the time and navigate your ball below the hole on the putting greens to have an adequate chance to score. When you miss a putting green there is a penalty for that. We think we can achieve that in the high 12s and low 13s using certain hole locations. I don’t want to call it an old-fashioned U.S. Open but that’s kind of what it is. That’s what we’ve always done and that’s what we endeavor to do.

Q: What can you learn this week from watching the pros play? How will you study the course?

JB: We’ll watch particular holes and we’ll be in touch with the PGA Tour staff and get their thoughts on setup and thinking on some of the new tees at 10 and 15. We’ll look at the width of the fairways, hole locations they are using, compare the wind patterns in January to what we expect in June. We’ll really be watching holes like 6, like 9 with the new collection areas around the green, we’ll definitely be watching the new tee on 10, and I’m assuming they’ll use the new tee on 17 and how players play that. Those are what I’ve circled so far.

We’ll have Jason Gore out there talking to players. We’ll be asking them questions about the golf course as much as we’re asking the Tour staff. What was your target from the new lower tee on 17? Why didn’t you hit driver and chose to lay up short of that bunker on 10? What did you think of the new putting complex on 4 and the new bunker in front of the green? Because they’ll tell us that a fairway needed to be a little wider and it will inform our decisions. We’ll talk to the caddies too. At Pebble Beach, we brought Casey Boyns out. He’s been a caddie there 35 years and he gave us the hole location at 18. There’s a little ridge that we did not see and he did, and we’ll be getting the intel from not just players but Tour officials and those who just know the course well.

Q: If we get good weather and it plays fast and firm, what do you expect the winning score to be?

JB: I knew you were going to go there (laughs). Curtis Strange (1988 and ’89 U.S Open champion) said something that really resonated with me. He said, today’s players are bigger, stronger, more athletic, better coached, better fitted with better equipment, with better course management. He said I really wonder when a player doesn’t shoot under par at a U.S. Open what happened – was it the weather or something with setup? We don’t want 20 under or 20 over to win. I guarantee you that I don’t focus on a score. It’s a metric. We look at it. But I would say a few under par, something like that. You look at what Bryson (DeChambeau) did, 6 under lapping the field (at Winged Foot in September). That was an impressive performance what he did. Everyone else was even or over par. Winged Foot is brutal. It’s a tough test no matter when you play it. From the back tees at Torrey with the length it has and get a little bit of wind from off that ocean, it’s tough, but these players are so good today that I think a few under par is going to win.

One other thing I’ll say to you, and this is genuine, let me come back to scoring – I meant what I said and I wouldn’t change it – but what I’m really trying to say – and it was demonstrated at Pebble and Winged Foot to a small extent but really Pebble – is we do go in with a game plan. We’ll look for firm and fast conditions but not overly so, especially in the fairways. We don’t want them too fast so they stop hitting driver. We want them to hit driver. The greens will be firm, the rough will be up, the greens will be fast and we want a little wind off the ocean. That’s what our plan will be. We’ll modify based on the weather patterns.

I’ll tell you what we don’t do: If we don’t get the wind and it rains and it’s wet, we won’t force hole locations into places that are unfair and we won’t move tees back away from the game plan to get length we didn’t plan on. We didn’t do it at Pebble and we just don’t do that. We’ll just let Torrey Pines be Torrey Pines and we’re not going to play for a score. If it’s 12 under because we didn’t get the weather and it rained and we didn’t get the wind then it will be, and we’ll be fine with that.

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Rory McIlroy involved in similar embedded ball situation to Patrick Reed in Farmers Insurance Open third round

Rory McIlroy was involved in a similar embedded ball situation to Patrick Reed in the Farmers Insurance Open third round on Saturday.

SAN DIEGO – Turns out there was another embedded ball incident during Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open.

The golf world knows of the first one – when Patrick Reed was cleared of any rules violation when he took relief for an embedded ball on the 10th hole.

Replays of the incident caused a firestorm on social media, with some saying Reed took liberty with the rules, while others were much harsher. Especially seeing as Reed was involved in a rules fiasco in the 2019 Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. He took two practice swings that scraped the sand and improved his lie on both occasions on the 11th hole. Cameras caught the infraction. After the round, Reed pleaded his case, bringing up the angle of the cameras, but was assessed a two-stroke penalty.

Well, a few hours after Reed’s episode in the third round at Torrey Pines, Rory McIlroy was involved in a similar incident.

On the par-5 18th, McIlroy’s second shot wound up in the rough right of the fairway. McIlroy said after the round he asked a marshal if the ball bounced and was told they had not seen it bounce. McIlroy alerted his playing partner Rory Sabbatini that he was going to check if the ball was embedded. He determined it was, took free relief, and wound up making a par.

On Sunday morning, the PGA Tour released a statement concerning McIlroy’s drop.

“John Mutch, Ken Tackett and Gary Young have reviewed the Rory McIlroy videos from No. 18 yesterday and determined that it was virtually the same situation that Patrick Reed faced on No. 10 during the third round,” the statement read. “It was reasonable for both players to conclude – based on the fact that they did not see the ball land but given the lie of the ball in soft course conditions – that they proceed as the Rule allows for a potential embedded ball.

“They marked, lifted and assessed the situation to determine if the ball was embedded. Patrick went one step further and called in a Rules Official to be sure his assessment would not be questioned (although this step is not required). Both players took proper relief under the Rule 16/3. The Committee is comfortable with how both players proceeded given the fact that they used the evidence they had at the time.”

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Carlos Ortiz gets best of South Course, shares 54-hole lead at Farmers Insurance Open

After the third round, Carlos Ortiz has a share of the lead alongside Patrick Reed at the Farmers Insurance Open.

SAN DIEGO – Carlos Ortiz played the South Course at Torrey Pines during Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open.

No, really, he did. Seriously, no fooling.

While most others were having their fair share of troubles on the brutal layout despite warm temperatures, little wind and plenty of sunshine, Ortiz got the best of the brute en route to a 6-under-par 66 and shot up the leaderboard into a share of the 54-hole lead with Patrick Reed.

His 66 was the day’s best round by two shots. The field averaged 73.57.

So, yes, Ortiz was entitled to flash a huge smile when asked after the round exactly what course he had played on Saturday.

Farmers Insurance Open: Leaderboard | Photos

“Today was a beautiful day, I don’t think it gets any better than this anywhere. I took advantage of that, I hit the ball great and made a couple putts and when you do that it normally is a good outcome,” Ortiz said. “It doesn’t really matter pretty much until the last nine holes. My goal is to be in contention going into the last round, last nine holes, and I think I’m going to have a good chance tomorrow.”

His lone bogey came on the 11th and he birdied four of his last six holes. He also wasn’t bothered by an adventurous ninth hole when he chipped in for par.

“Oh, my God, I don’t want to walk you through that. I mean, it was one of those holes that I hit it five times and I made 5,” he said. “I feel like I played three holes in one hole, it was just exhausting hitting out of the rough.

“I was really aggravated and I was really energized after making that chip. I don’t know how to react. I was mad and at the same time, happy I made it. I don’t know, it was just one of those holes that I’m glad I made 5.”

Ortiz broke through for his first PGA Tour title in last year’s Vivant Houston Open. He has risen to No. 54 in the world.

MORE: Patrick Reed involved in rules controversy at Torrey Pines

“I’m having a different perspective on the way I’m playing,” he said. “I’m taking it easier, I’m trying to see the good things in everything, not only on the golf course. I just want to come out here, give my best. If my best is 78 or 66, that’s OK, but as long as I give my best, that’s all I’m trying to do here right now.”

Ortiz shares the lead with Reed, who was involved in a rules controversy and overcame four bogeys on the back nine to birdie his final hole for a 72. The two are at 10 under.

Five players are tied for third – 2017 Farmers champion Jon Rahm (72), Sam Burns (70), Lanto Griffin (72), Viktor Hovland (73) and Adam Scott (72).

Scott had one of the wildest rounds one has ever posted. He didn’t make his first par until the fifth – and he had to get up-and-down from 50 yards to make that par. In all, he had five birdies, five bogeys, an eagle and a double bogey.

“I had 72; it felt like 80 at one point and it felt like it was going to be 67 at one point,” Scott said. “It’s a hard golf course and I got a little out of sorts coming in there, which is disappointing, but I’m a couple back and got a chance tomorrow.

“If you’re not on top of your game on these tough courses, you know it’s a pretty demanding golf course in that wind today, a lot of holes into the wind on the back nine. You miss the fairway, it’s hard to hit a green you’re so far back. So really it was a combination of those two things coming in, leaving yourself work around the greens. It was tough putting the last nine holes today.

“If I can just kind of find about 16 really good holes tomorrow and limit the damage out here, I think I’ve got a good shot at it. It can turn around quick, there’s opportunities if you hit good shots and you get penalized if you hit bad ones. I’ve got to find a bag full of good ones tomorrow.”

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Patrick Reed in center of another storm of controversy at Farmers Insurance Open

Patrick Reed is at the center of yet another rules controversy after the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

SAN DIEGO – On a bright Saturday by the sea, Patrick Reed suddenly found himself in the epicenter of a storm of controversy.

After torching the front nine of the South Course in the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, Reed took to the 10th tee with a four-shot lead. His tee shot, however, found a bunker left of the fairway. From an awkward lie, Reed hit a 132-yard, 8-iron that landed left of the cart path left of the green.

And that’s when things got interesting.

As he neared the ball, Reed asked volunteers if the ball had bounced. They said they had not seen the ball bounce – though replay showed the ball did bounce before settling deep into the rough. Reed’s playing partners, Robby Shelton and Will Gordon also said they had not seen the ball bounce.

Nor did the three caddies in the group.

Farmers Insurance Open: Leaderboard | Photos

Thus, Reed alerted his playing partners that he was going to check if the ball was embedded. He picked up the ball, put his finger into a hole in the ground, and decided the ball was embedded. Then he called for a rules official to make sure the ball had been embedded and the official, Brad Fabel, declared it was.

Reed was allowed take a free drop due to the embedded ball and made par.

Many others took to social media to say Reed, who was involved in a rules controversy in the 2019 Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, took liberty with the rules. Some were moved to use the “C” word that ends in heater.

Reed met with rules official John Mutch after the round to review the incident.

Patrick Reed on the 14th hole as caddie Kessler Karain looks on during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. (Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)

“When we got up there, first thing you do is you obviously ask, did you see the ball bounce, and if they say no, at that point I marked it to check to see if it was embedded,” Reed said. “It definitely broke the plane. So from that point, called the rules official over and the rules official comes over and he checks to make sure it’s broken the plane and he agreed.

“When you have three players, three caddies and the volunteer’s really close to the golf ball not seeing the ball bounce, then you have to go by what everyone sees and what everyone saw. When no one has seen that, then the rules official basically say whether it’s free relief or not, and the rules official agreed that the ball has broken the plane and it was relief.

“It’s an unfortunate situation obviously, but at the end of the day when you finish a round and the head rules official comes up to you and has the video and shows everything that went down to the whole group and says that you’ve done this perfectly, you did this the exact right way, the protocols you did were spot on, at that point, you know, I feel great about it.”

Mutch said Reed did nothing improper.

“I wanted to know if he saw the ball bounce and neither he nor his fellow competitors saw the ball bounce. It’s pretty clear watching the video that he got to within 10 yards of the ball and asked the volunteer who was standing right there, ‘Did it bounce?’ and the volunteer said it did not bounce. So it was reasonable for him to conclude that that was his ball, it did not bounce and he was then entitled to see if it was embedded.

“He operated the way the rules permit him to operate.”

Reed said he would not have done anything differently.

“It is an unfortunate thing that happened today, but at the same time it’s exactly what I would have done every time, exactly what every player should do,” Reed said. “You should ask your playing opponents if they’ve seen whether it’s a ball bounce or whether it crosses a hazard line, you always ask them first and then you ask the volunteer, and then from there you check to see and at that point you call a rules official.

“When you have the rules officials and everybody come up and say that you did it textbook and did it exactly how you’re supposed to do, then that’s all you can do. I mean, when we’re out there and we’re playing, we can’t see everything. That’s why you rely on the other players, other opponents, you rely on the volunteers as well as rely on the rules officials. When they all say what we’ve done is the right thing, then you move on and you go on.”

Reed didn’t go on very well. He made four bogeys on his net six holes, horseshoed a short putt for birdie on the 17th but finished with a birdie to shoot 70 and grab a share of the 54-hole lead with Carlos Ortiz.

“Great thing is I still have a chance to win a golf tournament,” Reed said. “Now have to go out tomorrow and put the foot down and try to make as many birdies as possible.”

Reed has been a lightning rod on the PGA Tour, a polarizing figure that some people love to hate; a villain if you will. In the 2019 Hero World Challenge, Reed took two practice swings that scraped the sand and improved his lie on both occasions. Cameras caught the infraction. After the round, Reed pleaded his case, bringing up the angle of the cameras, but was assessed a two-stroke penalty.

The following week in Australia in the Presidents Cup, Reed got an earful from the fans throughout the tournament. On the third day of action, Reed’s caddie and brother-in-law, Kessler Karain, was involved in an altercation with a fan and was not allowed to caddie in Sunday’s singles matches.

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Farmers Insurance Open: No rest for the weary as Rory McIlroy ready for demanding stretch

Fresh of a break, Rory McIlroy is hitting the ground running at the Farmers Insurance Open.

SAN DIEGO – After a restful fall, Rory McIlroy’s getting busy.

The four-time major champion and former world No. 1 will play seven tournaments in an eight-week stretch to kick off his 2021, an active span that began last week in the Middle East and has moved to the sun-drenched shores of the West Coast at this week’s Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

He’ll be heading next week to play in the Waste Management Phoenix Open for the first time, then take a week off, then return to California to play the Genesis Invitational north of Los Angeles, and then head back to his home state of Florida for the World Golf Championships event south of Tampa, the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando and the Players Championship near the PGA Tour’s headquarters in Pone Vedra Beach.

Farmers Insurance Open: Tee times | Odds | Fantasy

A tiring itinerary by the looks of things. But the fit McIlroy isn’t a bit worried about getting weary, especially seeing as his start last week in Abu Dhabi was his first since he tied for fifth in the Masters in November.

“I had a pretty quiet spell there for a few months. I just wanted to get back out and play,” McIlroy said Wednesday after his pro-am round at Torrey Pines. “I felt like I sort of stopped last year on quite a positive note the way I played at Augusta and I just wanted to try to keep that going into the start of this year. I feel like the more I play, the more I’ll get comfortable with my game and know where it is. I just thought it was a good opportunity to sort of hit the ground running.”

The busy schedule also gives McIlroy a chance to get the bitter taste of 2020 out of his mouth. McIlroy fell to No. 7 in the world rankings and didn’t add to his victory hoard of 18 PGA Tour titles and eight European Tour titles; he has won since the 2019 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. COVID-19 got in the way and McIlroy, 31, had a tough time adapting to playing without fans lining the fairways.

“It obviously wasn’t the year that I wanted last year,” he said. “Especially coming back out of the COVID lockdown and no fans, it wasn’t quite the year that I wanted or the play that I expected to have. But saw some good signs in the fall, in the Masters, and then Abu Dhabi last week I had a couple of good rounds and a couple of not-so-great ones.

“I think the game, it’s coming around. It’s definitely in a better place than it was a few months ago and I’m feeling pretty comfortable.”

He should feel pretty comfortable at Torrey Pines. In two starts, he’s tied for fifth and tied for third. And he finished in a tie for third last week in Abu Dhabi. He’ll also do a bit of recon work this week with the U.S. Open being contested on the South Course at Torrey Pines in June. If he makes the cut, he’ll play three rounds on the South Course this week, with the other on the North Course.

“It’s long, so I think I can take advantage of my length pretty well,” McIlroy said of the South. “Then if I’m on with my irons, I feel like the greens are maybe a little smaller on average than what we get week in, week out on Tour, so with the second shots, if you’re feeling it with your irons, you can really take advantage of that. And then I feel like this golf course maybe more than any others, if you’re going to miss the green, you have to miss it either long or short because if you miss it pin-high but on the sides, every green sort of slopes in a ways and it’s very hard to get it close to the hole then.

“I think little nuances like that and having that fresh in your memory for a few months’ time is always a good thing.”

But McIlroy’s attention will be on this week’s Farmers.

“I think it’s a wonderful layout for a major championship. It stands up to basically the most elite level of golf that we play, the toughest test we face all year for the most part,” McIlroy said. “But no, I’m not really going to be thinking about what they’re going to do because I just have to play the golf course that’s in front of me this week. Obviously the course is going to play much differently in June; I would expect the rough to be up a little bit more and the greens to be a little bit firmer, a little more premium on accuracy that week than maybe there is this week, but it’s not as if you’re not trying to hit the fairways this week either.

“If I can go out and play well and shoot three good scores on the South this week, it will give me some confidence going into June.”

And possibly a win on Sunday.

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