SAN DIEGO – Notes and observations from Friday’s second round of the Farmers Insurance Open, where Justin Rose leads by one over defending champion Brandt Snedeker. For more of what unfolded at Torrey Pines, check out the Daily Wrap-up. ROSE BLOOMS It should come as no surprise a former U.S. Open champion in Justin Rose is doing well on a U.S. Open course. The Olympic Gold Medalist backed up his North Course 65 with a solid 1-under 71 on the South to take the outright lead at 8-under. Rose was looking very good thanks to birdies at the 5th and 10th holes, before he found some trouble on 14 and 15 with bogeys. But – as has been this ball-strikers want in hard conditions – when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Some good advice from his caddie and a closing birdie helped give him the outright lead. “I was going along really nicely today. I think I hit my first 10 greens in regulation, I was playing lovely,” Rose said. “Things were going really well. Felt like I was in control. “But this golf course gets tough as you turn back into the breeze there on 14, 15, 16. It felt like, and this is probably just more just my perspective than anything, but it felt like as we turned into the wind the greens got bumpy, too. “So it felt like coming in it was even hard to see pars coming in.” With the weekend played on the tougher South Course, Rose will need to lean on his resilience – the same resilience that helped him to take the 2013 U.S. Open trophy at Merion. Patience is set to be the key for everyone. “Fooch (caddie) said something good to me going down 16, he said it’s all about just being in the mix for the weekend,” Rose said. “Everyone’s played both courses now and now we get to play the bruiser for the next two days. So you just want to basically put yourself within a shot. “I actually think the cut mark is incredibly low for two days around here. Pretty much everyone who’s made the cut is still in the golf tournament. “It’s a golf course you’ve got to stay patient on. You’ve just got to hit good golf shots. You can’t really fake it around here so it’s just about continuing to play well.” SNEDS STRATEGY When defending champion Brandt Snedeker says there is a specific strategy to playing Torrey Pines – you should listen. Snedeker’s 2016 triumph in the Farmers Insurance Open was his second title (2012) on the iconic coastal course and goes with a pair of 2nd place finishes (2010, 2013) and a 3rd (2007). “There’s definitely a lot of strategy involved. Guys don’t think that there is. They think they should have to hit every fairway and that’s not the case,” Snedeker said after finishing off a second round 71 to sit just one shot off the lead. “There’s a lot of strategy on where you miss it, how to get yourself around it. You don’t have to hit it perfect here by any means to shoot a score, but you’ve got to know where you can miss it and where you can’t. “So I did a great job today of missing it in the right spots to give myself a lot of good opportunities to save pars when I had to. “There’s birdie holes out there, you’ve just got to wait for them to come and not force it around here.” Strategy is one thing. A hot putter is another. Once again Snedeker rolled the rock better than most, running 2nd in Strokes Gained: Putting at 4.785. He needed just 28 putts in round two. “I feel comfortable on them,” Snedeker said of the notoriously bumpy poa greens. “I read them really, really well. I understand that they’re going to bobble a little bit throughout the course of the day, but if you can get them on a good line starting out, get them rolling tight… they’ll hold their lines pretty well. “I proved that today, hit a lot that were rolling tight today and they went in from just about everywhere. So it’s fun and hopefully I can keep doing it over the weekend.” SHORT SHOTS Hunter Mahan had missed seven cuts in a row before carding 71-70 to enter the weekend at 3-under and tied 21st. The six-time PGA TOUR winner had just one top-25 finish in 2015-16 but a change of coach to Chris O’Connell late last year may finally be paying dividends. “I know what I’m doing is right, it’s just one of those things when you get under pressure you’re kind of feeling what your tendencies are and to fight that and get through that,” Mahan said. “It’s a process; you can hit balls all you want but unless you’re in competition it’s a completely different animal. We’re creating a system and program; this is how we’re going to do things; the message will not change; it’s very clear what we’re trying to do.”… Tiger Woods wasn’t the only big name to miss the cut with PLAYERS champion Jason Day and U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson also going home early. Others of note were PGA Championship winner Jimmy Walker, local boy Rickie Fowler, last start winner Hudson Swafford, former major winners Geoff Ogilvy, Retief Goosen and Padraig Harrington and former Farmers Insurance champion Scott Stallings… Adam Hadwin, fresh off his 59 and runner up finish at the CareerBuilder Challenge, continues to play well. The Canadian is just one shot off the lead heading to Saturday… Hideki Matsuyama is the only player capable of wrestling top spot in the FedExCup from idle Justin Thomas this week. He will need to claw his way to a win to do so. The Japanese star is five shots back of the lead. CALL OF THE DAY SHOT OF THE DAY BEST OF SOCIAL MEDIA
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