Landry wins Texas Open for first PGA title

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Byeong Hun An shot a 5-under 65 on Friday in the Wyndham Championship to take a one-stroke lead into the weekend. An was at 13-under 127 halfway through the PGA TOUR’s final event before the FedExCup Playoffs. Brice Garnett was a stroke back after a 64, and six players — including 2011 Wyndham winner Webb Simpson and first-round co-leader Sungjae Im — were at 9 under. Adam Svensson also was in that group after shooting the best round of the day — a 61 — and threatening to become the first player on TOUR this year to break 60. An, who shared the first-round lead with Im at 8 under, made his move up the leaderboard with three straight birdies late in his round. Finishing on the back nine, the 27-year-old South Korean who’s winless on TOUR had birdies on Nos. 3-5 and closed his second consecutive bogey-free round with four straight pars. “I came close last couple years and, you know, maybe this week might do it,” An said about that long-awaited first victory. “But still have two more days and there are a lot of players behind me. … Just do what I’ve been doing the last couple days and just hit a lot of fairways and greens and make some putts. If someone plays better than me, then he deserves to win it, but as long as I keep these bogey-free rounds going.” For a while, the story of the day was whether Svensson would become the 11th player in PGA TOUR history to break 60 — and the first since Brandt Snedeker opened this tournament last year by shooting a 59 on his way to a victory. Svensson birdied seven holes on the front nine and added two more on Nos. 12-13 to move to 9 under for the day. “I was kind of like, all right, I’m 9 under par (after No. 13) and there’s still four or five holes and a par 5,” Svensson said. “I was actually pretty calm. I thought I would be a little more nervous than I was.” His best chance to go even lower came on No. 15 but he missed a 7-foot birdie putt. Still, the 25-year-old Canadian who is winless on TOUR, had his second 61 this year. He also had one in the first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii. He started at No. 171 on the FedExCup points list but put himself in position to crack the top 125 and earn a spot in the field at the Playoff opener, THE NORTHERN TRUST, next week in New Jersey. That chase for playoff berths is a key subplot every year at Sedgefield, home of the bubble players’ last chance to make the postseason field and earn their TOUR cards for 2020, if they don’t already have them. Everyone from No. 103 to No. 137 is here, and in the Wyndham’s dozen years as the final pre-Playoff event, an average of 2.7 players have played their way into the postseason. Garnett, who at No. 121 is the very definition of a bubble player, put himself in good shape by opening the tournament with consecutive 64s, closing the second one with birdies on three of his final five holes. The pack of seven players two strokes back included two others on the Playoff bubble: Patton Kizzire, a two-time winner last year who is at No. 129 on the points list, shot a 64 that included consecutive eagles on Nos. 5 and 6. And Josh Teater, at No. 165, kept himself in contention with a 65 highlighted by five birdies — and a bogey — in a seven-hole stretch. The other storyline is the top players’ pursuit of spots in the top 10 and the Wyndham Rewards bonus money that accompanies those finishes. Nine players started this tournament with a shot at some of that cash, and at the midpoint, two of them — Simpson and Paul Casey — are in position to claim it. “I’ve got a really good plan for this golf course, a really good strategy, and … as long as we don’t get too much crazy weather coming in, going to try to execute that plan as I did the last two days,” Casey said. “Hopefully, get the speed of the putts a little bit better and make a few more birdies, and then try and figure out what everybody else is doing and attack on the last nine if I need to and try and win this thing.”

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In just five years, Jon Rahm’s performances at Torrey Pines have reverberated in the record books, indelibly tying the world’s No. 1 player to this southern California layout. In 2017, Rahm concluded his inaugural Torrey Pines appearance with a powerful exclamation mark, making eagle on the 72nd hole to seal victory. Rahm was the first player to win the event with a closing eagle since Tiger Woods in 1999, and the first to win in his Farmers Insurance Open debut since Arnold Palmer in 1957. Four years later, Rahm closed his first major championship victory in a similar fashion: with a red-hot Torrey Pines finish. Rahm closed birdie-birdie, becoming the first U.S. Open champion to birdie the final two holes of regulation since Tom Watson in 1982. His victory made him not only the first U.S. Open winner from Spain, but the first Spaniard to win any United States Golf Association championship. Rahm is a cumulative 51-under at the Farmers Insurance Open since 2017, the best cumulative score by any player in that span by five strokes. But what specifically has set Rahm apart from his peers in his 20 career rounds at this event? Twenty First Group dove into the numbers to explain. North Course Dominance Over the last five years, the North Course at Torrey Pines has played about two strokes easier than the South has. No player has taken more advantage of that disparity than Rahm, who in five career rounds on the North Course has a grand total of five bogeys. Rahm’s career scoring average of 66.4 on the North Course is the best of any player since 1990 with at least four competitive rounds there. His remarkable 6.20 birdies-or-better per round on the North Course ranks third-best in that span, trailing only Ryan Palmer (6.63) and Tom Kite (6.25). Rahm has hit less than 50 percent of his career fairways on the North Course (48.6 percent, to be exact), but it hasn’t impacted his ability to score on that layout. Thirty-three percent of the time Rahm has missed the fairway on a par-4 or par-5 on the North Course, he’s still gone on to make birdie or better. That is a significant advantage over the field average historically (20 percent). Rahm has been stellar on the par-4s at the North Course in his career, regardless of tee shot outcome: his 3.72 scoring average ranks third-best among players with four or more rounds played since 1990. Elite drives on the South Course While missing the fairway hasn’t penalized Rahm much on the North Course, that can’t usually be said for the South. Traditionally, only about 14 percent of players who miss a fairway on Torrey South go on to make birdie or eagle. That’s been no issue for Rahm – his driving accuracy leaps to 63 percent when playing the more difficult Torrey Pines South layout in this event. Since Rahm’s debut in 2017, there are 122 players with six or more Farmers Insurance Open rounds at Torrey Pines South. Of that group, Rahm is the only player to average a full stroke gained per round off the tee. Since Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee became available in 2004, Rahm’s average of +1.07 per round is the second highest of any player with a dozen or more rounds. Fellow tournament winner Bubba Watson (2011) is the only player in Rahm’s league in that regard, gaining 1.33 strokes off-the-tee per round in that span. More than 55 percent of Rahm’s Strokes Gained: Total on the South Course have come from tee shots, the third-highest rate of any player with 10 or more SG: Total on this course in the last five years. His ability off the tee has been especially beneficial on par-4s, where Rahm has gained, on average, half-a-stroke on the field with his drives per round. That is the third-highest rate on the South Course in that stretch, trailing only Cameron Champ (+0.77) and Luke List (+0.55). Different recipes to get it done Over the last 30 years, the players to average the most birdies-or-better per round at the Farmers Insurance Open are Woods (4.88) and Rahm (4.60). Not coincidentally, those are also the two players to win U.S. Open titles at the venue, with Woods’ unforgettable performance on a broken leg coming in 2008. But the two champions have used different formulas to separate themselves from the field on the South Course. While we mentioned Rahm using his driver to a distinct advantage, Woods has averaged just +0.34 Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee per round at Torrey South since ShotLink data became available in 2004. That’s less than one-third of the strokes Rahm gains from the tee box. Woods, however, has been peerless with his iron play on the South Course, averaging a stellar +1.24 Strokes Gained: Approach per round in that span. Of players with 12 or more rounds since 2004, Woods is one of just five players to average a full stroke gained per round in that statistic, and he ranks one-tenth of a stroke per round better than any other player. Much like how he has performed on the PGA TOUR in the last seven months, Rahm has found success through his bag in his career at this event. Since 2017, Rahm ranks well above average in every Strokes Gained statistic at this event – leading off-the-tee, and ranking 43rd in approach, 29th around the green and 48th in putting (out of 122 players with a minimum of six rounds). That’s a microcosm of the balanced excellence Rahm has been displaying week-in and week-out on TOUR: since July 1 of last year, Rahm leads all players in Strokes Gained ball-striking (off-the-tee + approach) and ranks No. 6 in Strokes Gained: Putting. The reigning world No. 1 is the justifiable betting favorite this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.

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PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – The fans at Riviera Country Club offered to put up floodlights. They needn’t have bothered. Tiger Woods was already lighting the place up. Woods injected some serious energy into the delayed start of the third round at the Genesis Open when he opened with a birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie run to send the crowd into frenzy. By the time darkness halted play, the 80-time PGA TOUR winner had negotiated seven holes in five under par and moved from a tie for 52nd to a tie for 14th at six under. He didn’t want it to end. No one else did either. While still a long way adrift of Justin Thomas – who leads at 13 under through two holes of Round 3 – Woods now has the opportunity to make waves on what promises to be a marathon Sunday. Starting on the drivable par-4 10th hole, Woods knocked in a 5-foot birdie after a nice chip. After a brilliant drive down the par-5 11th, the two-time FedExCup champion then hit an exquisite 250-yard 3-wood to inside 10 feet and made eagle. When a 21-foot birdie dropped in on the next hole they could hear the roars reverberating around the Hollywood sign. But Woods wasn’t done yet as he buried another from 14 feet – despite the distortion of crowd containment breaks – to create more buzz in Los Angeles than the Oscars. “It was definitely crazy. Gives you even more respect for what he’s able to do knowing he deals with that every time he tees it up,â€� playing partner Peter Malnati said. Malnati had never played with Woods before and caught himself in awe. Before today he had thought the roars for his two aces on TOUR were good. “They were nothing like the combination of excitement you hear with Tiger,â€� he laughed. “Obviously, the atmosphere was already incredible and then to see that quality of golf was really cool. “It is pretty impressive. It is kind of fun to watch, he’s driving the ball beautifully and he’s as good as he’s ever been with his irons. That’s really cool and amazing to see it up close, so in control, it’s nice.â€� Woods had seemingly ruled himself out of contention with his 70-71 opening. But now, despite still having a big hole to climb out of, he retained some optimism of finally breaking through at Riviera. “I’ve got some work to do,â€� Woods admits. “I’ve got to get up and down at 17. No. 18’s not going to be playing short with these temperatures and then I’ve got to get one, and then two is going to be back into the fan again. I’ve got to do some damage to those holes. “It’s going to be in the 40s and it’s supposed to be blowing close to 20 miles an hour. So it’s going to be a tough day for all of us and one that we’re going to have to fight through.â€� TOUR officials will not re-pair groups between rounds, instead hoping to get the two final rounds finished in one day for a regulation finish. For Woods that means 28 and 1/3 holes as he faces a delicate pitch shot and likely putt to make par on 17, his eighth hole of the round. “It’s going to be a long one. Up early and start working on it and staying loose and staying ready,â€� he added. “It’s just going to be a lot of walking. And last couple days, it’s definitely testing the body.â€�

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