Top storylines and golfers to watch ahead of the 2025 LPGA Tour season

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LA JOLLA, Calif. – The Farmers Insurance Open used to be an annual display of Tiger Woods’ dominance. Then early exits and questions about his health became the dominant theme. Thursday’s opening round at the Farmers Insurance Open served as confirmation. His 2-under 70 on Torrey Pines’ brutish South Course showed that Woods can pick up where he left off in his last official PGA TOUR event, the TOUR Championship. It’s been four months since he induced pandemonium at East Lake. He struggled in his handful of rounds since then, but on Thursday he erased questions that arose after poor performances at the Ryder Cup and Hero World Challenge. Given the opportunity to build back his strength in the offseason, Woods looks ready to resume his pursuit of Sam Snead’s victories record. Woods was understandably rusty, but there were plenty of promising signs. He accomplished something Thursday that he had not done in six years. This was the first time since 2013 that Woods shot under par in his opening round on the South Course. He won that week. The leaderboard will show that Woods sits outside the top 50, but that is deceptive because of the two courses in use this week. The South Course was more than two strokes harder than the shorter North on Thursday. “A couple under par on the South course is not something to sneeze at, but now I have to shoot a low one tomorrow,â€� Woods said. While Jon Rahm leads after shooting 62, no one shot lower than 66 on the South. Woods hit half of his fairways while hitting driver off most tees. Last season, the South Course had the hardest fairways to hit (48 percent). He hit 12 of 18 greens on Thursday, as well, but made just four putts longer than 3 feet Thursday. “I felt pretty comfortable with everything today,â€� Woods said. “I felt like I drove it halfway decent today and irons were good but not great. Playing at competitive speed again, I didn’t quite hit all my irons pin high like I normally do. That’s something hopefully I’ll have a better handle on tomorrow. It was nice to have some juice flow in the system again, it’s been a while.â€� All four came on the South Course’s par-5s, where he had to work hard to make birdie. All of his birdie putts on those holes were longer than 10 feet, including a 29-footer on the 13th hole. He had to lay up three times. His only other birdie came after he knocked his tee shot stiff on one of the South Course’s hardest holes. Woods hit a low, piercing iron to 3 feet on the 215-yard 11th hole. The average proximity on that hole was 36 feet. Only eight other players birdied the hole Thursday. Woods started his round by splitting the first fairway with a driver. He hit his approach shot to 25 feet and two-putted for par. He bogeyed the next hole, though, after missing both the fairway and the green. It was the first of three consecutive misses from 10-15 feet. The latter two were for birdie. He missed another makeable birdie putt, from 20 feet on the fifth hole. He got back to even par at the par-5 sixth hole, where he holed a 10-foot putt from the fringe to complete an up-and-down from the greenside bunker. He made birdie the hard way on the par-5 ninth to make the turn in 35. Woods was left with a 166-yard approach shot after driving into the rough. He reached 2 under par after his birdie at No. 11, but he missed a 6-foot par putt on the next hole. Woods hit the fairway on 13, but he laid up from 293 yards. His 100-yard approach went long and didn’t spin back after landing in the fringe. He made the long, downhill putt, though. He grinded out pars on 14 and 15 after missing the fairway. He made another bogey on 16 after pushing his tee shot into a bunker. He had to lay up on 18 after missing another fairway, but he wedged to 12 feet and curled in the putt to close with another birdie. He gained a half-stroke on the greens Thursday.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Justin Thomas found the right time for a near-perfect performance to put a rough start to the year behind him, rallying from three shots behind with bold play to close with a 4-under 68 and win THE PLAYERS Championship on Sunday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Justin Thomas, THE PLAYERS Championship Thomas becomes only the fourth player to win a major, THE PLAYERS Championship, the FedExCup and a World Golf Championships, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. He called it as good as he has ever played tee-to-green, and he needed it to outlast Lee Westwood, a hard-luck runner-up for the second straight week. Westwood birdied the final hole for a 72 to finish one shot behind. Thomas went birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie around the turn, and put away Westwood for good with a pair of lag putts from 50 feet — one for birdie on the par-5 16th to take the lead, another on the island-green 17th for a par. Thomas still had one more shot before he was in the clear. He took on the water framing the left side of the 18th fairway, the ball moving right-to-left and bouncing straight off the crown of the first cut, safely in the fairway. His approach landed on the fringe — the first green he missed all day — leaving a simple two-putt for par and the 14th victory of his PGA TOUR career. “I fought so hard today,” Thomas said. “It’s probably one of the best rounds of my life tee-to-green. I’ve seen some crazy stuff happen on TV in the past, and I’m glad to be on this side of it.” All the crazy stuff came early. Bryson DeChambeau, coming off a win last week at Bay Hill, topped an iron off the tee on the par-4 fourth hole that went only about 140 yards until it plunked into the water. From 237 yards on a forward tee to a green protected by water, he hit a slice with a 5-iron some 40 yards right of the green. “Dude! I don’t know what happened!” he said to his caddie. “I’ve never done that before.” DeChambeau made double bogey and was scratching the rest of the way to stay in the game. He still had a chance with an eagle on the 16th hole to get within two, but when Thomas made par on the 17th, his chances were about over. DeChambeau shot 71 and tied for third with Brian Harman, who had a 69 and played the final 12 holes without a bogey. The 47-year-old Westwood hit his tee shot into the water on the fourth hole and had to make an 8-footer to save bogey. He hit his approach out of the pine straw that clipped two branches and found water on the par-5 second hole to make bogey. He was never far away from the lead, and Westwood regained a share of the lead with an 8-foot birdie putt on the 14th. His chances began to slip away with his second shot into the par-5 16th. It hit a big oak and dropped into the sand, and his third shot found a bunker in front of the green. Instead of matching birdies with Thomas, who was in the group ahead, Westwood had to scramble for par to stay one behind. And on the 17th, his long birdie attempt rolled 7 feet by the hole. He faced another crucial par putt, and he finally missed. Thomas was outside the cut line after nine holes on Friday. He followed that with a 64 on Saturday to get in the mix, and he finished off in style to pick up $2.7 million with a win against the strongest and deepest field in golf. It wrapped up a year in which the PGA TOUR shut down after one round of THE PLAYERS a year ago. Thomas was among those serving on the Player Advisory Council that was a part in getting golf back from the COVID-19 pandemic. He looked at the gold trophy with Commissioner Jay Monahan to soak in how far golf had come in a year.

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