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SAN DIEGO - Patrick Reed is at his best when he is under pressure. He almost craves it. So perhaps it was a foregone conclusion that he would march to a dominant win at the Farmers Insurance Open. Reed's final-round 4-under 68 helped him finish at 14 under at Torrey Pines - enough to secure a five-shot win over Viktor Hovland, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Ryan Palmer and Henrik Norlander. The now nine-time PGA TOUR winner broke free of a log jam of contenders with an early eagle and then doggedly shook off a challenge from Hovland late in the day. The margin was ultimately large, but it wasn't all that easy. Reed needed to produce some stellar short-game play to stay in control. When things got shaky on the notoriously difficult South Course, Reed had one cliché in the back of his mind: When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Each missed shot just fueled his fire and gave him a chance to showcase a trait he values in his game. Resilience. "You look at all the great players throughout times, all of them are really resilient. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on around them, what’s going on on the golf course, whether they’re getting good breaks or bad breaks, they seem to really figure out a way to get the job done, to really just drive in and to keep on improving each shot each day," Reed said. "That’s golf, that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s why I love the game. It throws punches at you; you throw punches at it. And at the end of the day hopefully you’re the one standing. "Golf’s hard as it is, and you come to a place like this where it’s so demanding. Not just off the tees. It doesn’t matter if it’s a drive, an iron shot, a wedge shot, putt, you have to be all locked in 24/7." On Sunday, things started in neutral for Reed with five straight pars before a brilliant eagle putt on the par-5 sixth. The Texan connected from outside 45 feet a day after doing similar from 40 feet. He would make the turn at 13 under with only Hovland (one back), Jon Rahm (three back) and Carlos Ortiz (three back) legitimate threats to his ambitions. Ortiz was gone quickly with bogey at the 11th and double bogey at 12. Hovland suffered a slow bleed as Reed became a short-game wizard under pressure. The Norwegian missed a short birdie putt on the par-5 13th to join the lead and then made back-to-back bogeys. On the 14th hole, Hovland went from a fairway bunker into a canyon forcing a penalty drop, and then on No. 15 he drove the ball directly behind the base of a large tree, forcing a simple pitch out. Despite being three back with two to play, the two-time TOUR winner felt he could force the issue with a finishing flourish and his birdie putt on the 17th from 32 feet went within a whisker of going in. Sadly, perhaps still disappointed it didn't drop, he missed the 2-foot par attempt. Meanwhile, Reed could easily have been leaking shots just as fast as the other contenders. But staying true to his mantra, he knuckled down. He got up and down for par from the rough on No. 10, and from greenside bunkers on Nos. 12 and 14. Then, with Hovland sticking his tee shot on the 16th hole ahead of him inside 20 feet, Reed was brilliant in securing another par from 50 yards on the 15th after a forced punch-out from a wayward tee shot. He just refused to open the door for others. The victory sees Reed surge to 10th in the FedExCup standings and to 10th in the world rankings. Reed was also able to move past a ruling from the third round. The 30-year-old had acted in a "textbook" manner when taking relief from a ball deemed to be embedded on the par-4 10th hole. Reed's victory on Sunday was the result of some changes. It was after the last U.S. Open - played in September due to the COVID-19 pandemic - that Reed switched to David Leadbetter for a swing coach. He was pleased that - for the most part - the new swing held up under pressure. "The hard work that my team is going through and working with me on trying to dial it in, get it where it is right now is amazing," Reed said of his new swing. "The good thing is, Led’s always told me... you’re working towards something, there’s no reason why you can’t go ahead and win. Because of that I had that kind of attitude going into today that, hey, even though the swing’s not 100%, you know how to get it around this golf course, you can go out and shoot a number and put up a fight. "This one was pretty special. To be tied for the lead going into today and in that final group and seeing the swing kind of hold up throughout the round and allowing my short game to kind of save me there towards the end meant a lot, meant that I’m on the right path."

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At the halfway point of the THE PLAYERS, Webb Simpson has built himself a 5-shot lead after a dazzling 9-under par 63. It could have been even better for Simpson if not for an errant tee shot that found the water on the island green 17th, ultimately leading to a double bogey. Given this unique circumstance of one player finding himself five clear of an otherwise bunched leaderboard, it is difficult to intuitively come up with accurate win probabilities without the use of a statistical model. Here are the top 10 win probabilities according to our model as we head into the weekend: As expected, Webb Simpson is the heavy favorite with a 50 percent chance of becoming THE PLAYERS champion. This is obviously due in large part to the lead he has built, but another important factor is how highly our model rates Simpson, who it estimates to be the 17th strongest player in the field. Moving down we see two big names in Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, who despite being positioned T8 and T11 respectively, each carry sizable win probabilities. This is not surprising given our model estimates them both to be more than 2 shots better per round than an average PGA TOUR player. It was also an exciting day around the cutline. In the end, 80 players finished at 1 under par or better and will advance to play the weekend. This excitement can be characterized nicely through the cut probability evolution of Tiger Woods, who ended up making the cut on the number:   At the time of finishing his round Woods was tied for 64th, but with the course playing relatively easy at the time, he only had a 47 percent chance of making the cut. Luckily for Woods, the course toughened up for the afternoon wave, which at one point boosted his chance of making the cut to 95 percent. Things then got very interesting. Toward the end of play birdies were in abundance for the remaining players on the course, so much so that at one point Woods fell to T72 and outside the cutline. The model wasn’t to be fooled though, as it still gave him a 66 percent probability of making the cut given how difficult the finishing holes were playing. In the end the model estimates were accurate as TPC Sawgrass reminded us all of what may be to come on Sunday, as a host of the TOUR’s best players stumbled down the finishing stretch to move the cutline back to minus 1. NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut�, “Top 20�, “Top 5�, and “Win� probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 10K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the THE PLAYERS Championship, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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OVERVIEW One of the goals for Jon Rahm, who turned 24 last month, will be to make this season less like last season and more like 2017. At least with respect to putting. Two seasons ago Rahm was one of the hottest players in golf as he was 48th in Strokes Gained: Putting and 2nd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. He won the Farmers Insurance Open and pushed Dustin Johnson to the brink in the championship match of the World Golf Championship-Dell Technologies Match Play. Rahm looked like a complete player. Last season that wasn’t the case, as he dropped all the way to 135th in SG: Putting while dropping just one spot to 3rd in SG: Off-the-Tee. As a result, Rahm went long stretches without popping up on any leaderboards. He finished fourth at the Masters but missed the cut at the U.S. Open and The Open Championship. Then he was back with a T4 at the PGA Championship. When the putter is hot or at least warm, Rahm remains dangerous. Although his performances were uneven in 2018, he picked up his second TOUR win at the CareerBuilder Challenge, won the Spanish Open, and beat Tiger Woods in singles in his first Ryder Cup appearance. Asked at the Hero World Challenge how he would sum up 2018, Rahm replied: “This year was a big year of personal growth more than my golf game. I was actually quite surprised how well I played compared to what I had going on in my personal life.â€� He didn’t elaborate but certainly a huge off-course moment for Rahm was getting engaged to his long-time girlfriend. All in all, it wasn’t a bad off-year for Rahmbo. – By Cameron Morfit Click here to see who else made the Top 30 list. BY THE NUMBERS FEDEXCUP UPDATE Current 2018-19 position: 129th Playoff appearances: 2 TOUR Championship appearances: 2 Best result: 5th in 2017 SHOTLINK FUN FACT Jon Rahm is one of seven players who have averaged four or more birdies per round in each of the last two PGA TOUR seasons. INSIDER INSIGHTS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Jon Rahm in 2019. TOUR INSIDER: A lot of TOUR pros run hot, but Rahm can reach molten levels of intensity. For the most part, you’d have to say he has channeled it well. Two wins in two full TOUR seasons? Not bad at all. But golf is most infuriating on the greens, where Rahm dropped to 135th in Strokes Gained: Putting last season, and one can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection and his temper is hurting him. Can he cool the fire and let it happen on the greens? To be continued. – By Cameron Morfit FANTASY INSIDER: Not surprisingly, after experiencing the challenge of balancing focus of his imminent debut in the Ryder Cup with what was a quiet FedExCup Playoffs, he regained traction this fall with a T4 in the European Tour’s finale in Dubai. It was his ninth top five of 2018 alone. This is why he’s special; we actually can count on numerous chances no matter the test. He scaled to a career-best No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking when he won the CareerBuilder Challenge in January, so invest confidently in a run back toward the top spot as he settles into his third full season on the PGA TOUR. — By Rob Bolton EQUIPMENT INSIDER: Rahm made equipment news ahead of the 2018 Ryder Cup by using a custom European-flag themed SuperStroke putter on his TaylorMade Spider Tour Red putter. Despite his success at the Ryder Cup as a rookie, and upsetting Tiger Woods in his singles match, he’s since switched back to the familiar black-and-white SuperStroke grip. Maybe more surprisingly, however, was a switch backwards with his driver. While Rahm was an early adopter of the TaylorMade M4 driver, using the TwistFace technology for much 2018, he switched back to a TaylorMade M2 2017 driver during the FedExCup Playoffs, and continues to use that driver – with his familiar Aldila Tour Green shaft. Will Rahm switch into the new TaylorMade M5/M6 technology in 2019? We’ll keep a close eye on it. — By Andrew Tursky STYLE INSIDER: Rahm’s explosive game can only be matched by the energetic colors he brings to the course. While he favors solid tops and bottoms, he often pairs bright hues with light neutrals to create eye-catching contrast. He could improve his style in 2019 by losing the white belt and matching his belt to his pants. — By Greg Monteforte

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