Leaderboard: Round 3 of 3M Open

Tiger at Torrey – always a nice mid-January gift for PGA TOUR fans. Tiger Woods has won the Famers Insurance Open seven times (and won another tournament at Torrey Pines South in the summer of 2008. You may have heard about it). If he wins Farmers for an eighth time this week, he’ll break his tie with Sam Snead and hold the record for most career wins in TOUR history at 83. Plenty of notables hope to spoil the party, of course. RELATED: Tee times | Power Rankings | Tiger eying No. 83 THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER THE FLYOVER The 570-yard par-5 18th was not the easiest hole, via stroke average, at Torrey Pines South last year. But it did yield the most birdies of any hole, and it has a habit of producing dramatic moments. It can also bite players if they’re not careful. In 1975, Bruce Devlin made a 10 after finding the water – now called “Devlin’s Billabongâ€� in front of the green. In renovating the South course, Rees Jones regarded the slope to the water and also expanded the surface area in front of the green. LANDING ZONE Say hello to the second hardest hole on the PGA TOUR last season – the 505-yard par-4 12th at Torrey Pines South. A year ago, it played to a stroke average of 0.387 over par; the only hole more difficult was the par-4 ninth at Sheshan International, site of the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, playing to a stroke average of 0.435 over par. At the 12th last year, nearly as many double bogeys (16) were made as birdies (22). Have to hit it straight; if you don’t find the fairway, you’re probably not going to make par on this brute of a hole. WEATHER CHECK From PGA TOUR meteorologist Stewart Williams: “Can’t rule out some patchy fog Thursday morning. Otherwise, off-shore flow will return Thursday through Saturday, providing partly to mostly sunny skies and warmer temperatures in the mid- to upper-60s. On-shore flow will return Saturday evening into Sunday as a trough of low pressure approaches Southern California. This will provide cooler temperatures Sunday and maybe the chance for a few light showers late Sunday night into early Monday morning.â€� For the latest weather news from San Diego, check out the PGA TOUR weather Hub. SOUND CHECK It always feels good to be back here. It’s one of my favorite venues on TOUR, South course, one of my favorite golf courses in the world. And extra special I guess after playing so well last year, me being defending champion BY THE NUMBERS 176 under – Total score to par by Tiger Woods at the Farmers Insurance Open. It’s his best combined score in relation to par at any event he’s played on the PGA TOUR. 16 – Consecutive cuts made by Collin Morikawa, tied for the second-longest active cuts made streak on TOUR. (Tommy Fleetwood has the active longest streak at 31.) 16 – Top-10 finishes by Rory McIlroy since the start of the 2018-19 season, most of any player. 30 – Starts, including this week, by Phil Mickelson at the Farmers Insurance Open. That’s the third most in tournament history. 604 under – Mickelson’s combined score to par in California, second-best of any player in the last 37 years. 7,765 – Scorecard yardage for the South course, which is 67 yards longer than 2019 when the course was listed as the longest on TOUR last season. SCATTERSHOTS South changes: Rees Jones was brought in to lead the renovations made to the South Course, which will host the 2021 U.S. Open. Among the changes: • Rebuilding all bunkers, leveling and re-grassing all tournament tees, and re-grassing approaches and green collars • Modifying fairway bunkers on holes 1, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 17 • Hole 4 – Tee and fairway shifted towards the cliffs; size of front greenside bunker reduced • Hole 9 – Bunker in second landing zone brought in to act as cross bunker; new collection area added behind the green • Hole 10 – New tournament tee added to provide yardage flexibility; fairway bunkers moved inward to create options. • Hole 13 – New bunkers added to beginning of fairway; approach extended down the hillside • Hole 17 – New tournament tee added along the cliff north of the existing tee; fairway and fairway bunkers shifted closer to the cliff • Hole 18 – Front of green expanded to recapture lost surface area. Rose post-Farmers: After winning at Torrey Pines last year, Justin Rose took a month off. In his 23 worldwide starts since, he’s failed to get back in the winner’s circle, dropping from world No. 1 at the time of his Farmers win to currently 8th. “I got into bad habits last year. I swung the club poorly,â€� Rose said of his last 12 months. “I took a month off after this tournament and that was essentially my offseason. Didn’t do a ton of work because it was my offseason. I felt like the decision behind that was to be fresh for the majors. It just didn’t play out very well, it didn’t work out very well. So I was kind of learning on the fly last year about how to approach the new schedule and it just didn’t work, and kind of paid for it a little bit I felt like all season long.â€� Day’s back: Two-time Farmers Insurance Open champion Jason Day is making his first start since having to withdraw from the Presidents Cup due to a sore back. It was a tough decision for the Australian — who would’ve been a key player for the International Team – but a necessary one. “Obviously it was quite disappointing to not be able to play in the Presidents Cup, especially also playing the Australian Open,â€� Day said. “I was actually looking forward to going down there and playing there. Every time I would watch the Presidents Cup coverage, I was angry. I had to go up to the barn to kind of either ride or do some sort of exercise to get some frustration out because I really wanted to be there. But the rehab that I needed to do, I needed some time off.â€�

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RENO, Nev. — Booking a place in the FedExCup Playoffs is no easy task, especially for those sitting precariously close to the top 125 bubble with only a few weeks left in the TOUR’s regular season. With 27 of the top 125 in the FedExCup standings playing the Barracuda Championship, the event offers an opportunity to solidify their position. For those on the outside looking in — 56 players ranked from 126 to 200 are in the field at Montreux Golf & Country Club — it’s a chance to spoil the party and extend the 2017-18 season beyond the Wyndham Championship. Seamus Power and Aaron Baddeley are on opposite sides of the bubble at the moment, but both managed to make positive strides to stay on the right side of the top 125 after the first round. “It’s professional golf,” said Power, who began the week at No. 123 in the current standings. “It’s not as if I wouldn’t like to play well every other week of the year. [Making the Playoffs] is somewhere in the back of your mind, but as long as it’s not affecting the way you play, it’s not that big of a deal.” Power opened with 8 points (3-under 69) in the Modified Stableford event to move up two spots to No. 121 in the projected standings. As if playing with the season on the line wasn’t difficult enough, Power had to deal with a group of hornets that stung him multiple times on the 1st hole — his 10th of the day — as he was searching for Corey Conners’ golf ball. Power managed to birdie two of his next three holes after the incident before suffering two untimely bogeys as the wind began to freshen. “I got swarmed by five or six of them and they stung me quite a bit,” Power said. “A couple got under my shirt and stung me. I’ve been stung before, but never anything like that.” While Baddeley didn’t have to deal with insects at Montreux, he had to contend with the possibility of missing out on The Northern Trust following a stretch of eight missed cuts in his previous 11 starts. Sitting at No. 135 entering the tournament, Baddeley opened with 14 points (6-under 66) to move up 30 places to No. 105. He sits just three points behind current leader Ollie Schniederjans, who amassed 17 points, in second place. Even with the possibility of missing out on the Playoffs for the second straight season looming — Baddeley had advanced to at least The Northern Trust in his previous 10 seasons before last year — the Aussie said he isn’t sweating the possibility of the season coming to a close at the Wyndham Championship. “I’m not stressed, to be honest,” Baddeley said. “Whether you go to Web.com Tour Finals or whether you finish in the 126 to 150 category, you’re going to get starts and my game’s in a good spot.” Baddeley attributed his strong play to the Modified Stableford format that puts a premium on birdies and eagles, and lessens the penalty for a big number that could crater a round most weeks. “I think there’s times where you might go for a shot that you might not or go for a couple of extra pins,” Baddeley said. “… It’s the way the format is. The more birdies the better.” NOTABLES With Montreux playing at anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 feet, Michael Thompson (10 points) noted the elevation change and wind made for some interesting club selections on Thursday. “It sometimes feels like we’re taking forever to figure out our number. You just have to be patient and crunch the numbers. We started with 5 percent for elevation at the beginning of the round and moved it to 10 percent. Then you factor in the wind. We try and keep it simple, but there’s definitely some additional math involved.” Despite missing the cut in his previous two appearances at the Barracuda Championship, Ollie Schniederjans was in complete control of his game on Thursday, closing with an eagle and three birdies over the final eight holes to finish with 17 points. He attributed his strong start to getting comfortable with his approach shot distances and throttling back a bit. “I was just coming out extremely aggressive. But my game is coming around. I feel in control of my swing for the first time in a while.” Chris Stroud posted 7 points in the opening round with the same putter he used to win last year’s Barracuda Championship. Prior to this week, Stroud had relied on a conventional-length TaylorMade Spider before returning to an Odyssey White Ice D.A.R.T. with Matt Kuchar’s preferred Arm-Lock grip. “I literally just got it rebuilt back the way it was when I won here last year. I’m going to see if I can make a big run at the FedExCup.” Aaron Baddeley and Tom Lovelady were the only two players in the field who made a big enough move on Thursday to crack the projected top 125. Baddeley moved up 30 spots to 105 while Lovelady improved five spots to 124. QUOTABLES Instead of taking a week off, I kind of wanted to get on a roll, play a little bit before the [PGA Championship] and roll into next week with some rounds. And that was a really good one here.We can show him out here that the TOUR is thinking of him and is with him. That’s what it’s all about. Golf seems very small right now in comparison.

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AVONDALE, La. — Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel birdied six of their final eight holes Saturday to shoot a 9-under 63 and take a one-shot lead at 19-under 197 into the final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. RELATED: Leaderboard | Doug Ghim, Justin Suh bounce back to get in contention at the Zurich Classic The South African tandem birdied the par-3 17th with Oosthuizen’s 33-foot putt and Oosthuizen missed an eagle on the par-5 18th by 4 inches before tapping in for the lead while wearing a somewhat disgusted look because of his narrowly missed previous putt from nearly 17 feet. Oosthuizen then allowed for a smile while fist-bumping Schwartzel in acknowledgment of a successful round in a best-ball format that included nine birdies — five by Schwartzel and four by Oosthuizen in the PGA TOUR’s lone regular-season team event. Schwartzel got the pair going when he birdied No. 4 with a nearly 58-foot putt. The tournament will close with an alternate-shot round. “It’s going to be tough tomorrow,” Oosthuizen said. “Anyone within four shots of the lead has got a chance with the format that it is tomorrow. … The way the wind is the whole week, I think the golf course plays very tough, especially in alternate-shot.” In all, 17 teams were no more than four strokes back. Australians Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith also shot a 63 to move into a tie for second at 18 under with Cameron Champ and Tony Finau, who shot a 67 after Finau’s tap-in birdie. “Cam is playing great, putting great. I’m feeling a lot better over the ball today than I did the first two rounds,” Leishman said. “If I can play good, Cam keeps doing what he’s doing, I think we’ve got a good chance.” Tied for fourth at 17 under were the teams of Bubba Watson and Scottie Scheffler, and Norwegians Viktor Hovland and Kris Ventura, who’d shared the lead after the first and second rounds. Ryan Palmer and Spaniard Jon Rahm, the defending champs from 2019, shot a third-round 65 to remain in contention at 15 under and tied for ninth with nine other teams. Saturday’s action included some exceptional shots by players further back in the field, including Sam Ryder’s double-eagle from 206 yards on the par-5 second hole and Wyndham Clark’s 106-yard approach from the muddy edge of a water hazard on 16. Clark stood in the water in bare feet with his pants rolled up and splattered virtually all of himself with mud as he sent his ball to the edge of the green, about 15 feet from the hole, from where he made par. Clark and teammate Erik van Rooyen were among the teams at 15 under. Ryder and Doc Redman, who shot a third-round 66, were tied for 19th at 13 under.

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