\u201cI hope the weekend gets harder,\u201d said Justin Rose after firing a 62 for a one-shot first round lead on the easier North Course at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open.<\/p>\n
In one sense, it has. Playing the tougher South Course, he\u2019s added rounds of 65-68. In another sense, it hasn\u2019t because the 65 left him four shots ahead of the field and the 68 has him six strokes clear. The field has found it harder; Rose \u2013 relatively, at least \u2013 hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s yet another astonishing performance from the 45-year-old Englishman who delighted the Open galleries as a teenager in 1997 and is now defying middle age with equal relish.<\/p>\n
When he looked after Robert MacIntyre at the 2023 Ryder Cup the sense of Rose easing himself into an avuncular role was, it is now obvious, one for outside observers to conjure with rather than the man himself. The following year he flirted with the lead in the PGA Championship and produced an Open performance that, in other years, might easily have been good enough for victory. Last April he was at it again, very nearly winning the Masters and then relishing (and thriving in) the Ryder Cup dog fight in New York.<\/p>\n
We see all that fun stuff and admire him. We get a glimpse, too (via social media), of all the hard work needed to get himself in these positions and he referred to it after this third round. \u201cI always focus on my recovery,\u201d he said. \u201cHydration, stretching, hot and cold plunge, stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t set a course record in the first round, he was one shy. But he has set new 36 and 54-hole tournament record and at 21-under 195 he has the 72-hole record total of 22-under in his cross hairs.<\/p>\n
Alone in second, two shots ahead of the rest of the field, Joel Dahmen is doing pretty well this week. But he knows he\u2019s having a good week while another fella is enjoying a tremendous one.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy only hope is if he doesn\u2019t set his alarm or he somehow starts hitting in the rough on the back nine,\u201d Dahmen said. \u201cThe way he\u2019s playing and what he\u2019s doing, I would be pleased with second place.\u201d The American also respects Rose\u2019s work ethic: \u201cHe puts a lot of work into his body. His ability to still grind and practice when he\u2019s got everything you could want from a career is really impressive. It\u2019s almost inspiring for me. I\u2019m seven years younger than him and I\u2019m getting outdriven by more than 30 yards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryo Hisatsune and Si Woo Kim share third on 13-under, Max McGreevy is alone in fifth on 12-under with Stephan Jaeger, Maverick McNealy and Seamus Power tied sixth fully 10 blows in arrears of the pace-setter. Rose is 1\/14, Dahmen best price 33\/1 and it\u2019s quite delicious to think that Jaeger \u2013 tied sixth remember \u2013 is as big as 700\/1.<\/p>\n
Rose is wary of complacency and was quick to point out that he won the 2017 HSBC Champions after Dustin Johnson had led the field by six at this stage. Torrey Pines has witnessed a few nightmare Sundays, too. In 2016 Scott Brown was tied for the lead, carded 87 and finished T49. Carlos Ortiz in 2021 was also a co-leader, shot 78 and ended the week T29. Rose is a better golfer than that pair and knows even a 74 would require a chaser to do something extraordinary. It can happen, but we\u2019ll look elsewhere.<\/p>\n
First up is MAVERICK MCNEALY to topple Seamus Power and Haotong Li in his three-ball.<\/p>\n
The American has known good and bad on a Sunday at Torrey Pines but a 64 in last year\u2019s re-arranged Genesis Invitational earned him second place and he also has second and fifth at Pebble Beach, and seventh at Riviera. His best golf is a good fit for the Californian coast and those gnarly Poa Annua greens. Power has only even missed the cut in this event before this week (five of them) and was T24 in last year\u2019s Genesis. Li is making his course debut but his only final rounds at Pebble (2019 US Open) and Riviera (2018 Genesis) were 75s.<\/p>\n
The 5\/4 is a more than fair price for McNealy.<\/p>\n
That notion of a golfer knowing good and bad at Torrey Pines is kind of inevitable. If the course were a road, the slippery-road-ahead sign would be on the walk to the first tee because once a skid starts, over-steering and getting into more trouble is entirely possible. It\u2019s why individual records are littered with all sorts of scores.<\/p>\n
ANDREW NOVAK notched some big ones in his early visits to Torrey Pines but he was third in this event last year and T13 shortly after in the Genesis. He\u2019s up against Justin Lower and Ryan Gerard. The former\u2019s previous course visits have reaped three missed cuts and a T43 so the in-form Gerard is the big threat.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s finished second in his last three starts, but those courses in Mauritius, Hawaii and Indian Wells were more free-scoring than Torrey. He can absolutely thrive this Sunday, but we\u2019ll take Novak at 17\/10. The double pays a tiny touch over 5\/1.<\/p>\n
Posted at 09:50 GMT on 01\/02\/26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI hope the weekend gets harder,\u201d said Justin Rose after firing a 62 for a one-shot first round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-402566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}