Sahith Theegala grew up playing golf in Chino Hills, went to Diamond Bar High School and Pepperdine University, and estimates he probably has played somewhere between 50 and 70 rounds at Torrey Pines South.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Torrey. It\u2019s one of my favorite stops on (the PGA) Tour,\u201d Theegala said.<\/p>\n
He proved it again this weekend, finishing in a tie for seventh at the Farmers Insurance Open following Sunday\u2019s final-round 66, two shots better than his previous low score in 15 professional rounds on the South Course.<\/p>\n
It couldn\u2019t have happened at a better time for the 28-year-old Theegala, who tied for fourth here three years ago.<\/p>\n
Injuries to his oblique and later his neck plagued Theegala throughout 2025, when he didn\u2019t have a single top-10 finish and wound up 147th in the FedExCup standings \u2014 or 144 places lower than the previous year. His world ranking plunged from No. 13 to No. 119.<\/p>\n
Theegala has full PGA Tour status thanks to making it to the Tour Championship in 2024, but that exemption expires after this season. And he\u2019s not in any of the majors or the Signature Events, which are worth more points (and money).<\/p>\n
Good news for him: Three tournaments into 2026, he already has two top-10 finishes following a tie for eighth last week in La Quinta. And he\u2019s sixth in the Aon Swing 5, which gives players a chance to play their way into Signature Events. The top five after this week\u2019s WM Phoenix Open will be eligible for the first two of those tournaments, at Pebble Beach and Riviera. Andrew Putnam, currently ranked fifth, is not playing in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat (was) kind of the goal this year was to play my way into the (Signature Events) and try to get into the majors one way or another,\u201d Theegala said. \u201cSo yeah, to have a start like this is definitely incredible, and I love that golf course (in Arizona).\u201d<\/p>\n
Most importantly, Theegala loves how he\u2019s feeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy body feels incredible,\u201d he said Sunday. \u201cI\u2019m better than I thought I would (be). And I was pretty positive, pretty bullish on my body before the season, but now even more so.\u201d<\/p>\n
This week was notable for one other reason: In his 128th PGA Tour event, Theegala made the cut for the 100th time. His family celebrated by wearing custom-made T-shirts during Saturday\u2019s third round with Theegala\u2019s mug shot and the words \u201c100th Cut on PGA Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea, it was a surprise,\u201d Theegala said. \u201cI love that they\u2019ve walked a lot now, so anything to keep them fresh and kind of another reason to celebrate is great. They always keep it exciting, which I really appreciate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did he get one of the shirts?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I want a shirt with my face on it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Notable<\/p>\n
Theegala was one of the five players with Sunday rounds of 66, but the low round of the day was shot by Pierceson Coody, who birdied the last three holes for a 65 to finish in a tie for second with Si Woo Kim (69) and Ryo Hisatsune (69). Coody will enter Phoenix in first place in the Swing 5 standings, with Hisatsune fourth.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Count Tony Finau among those who never want to see the PGA Tour leave Torrey Pines. One of those to shoot 66, he wound up tied for 11th after making the cut for the 10th time in 12 appearances here. In those 10 years, he\u2019s never finished lower than tied for 24th, and the last eight times he\u2019s been no worse than tied for 13th.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Brooks Koepka birdied his last hole for a 2-under 70 and a four-round total of 4-under 284, tied for 56th place. Koepka will play in Phoenix, the site of his last non-major PGA Tour win in 2021, but his only path into Pebble Beach and Riviera would be with a victory.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Stephan Jaeger, who tied for third here two years ago, shot a 4-under 68 to finish in a tie for fifth. He played the final two rounds in 11 under, the best score in the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sahith Theegala grew up playing golf in Chino Hills, went to Diamond Bar High School and Pepperdine University,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[32496,181,74,76,75,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-159672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}