Justin Rose overcame a slow start en route to winning his 10th PGA TOUR title at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.
The world’s leading player won his second event in five starts, but it didn’t go exactly to plan early on Sunday.
Rose missed a number of short putts that left his card littered with three bogeys in his opening five holes. Then came the switch.
‘I said, “All right, we build the round from this moment on,”‘ he said.
He did. Rose birdied three of the next four holes, then grinded through Torrey Pines’ difficult back nine to secure a two-shot win.
Rose’s 21-under 267 (63-66-69-69) was the lowest score at the tournament since the South Course was toughened up in the early 2000s. His was two shots lower than Woods’ winning total in 2008. The reigning FedExCup champion is now sixth in the standings after winning his third start of the season.
This was Rose’s 10th PGA TOUR win, the most by an Englishman since World War II. Three of Rose’s wins have come since the start of last season. It’s been an incredibly consistent run that culminated with a win in last season’s FedExCup.
He’s finished in the top 10 in 13 of his last 21 TOUR starts, including eight top-3 finishes. He’s missed just one cut.
And it was another victory in a tough test. Torrey Pines was softened by last week’s rain, but the rough was lush. Rose’s has won at storied venues such as Merion, Colonial, Muirfield Village, Aronimink and Congressional.
Final leaderboard:
267 – Justin Rose (ENG) 63-66-69-69
269 – Adam Scott (AUS) 70-66-65-68
272 – Hideki Matsuyama (JPN) 66-66-73-67, Talor Gooch 69-68-67-68
274 – Jason Day (AUS) 67-71-69-67, Rory McIlroy (NIR) 71-65-69-69, Jon Rahm (ESP) 62-72-68-72
275 – Billy Horschel 66-68-71-70
276 – Gary Woodland 71-70-69-66, Cameron Smith (AUS) 71-69-71-65, Joel Dahmen 68-67-70-71, Scott Brown 70-68-68-70
277 – Ryan Palmer 67-67-75-68, Bud Cauley 66-70-74-67, Matt Jones (AUS) 67-74-69-67, Sepp Straka (AUT) 69-67-71-70, Tony Finau 69-69-69-70, Patrick Reed 69-69-69-70, Michael Thompson 68-69-69-71
278 – Jason Kokrak 71-69-69-69, Tiger Woods 70-70-71-67, Kang Sung (KOR) 71-70-66-71, Charles Howell 66-70-75-67, Doug Ghim 63-73-67-75
