Torrey Pines shows its teeth, sets up crowded Farmers Insurance Open finale

LA JOLLA, Calif. – Thomas Detry felt he was doing everything right to leave Torrey Pines as the leader overnight. On a day where most of the field backed up, Detry just needed to navigate the 18th to be the exception. As he stood in the fairway of the famous par 5, he was the only golfer in the final six groups under par in Friday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open.

But after battling for five hours to nudge ahead into the lead alone, Detry lost it with one shot. He watched his third shot, a wedge from 78 yards away, land in the middle of the green and rip past the pin and back into the water.

“I got punched in the face,” Detry said. He made a double bogey on 18 to post a third-round 73.

He wasn’t alone. Friday was the day everyone felt the strength of Torrey Pines’ best punch. The day the famed South Course showed its teeth. The third-round scoring average (73.55) was a shot-and-a-half harder than the opening two rounds. The South Course yielded 16 rounds of 68 or better through the first two days. Only two players matched that score on Friday, neither of whom began the day inside the top 60.

Matthieu Pavon aptly said, “Today the golf course showed its best.”

It sets up a familiar finale for the Farmers Insurance Open on Saturday, a tournament that is anyone’s game. With the subdued scores, separation was hard to come by. Stephen Jaeger leads at 11-under, with Pavon and Nicolai Højgaard one shot back. Detry, at 9-under, is two shots back. But there are 26 players within five shots of the lead.

Why could that matter? The previous two winners, Max Homa and Luke List, each came back from five shots to win the Farmers Insurance Open. Eight of the last 10 winners have come from at least three shots back.

The course’s difficulty is part of the reason. Not many can card a final-round 66 like Homa did a year ago, especially with the pressure in one of the final groups. If you do, you’ll likely have a chance to win.

Jaeger hopes to buck the trend. Alone atop the leaderboard, it’s the first time he has held a lead on the PGA TOUR entering a final round. It’s only the fourth round where he’s held a lead/co-lead in 129 TOUR events. Jaeger was 14-under through seven holes, with Pavon, Højgaard and Detry being the only golfers within six shots of the lead. But quickly, Jaeger began to feel the same pressure that Torrey Pines had put on the rest of the field. He missed long of the green on the par-3 eighth and couldn’t get up and down for par. He failed to take advantage of the gettable par-5 ninth after driving it in the rough. Errant tee shots at par-3 11th and par-4 12th led to two more bogeys. Just like that, more than a dozen players at 7- and 8-under had life.

“I've played Torrey Pines enough now that I know you don't go out and shoot 4, 5-under every day you play the South Course,” Jaeger said following his third round 73. “I just knew that I was playing good enough, my game was good enough that if I just mentally stayed sharp and stayed, you know, on course of what I wanted to do, I had a good chance of having a chance on Sunday. That's all I really want.”

He has as good a chance as any, though he will likely have to battle similarly challenging conditions. The thick rough is only growing longer, the inconsistent Poa annua greens are only getting bumpier, and the leaderboard is only getting tighter.

“It’s just tricky,” said Højgaard, who is chasing his first PGA TOUR win. He won the DP World Tour Championship in November.

That’s a theme for the final-round contenders. No golfer currently within four shots of the lead has won on the PGA TOUR.

Jaeger will be relying on a different type of winning experience, though. The 34-year-old German has won six times on the Korn Ferry Tour, second-most all-time behind only Jason Gore (seven wins). It remains to be seen whether anything he learned from those learnings can be put into practice on Saturday.

“It’s great to have some past success, but you really -- that doesn't really get you anything,” Jaeger said. “I'm going to feel it tomorrow, I'm going to be nervous.”

And he’s bound to get punched again tomorrow – by the pressure and by Torrey Pines. That’s how it goes on the PGA TOUR. Whoever navigates it best will be the last man standing.