SAN DIEGO — A former world No. 1 is getting acclimated pretty quickly this week at Torrey Pines. The current No. 1 looks as comfortable as ever here.
Justin Thomas fired a 9-under 63 Thursday on the North Course to move to 13-under 131 through the first two days of the Farmers Insurance Open, good for a share of the lead with Adam Schenk and Jon Rahm.
Schenk is seeking his first win anywhere. Meantime, the top-ranked Rahm sitting atop the leaderboard is nothing new around these parts.
The 27-year-old Spaniard bagged his first PGA Tour victory in 2017 at Torrey Pines, won his first major here at last summer’s U.S. Open and set the tone this week with an opening 66 on the more-challenging South Course.
“It’s a golf course that I love,” Rahm said at the start of the tournament. “It’s a city that I love.”
Maybe Thomas — who ascended to No. 1 in 2017, 2018 and 2020 and is now No. 6 — is coming around after Thursday’s 63 topped his previous best round here by five strokes.
Before tying for 19th last summer in the U.S. Open, Thomas hadn’t started here since missing the cut in 2015. A year earlier, he tied for 10th but his commitment to the Hawaiian leg of the PGA Tour had made it difficult to make Torrey Pines a regular stop.
This year, Thomas opted to skip the Sony Open after tying for fifth at Maui’s Sentry Tournament of Champions earlier this month.
“Jon and I were talking about it today,” Thomas said. “We were talking about Tampa and he said how much he likes that golf course, but just hasn’t fit it in his schedule and that’s how this place has been for me. I really like the golf course, but it just hasn’t fit in the schedule. …
“There’s a lot of unbelievable events out here that we all would love to play, but we’ve got to take some time off for our sanity sometimes.”
The two certainly had plenty of time to talk as they’d been grouped with Dustin Johnson (T-17 at 7-under) through the first two days of the tournament.
On Thursday, Thomas and Rahm traded birdies on seven holes, with Rahm’s lone stumble arriving with a bogey on the par-4 18th, his ninth hole. His approach game made up for missing the fairway on 10 of his 14 tee shots.
Naturally, Rahm took his frustration out on his driver a time or 10 but all was well by day’s end.
“It feels good because if you tell me before the round that I’m going to hit four fairways and shoot 7 under,” Rahm said, “I’d tell you that something out there must have been really good, which today was. For how little fairways I hit, I was able to hit a lot of those greens from the rough, which is not the easiest thing to do.”
In contrast, Thomas hit eight of 14 fairways — good, but not great — in extending his streak to five straight rounds under par after shooting, 67, 61 and 65 to close the Sentry. Thursday’s round of excellence, on the heels of a more than respectable 68 on the South, included a chip-in on the par-4 second, his 11th hole of the day.
All told, the Rahm-Thomas-Johnson grouping combined to shoot 33 under through the first two days of the tournament.
Thomas and Rahm will play Friday with Schenk, and the two stars appear destined to continue on together through Saturday’s final round.
Good for golf, yes.
Pretty good for them, too.
“It’s probably easier to say (it doesn’t matter) because I was in my own zone and kind of doing my own thing,” Thomas said. “But I’ve also been on the other side where nobody can get anything going and it really is tough when you can’t get the group (going).”
Said Rahm: “I’m here to win. Doesn’t matter who I’m really with. If you’re playing with a better-known name like J.T., I think it makes for better TV. And for us, if we were to play together or go on to win, it would probably be a little more satisfying.
“But either way, a win’s a win. It doesn’t really matter who’s out there with you.”
Locals watch
A trio of San Diego State products made the cut (3 under), led by Scott Piercy, who had an eagle at 7 in his second-round 66 on the North. He’s at 6-under, one shot better than J.J. Spaun (66, North) and two ahead of Xander Schauffele (72, South). They’ll be joined on the weekend by Pat Perez (also at 4 under) but Phil Mickelson missed the cut for the fifth time in his last 10 Farmers starts after shooting 76-71.
Schauffele is realistic about the task ahead this weekend.
“The issue is you’ve got Jon up at the top,” he said of Rahm. “This course is sort of built for him. … I think it’s going to take two ridiculously low historic rounds for me to be in contention, but I’m here to give it a shot.”
Big names heading home
Mickelson missing the cut was relatively predictable; he hasn’t won here since the 2001 redesign and has cracked the top 40 only once in his last 11 starts (including last year’s U.S. Open).
But players like Bryson DeChambeau, Sam Burns, Tony Finau, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth and Max Homa all were listed among the top 16 favorites for this week by The Action Network. All are heading home, as is Rickie Fowler, who was tied for fifth after an opening-round 66 but shot 10 shots higher Thursday. That wasn’t even close to being the worst turnaround; Dylan Frittelli followed an opening-round 67 with an 81, Stephan Jaeger went from 65 to 77 and Finau and Nick Hardy from 67 to 77.
The largest improvement from Wednesday to Thursday was 13 shots (80 to 67) by three players who all missed the cut: Kyle Stanley, Callum Tarren and Sam Ryder.
Spieth had made 20 straight cuts, the longest active streak on the PGA Tour. He shot 78 on Thursday on the South Course after a first-round 70.
