SAN DIEGO — Will Zalatoris pulled his tee shot left on the par-3 11th hole at Torrey Pines South, the ball disappearing into rough just above a bunker. The pin was tucked five paces from the left edge of the green, which ran away from him.
In other words, death.
“That’s a shot that (if) you’re having an up-and-down contest with your buddies,” Zalatoris said, “you’re just trying to get it somewhere on the green.”
Standing with his left foot in the bunker, his right balancing his body in the rough, he nudged his ball down the slope … onto the edge of the green … and watched it stop on the lip of the hole for a tap-in par that felt like a double eagle.
“Just kind of a joke,” Zalatoris said. “Just got away with it.”
There was nothing lucky about the rest of his round, though, a 65 that put him into the 54-hole lead alongside Jason Day at 14 under as the Farmers Insurance Open heads to a Saturday finale. Had Tony Romo’s golfing buddy not missed putts from 3 and 4 feet on the back nine, he would have tied the course record since the South was revamped in 2001.
Jon Rahm, who won the Farmers in 2017 and the U.S. Open here last June and proposed to his wife on these cliffs above the Pacific and generally owns the place, is one back after shooting even-par 72. Justin Thomas shot 73 and is among a trio two back.
Day, Rahm, Thomas … that’s 32 PGA Tour victories and three major titles between them.
Zalatoris? He won the Korn Ferry Tour stop in Berthoud, Colo., in 2020.
“I still feel kind of like the underdog, even though obviously right now I’m (leading),” Zalatoris said. “Just keep doing what I’m doing. Obviously, it’s been working. My time will come and hopefully it’s (Saturday).”
Zalatoris, 25, has been anointed golf’s next big thing after he got enough points on the Korn Ferry Tour to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot and then finished sixth after a hole-in-one in his first round and nearly another when his ball hit the flagstick. He finished second at the Masters last year behind Hideki Matsuyama and has nine top 10s in just 39 career starts on the PGA Tour.
Last week at PGA West in La Quinta, he made seven straight birdies to shoot 61 in the second round and finished tied for sixth.
“Zally” has always liked Torrey Pines — his first PGA start was here in 2018 — and he fashions himself as a good rough player. But it is what he did with his body, equipment and mind that has made the biggest difference this week.
He put 15 pounds on a 6-foot-2 skinny frame that carried, oh, about 157 pounds in previous seasons. He’s up to 172 through what he called “reversed intermittent fasting,” where he has a full meal at 6 a.m. so he can cram in two more before a late dinner.
He also, out of “boredom,” tinkered with the length of his driver. Most players have gone shorter after the U.S. Golf Association capped driver length for pros at 46 inches starting this season. Zalatoris was swinging a 44.5-inch stick and decided to try one just under 46.
He gained 12 yards of carry without spraying drives into the parking lot. Already, he was somehow able to bomb it without looking like Brooks Koepka or Dustin Johnson. Now he’s really bombing it — second last week at 317.4 yards and eighth this week at 314.
The biggest change, though, might be between the ears, realizing he was playing too conservatively toward the end of last season and in a disappointing first round to start this one.
The turning point last week in the desert came on a par-3 that, like No. 11 at Torrey Pines South on Friday, had the pin tucked on the left side of the green next to a bunker. Wanting to avoid the sand and making bogey, he blocked his tee shot right and made bogey anyway.
“It’s like I was trying so hard not to make mistakes that I was making mistakes,” Zalatoris said. “Josh Gregory (his instructor) said it best: ‘If you want to shoot 64, sometimes you’ve got to be willing to shoot 74.’”
On Friday, Zalatoris went after the left pin on No. 11 and pulled it into the rough. And escaped with a par anyway to stay at 13 under. He got to 14 under with a birdie at 14. Hole short putts at 13 and 17, and it would have been 16 under.
Rahm, playing a few holes behind him, briefly got to 15 under with a birdie at the par-5 ninth. But he doubled 10 and bogeyed 12 to finish the day where he started. That’s better than Adam Schenk, who also started the day at 13 under but was more like Adam Shank and shot 75 to drop to 13th place.
“I feel a little bit like I did at the U.S. Open,” said Rahm, who was three strokes back entering the final round last June. “The U.S. Open third round wasn’t my best. … I played good golf and I was feeling good, but still I knew that if things start clicking that Sunday round’s going to be good, and I feel the same way. Every part of the game feels good. It just hasn’t shown or manifested on the golf course.
“Sometimes it’s one swing, one shot, one moment that tips the scales towards me.”
Rahm is in the second-to-last group Saturday with Sungae Im and Cameron Tringale, who are both at 12 under. Zalatoris will play with Day and England’s Aaron Rai, who previously played on the European Tour and quietly has shot back-to-back 68s on the South Course to get to 13 under in his first trip to Torrey.
Rai got his PGA Tour card through the Korn Ferry Tour Finals in Boise, where he needed a par on the 18th hole to win the tournament. He double bogeyed and lost by a shot (but still got his card).
“A very strange finish and very polarized emotions at the end of it,” Rai said. “I probably made a couple of slight errors in decision-making on the last hole there which were negative at the time, but definitely things that are in my awareness going forwards if I’m in situations like that.”
