Tiger Woods: Farmers Insurance Open will be measure for 2018
Tiger Woods has dominated Torrey Pines to the tune of seven career victories. What will this week’s Farmers Insurance Open tell us about the year to come?
Tiger Woods is back – once again – on the PGA TOUR. I know, we’ve heard this one before, so it’s best to take a step back and be honest for once. As exciting as it is to see one of the greatest players of all time teeing it up again in competition, how much does he really have left? Well, as it turns out, we might find that answer out this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
Woods, a southern California native, has felt right at home in the seaside village of La Jolla throughout his career. He’s won at Torrey Pines eight times in his historic career, a feat almost as impressive as his 14 major victories.
Seven of those titles came at the Farmers, known as the Buick Invitational from 1996-2009. His most historic, of course, was at the 2008 U.S. Open. Defeating Rocco Mediate in a Monday playoff, with a broken leg nonetheless, Woods appeared to be nearly certain to break Jack Nicklaus’s career major record.
While that hasn’t happened – yet – Woods insists that he’s still got plenty of good golf left in him. In the ten years since that win, though, he’s been inconsistent, battling through a series of injuries that has turned his career into a stop-and-go soap opera.
All of which brings us to this week. While you might have better luck picking Powerball numbers than placing odds on Tiger’s season, you can find some patterns at Torrey.
Tiger Woods and Torrey Pines: By the numbers
In the 21 years since Tiger Woods turned pro, he’s played the Torrey Pines event 16 times. Much like the rest of his career, it’s been a tale of two acts. From 1998 to 2008, he didn’t miss a start, and he never finished any worse than tied for 10th, in 2004. No shocker here, this was Tiger’s decade, where he redefined what it meant to be a truly dominant golfer.
In this last decade, of course, things have changed. Since the 2008 U.S. Open, Woods has played the Farmers Insurance Open just five times. He missed the 2009 event in his recovery from knee surgery, a report we’re all too accustomed to today. However, he would come back that year to win a remarkable six times, leading the money list and winning his second FedEx Cup.
In 2010, Woods skipped Torrey Pines during his personal leave of absence from Tour play. That year, was arguably the start of Woods’s career turn, as he failed to win a tournament for the first time ever.
The following year, in 2011, Woods did return to the Farmers, but he could only muster a middling run, finishing T44. Woods was outside the top ten at Torrey Pines for the first time. The rest of his year suffered as well, with just two top-ten finishes in nine starts.
Since then, Tiger has missed only the 2012 and 2016 editions at Torrey. 2012 was the obvious outlier, as he went on to win three times in 19 starts. That momentum carried him into 2013, where he won the Farmers Insurance Open for the seventh time. That was the first victory of a five-win season, and the last time we thought Tiger was truly “back”.
What will this week tell us about Tiger’s year to come?
Woods has played the Farmers in three of the last four years. He’s played into the weekend just once in that span. In 2014, Woods tied for 80th place, with the dreaded MDF designation: made cut, did not finish.
He withdrew in 2015, and he would go on to earn just one top-ten, in the Wyndham Championship. And in 2017, Woods shot 76-72, missing the cut in what would be his only TOUR start of the season.
The correlation obviously isn’t direct, but the message is still clear. If Tiger is prepared to play well at Torrey Pines, more often than not, he’s ready to carry on the rest of the year.
Woods started his 2018 campaign with a dawn-breaking practice round at Torrey Pines North on Tuesday. After going through his fourth back surgery last April, Woods says he’s feeling good going into this week.
"“Before the Hero I was basically given the OK probably about three or four weeks prior to the tournament, and I thought I did a pretty good in that prep time,” Woods said. “Now I’ve had a little more time to get ready for this event. I’ve played a lot more golf, and overall I feel like I’ve made some nice changes. I feel good.”"
At the Hero World Challenge, Woods did look better than many expected. He fired three rounds in the 60s, and finished tied for ninth in the 18-player invitational field.
Woods will tee off at 1:40 PM Eastern in the first round on Thursday, paired with Charley Hoffman and Patrick Reed. They’ll be playing the monstrous South Course, which has traditionally been somewhere between one and two strokes tougher than the shorter North. If Tiger can come out and post a solid score, perhaps a 68 or 69, we could be in for a treat on the weekend.
Next: Farmers Insurance Open Power Rankings
If things go south early for Tiger? Well, it may be a sign of a long – or short – year to come. Personally, here’s hoping we get to see Tiger play deep into the weekend, and the rest of 2018.