Farmers Insurance Open: Harris English struggles early
It’s still early at the Farmers Insurance Open. You can come back from an early struggle, like Matthew Wolff did last week. It’s a long and tough road though, and it is exactly what Harris English is facing at Torrey Pines.
Originally, I was just going to limit this to talking about how he did on his opening nine. He started on the back, and it seemed like talking about just that would be plenty of fodder for talking about his struggles.
Instead, after walking off the first hole (his tenth), he had already added another double bogey to his card. The culprit here was terrible bunker play and a bit of bad luck. After finding the fairway, English would go into the greenside bunker on his second shot. He was still in there after his third, and then blew it over the green into another bunker. He would nearly hole out, and tap it in from inside of a foot for his third double bogey of the day.
It isn’t the sort of start that you would expect someone who has been playing as well as Harris English has so far this season. He currently sits third in the FedEx Cup Standings, so you would expect him to continue to churn out strong starts.
Instead, Harris English is sitting at +7 through ten holes at the Farmers Insurance.
If he pars out over the remaining eight holes, he would shoot his worst score since an 84 at the Players Championship in May of 2017.
It’s more flabbergasting when you look at how consistent he has been this year. Just two of his 30 rounds have been over 72, an impressive rate. One of those came at the U.S. Open, where he shot a final-round 73, which nearly anyone in the field would’ve been happy with.
Next. 2022 PGA Championship will be played at Southern Hills. dark
There is still a lot of golf to play. He has 26 holes or so to make up for the poor start. Already sitting at +7, he is really going to need to turn it on and find a handful of birdies to get anywhere near the cut line. Of anyone to struggle early at the Farmers Insurance, I wouldn’t have predicted Harris English. With three doubles and a bogey through 10, that’s where he sits.