Day and Noren set for Monday finish as Tiger finishes T23

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Tiger reflects on T23 as Jason Day and Alex Noren will vie for tournament glory on Monday as darkness halted play after the fifth play-off hole at the Farmers Insurance Open. 

The duo entered the three way play-off with Ryan Palmer, but as Palmer faltered with a par on the first play-off hole, Noren and Day traded three birdies and two pars before play was stopped.
Their final hole was the par-five 18th, and while Noren hit the green in two, Day nearly holed out for eagle, both making birdies in the dark prior to officials telling them the sixth sudden-death play-off hole would have to wait until morning.
“I couldn’t even see the flag really. I could barely see the yellow, and it was starting to get cool, so I didn’t really know how hard to hit it,” Day said after the end of play. “I just got up and kind of saw the yellow a bit and hit it, and I said ‘sit’, but I didn’t know where I was. Glad to get a birdie there.”

“I’m just going to try and get some rest tonight and, I’ll play all day tomorrow if I need to to get the win,” he said. “This is why we practice, it’s a lot of fun to be out here amongst the crowds and I’m having a lot of fun out here.

This is just Noren’s first real shot at a PGA Tour win, and the nine time European tour champion is relishing the opportunity.

“This is what I play for, so I’m excited,” he said. “It’s better this way then maybe missing a short one when you can’t see.”

Tiger reflects on T23 on comeback to Torrey Pines

It was a much speculated about comeback, and Woods said he was ‘very pleased’ with his return performance – his first since returning to the Hero World Challenge in December following his fourth back surgery last year. 

He made a clutch birdie on the 36th hole on Friday to make his first cut since 2015, finishing the tournament at 3-under-par, seven shots behind eventual leaders Noren, Day and Palmer, shooting rounds of 72-71-70-72. 

Woods had a woeful driving performance (hitting just 17 of 56 fairways) but more than made up for it with an impressive scrambling display throughout the week, showing encouraging signs for his first tournament back.  

“Today I played a lot better,” said Woods. “It was tough conditions out there, and it was tough scoring. I wanted to shoot something around 65 and get to 10 under, I thought that would be a play-off number. It would have been nice to post a score and wait around for a couple of hours to see what happened, but I’ll take a 72.”

“I’m very pleased. After not playing for a couple of years to come out here on the Tour and really play a solid four days, I fought hard for these scores and I’m excited to get this one under my belt.”

“Overall I thought I did pretty well this week,” he added. “Some of the shots I had to hit out of the rough, out of the trees, a few times I had to jack up the speed and had no issues at all.

“The big concern was playing out of the rough. I hadn’t played out of rye grass since last year, but I hit some really good ones out of there. Unfortunately I put myself in there a lot!

“These are some of the narrowest fairways on tour and when I don’t have my best stuff, and when it’s so windy, it compounded it. It made it very difficult for me.”

Woods’ next start is at the Genesis Open, but he has not further committed to any tournaments.

“I haven’t built out my schedule. We want to see how I was swinging after one tournament and reassess where I’m at.”

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