It’s absolutely no surprise whatsoever that Jon Rahm is propped at the top of the leaderboard at Torrey Pines.
Now that the field has played both the stunning South Course and the birdie-friendly North, Rahm sits at 13-under par through 36 holes of the Famers Insurance Open.
It’s also not a stretch in the least that Justin Thomas is up there with him. The two played together the first two days with Dustin Johnson along for the ride.
What’s a total surprise is that there are three tied at 13-under and the third wheel is outlier Adam Schenk. Schenk went birdie-crazy on Thursday and made eight straight on the North Course. He shot the tournament’s low round — a 10-under par 62 that also happened to be his career low.
It shouldn’t have been a tie at 13-under. Late Thursday, on the final hole of their trip around the North layout, Rahm was just short of the par five nine in two with a fairly easy chip by Tour standards in front of him while J.T. was eyeballing a seven-footer for birdie to get to 14.
Rahm then chunked his chip, leaving himself a ghastly 20-feet for birdie, which he missed. So did J.T.
It wasn’t a great day for Rahm, not like Wednesday. “I think the score would make you think I played a lot better than I did,” Rahm said after signing his card. “Happy with my putting, happy with the way I managed the golf course.” He knows he left birdies out there because he didn’t drive the ball well at the start of his round. He stood on the sixth tee, his 15th hole of the day and had missed seven of the previous eight fairways. Fortunately, the rough wasn’t as penal on the North Course as it is on the South.
“Believe it or not, I just said, ‘Screw it – if you hit the fairway, you might as well have 80 yards in,;'” Rahm said. “I went to hit it as hard as I could, and it turned out perfect.”
Rahm went on to hit a wedge close and made birdie. He birdied the short seventh. But missed the easy opportunity at the ninth but still added a seven-under 65 to his opening 66.
“It feels good,” Rahm said, “because if you told me before the round that I’m going to hit four fairways and shoot 7 under, I’d tell you something out there must have been really good, which today was.”
As for J.T., his iron game has been sharp. He hit 15-of-18 greens on Thursday and used just 27 putts. He hit only 13 of 28 fairways the first 36 holes but he fashioned a 63 on the North Course to get himself into the final group on Friday.
“For the most part I was hitting it a lot more solid,” Thomas said, “and the ball was starting in the window I wanted.”
As for Schenk, well, his last name sounds very close to the word golfers dread the most. He hasn’t won on Tour and isn’t exactly a household name, to say the least.
There won’t be any eight-birdie runs when he heads over to the South Course where he shot 69 on Wednesday.
His putter was so very hot on Thursday. “I made a lotta putts,” Schenk confessed. “I didn’t know how many birdies I made in a row.”
Truth be known, Mr. Schenk was just one birdie away from tying the PGA Tour record of nine straight.
But things will change for everyone the next two days. It’s over to the not-so-forgiving South Course.
“At the South Course, you have to do everything properly,” Rahm pointed out.
And Rahm has been pretty “proper” around that track.
