La Jolla, California – The west coast swing continued with a popular spot in Torrey Pines located in sunny southern California as Patrick Reed emerged as the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open champion.  Patrick’s 4-under final round 68 obliterated the field en route to a 5-shot victory for his 9th PGA Tour win.

The tournament started out wet and played a little more difficult in the rainy conditions on Friday, but the weekend made way for those traditional sunny skies and the players took advantage of a softened golf course.

Patrick played quite well on Sunday.  He was steady through his first 5 holes before draining a long eagle putt on 6 that helped propel him to a 3-under front nine going out.  Oklahoma State graduate Viktor Hovland was chasing Reed all day long and even was a co-leader at one point.  Reed’s back nine wasn’t spectacular but it didn’t need to be as Hovland made 3 bogeys to drop back to 9-under par.  Viktor actually held the 36-hole lead but after his final round 71, was not able to mount a comeback over the surging Reed.

Reed managed to stay focused and only birdied the par-18th on his back 9, which was surprisingly good enough for a 5-stroke win.

Masters champion Adam Scott also found himself atop the leaderboard on Saturday but a final-round 73 dropped him out of contention.

Unfortunately, much of the event was overshadowed by (yet another) incident involving Patrick Reed.  On Saturday afternoon, he hit a ball into the rough and took a free drop under the embedded ball rule.  The problem was that he picked his ball out before anyone else saw and could confirm that it was in fact embedded.  He did end up confirming the ruling with an official as he was not penalized, but even then, the ruling was based on evidence given by Patrick after the ball had been removed from the embedded location.  We try to give the benefit of the doubt but given Reed’s history, it’s not hard to understand why most don’t.

Next week, the PGA Tour heads over to Arizona for the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale where Webb Simpson is the defending champion.

Patrick Reed’s WITB:

Driver: Titleist TSi3 9 degrees (Aldila  Rogue Silver 125 MSI 70 TX)

3-wood: TaylorMade SIM 15 degrees (Aldila Rogue Black 130 MSI 80 TX)

Hybrid: Callaway Apex Pro 20 degrees (UST Mamiya Recoil Prototype 95)

Irons: Grindworks Patrick Reed Prototype (4-PW) (True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100)

Wedges: Artisan Proto (51), Vokey SM8 (56-08M), Vokey SM6 (60-04) (True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400)

Putter: Scotty Cameron Tour Rat

Ball: Titleist Prov1

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Zack Buechner

Zack has been a contributor at Plugged In Golf since 2018. Zack has worked in healthcare for over 12 years and currently works from home in health care technology. His previous work experience includes stints in the NFL, NCAA D-1 athletics, and PGA Tour Champions. Zack lives in southern Connecticut with his wife Ashley and their 2 children (Beau (5) & Lunden (1)) and their dog. Although he only started playing golf after college, Zack is passionate for the game and the journey to getting better while regularly participating in state and national amateur events all across the northeast.

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