Tony Finau’s first hole became a snapshot of his first round of the U.S. Open, with a missed fairway, a missed green and a missed attempt to save his par.
The West High School graduate scrambled well enough Thursday to salvage a respectable round of 3-over-par 74 at Torrey Pines Golf Course near San Diego, but his realistic ambitions for this tournament have taken a hit. When he completed the round, the United States Golf Association’s calculations gave him only a 10-percent chance of finishing in the top 10 for the 10th time in the last 14 major events.
Finau has roughly a 50-percent chance of advancing to the weekend rounds for the 15th time in 16 majors, a run interrupted only by the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links in California. Teeing off in the mid-afternoon Friday, he likely will need about a 72 to make the 36-hole cut.
His only birdie of the opening round came on the par-5 No. 18. Forced to lay up after finding the rough off the tee (having hit only three of 14 fairways on the driving holes), he wedged his third shot from 96 yards to within 6 feet of the hole and made the putt.
Finau hit nine of 18 greens Thursday, while often having to work hard for pars and rarely giving himself good birdie opportunities. The round generally was a struggle for the No. 14 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, who has thrived in the majors throughout his career. He three-putted from 25 feet for a bogey on the par-4 No. 15. Otherwise, his bogeys came when he missed the green and couldn’t save par from somewhere between 6 and 13 feet.
He lost 3.67 strokes as a result of missing fairways off the tee, according to the USGA’s analysis. That statistic supports the theory that with more penalizing rough, Torrey Pines is playing much differently this week than in the PGA Tour’s annual Farmers Insurance Open, staged in January. Finau has finished in a tie for sixth place or better in four of the last five tour events at Torrey Pines. In the Farmers, three of the four rounds are played on the South Course, the U.S. Open site.
