How to Follow a Multi-Course Golf Tournament

Today at the Farmers Insurance Open, formerly the Buick Invitational, formerly the San Diego Open, the lowest round of the day was a 64 recorded by Sunghoon Kang. Alex Prugh and Rickie Fowler were one shot back at a 7-under 65, while Chris Kirk shot 66. The group at -5 included John Daly, Phil Mickelson, and Fabian Gomez. The first two are bigger names than the third, but there's a reason I mention them together: they're all tied for the lead.

Now, that might sound strange, but really it's not. After all, I could have said something very similar last week at the Bob Hope Classic, though given the actual nuances of that tournament I don't think it would have been relevant. You see, like the Bob Hope, the San Diego Open is played on multiple courses. A fair number of tournaments do this, but none of them are as spectacular in the dichotomy on display as San Diego. One of the courses is the South Course at Torrey Pines Golf Course, which hosted the spectacular 2008 U.S. Open (which means it's kind of tough). The other is the North Course, which has been known to be the easiest course on the PGA Tour. It plays about three or four shots harder than the South Course in some years.

So the reason Mickelson, Daly, and Gomez are tied for the lead is because they had the best days of anyone who played on the South Course. Now, Sunghoon Kang is also in that tie, because he holds the North Course lead. What becomes of this mess we'll only be able to tell tomorrow, when the golfers all switch courses. But at a tournament like this, I really think they should show you how each player stands for that subset of the field that played the same course as they did. For instance, Phil is nominally tied for 5th, three off the lead, but he's also tied for the lead among the South Course field. It doesn't matter so much near the top of the leaderboard, but when I look at people who seem near the cut line it might help to know that some of them are actually doing way better than the others, because they played the tougher course first.

For what it's worth, Tiger played the North Course. And he shot a 69, including zero birdies on par-5s. That puts him T22 overall, but T17 for the North Course field. Of course, to project how one would end up if everyone played both courses at the same level they played today, you need to double, so he projects into a tie for 34th. But I'm not worried, because this is his modus operandi: he never plays the North particularly great, but then he gets to the South and plays that course very differently from everyone else. Hell, he can beat that course with one leg tied behind his back.