While local fan-favorite Phil Mickelson added to his memorable finishes on the PGA Tour, the San Diego native also added to his list of near misses, finishing a stroke behind Bubba Watson in an entertaining Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines that ended Jan. 30. “I just got outplayed by Bubba who shot really a wonderful round of golf in a lot of pressure being in the second to last group and in tough conditions,” Mickelson said. Mickelson, who was playing in the final group, needed to sink a 72-yard chip shot on the 18th hole to force a playoff with Watson. He took aim and delivered an excellent effort that sent the crowd roaring, but his ball stopped a few feet short of its target, which resulted in another second place finish for the left-hander. “I felt like it had a chance,” Mickelson said of his final wedge shot. Watson, also a lefty, played a tremendous final round that included making a pair of clutch putts on the final two holes. First, he rolled in a tricky 10-footer for par on the 17th, and then he sunk what proved to be the tournament winner from 12 feet for a birdie on the 18th. Despite his steady play on the course, Watson admitted to feeling a lot of nerves coming down the stretch. “I felt like I wasn\u2019t going to throw up anymore,” Watson said of how he felt after making the putt on 17. “It went in but I knew the next tee shot on 18 was going to be tough and I knew I needed a birdie on 18. I was hoping it would be a little easier than it was but it worked out.” Although he may not have the mannerisms (which include perpetually keeping his head down and talking to himself) of someone like Tiger Woods who displays so much confidence, Watson delivered a Woods-like performance grabbing onto the lead in the final round and doing what it took to keep it. “I had to stay focused on what I was doing, just keep going and don\u2019t get down,” Watson said. “I\u2019ve played here the last six years and I don\u2019t ever plan on missing it (in the future).” Woods, on the other hand, steadily played worse as the tournament wore on in his initial PGA appearance of 2011. In the first two rounds he showed signs of life, shooting a 69 in each, but a 74 and 75 on the weekend caused him to finish a disappointing 44th. Up-and-coming PGA star Dustin Johnson closed with a 66 on Sunday to finish in a third-place tie with Jhonattan Vegas at 13-under-par. Vegas, a PGA Tour rookie from Venezuela, played an inspiring final round with Watson. They matched each other shot for shot until Vegas\u2019 attempt to reach the Par-5 18th with his second stroke found Devlin\u2019s Billabong pond in front of the green. Mickelson, who shot a final round 69 and finished 15-under-par for the tournament, earned $626,400 for his play. Watson, who carded a 67 on Sunday and finished 16-under-par for the week, took home $1,044,000 for his second career PGA Tour victory.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While local fan-favorite Phil Mickelson added to his memorable finishes on the PGA Tour, the San Diego native also added to his list of near misses, finishing a stroke behind Bubba Watson in an entertaining Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines that ended Jan. 30. “I just got outplayed by Bubba who shot really a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":266118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Watson Wins Farmers Open at Torrey Pines","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11553,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-sports","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}