LA JOLLA, Calif.—Kyle Stanley made more than enough birdies Friday to offset one big mistake, giving him a 4-under 68 on the South Course at Torrey Pines and a one-shot lead in the Farmers Insurance Open.

Stanley went over the back of the 14th green and into the hazard for a double bogey, but made five birdies the rest of the way and wound up one shot clear of Brandt Snedeker, who had a 64 on the North Course.

Stanley was at 14-under 130 going into the weekend, with the last two rounds on the South, which is 604 yards longer. That suits Stanley just fine; he’s one of the longer hitters on the PGA TOUR.

Phil Mickelson could only manage a 68 on the North Course. He missed the cut at his hometown tournament for the first time in 10 years.

Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Ben Crane wore his school colors from the University of Oregon last year on University Day.

LA JOLLA, Calif. – For Saturday’s third round of the Farmers Insurance Open, TOUR pros are encouraged to wear their university colors in support of the “University of Farmers” campaign.

Players wearing their team colors with the lowest third-round score will receive a charitable commitment to their school’s golf team.

The player with the low round will win $20,000 to his school’s golf team. Second place will win $10,000 and all players wearing school colors will get at least a $500 commitment to their school’s team.

Overall, Farmers hopes to donate up to $70,000 as part of “University Day."

If a player finishes in the top three who did not attend a college, a donation in that player’s name will go to the Golf Coaches Association of America to help cultivate future golf stars.

In additions, fans also are encouraged to wear their school colors and will receive a branded koozie at the Farmers CAT bus on the 17th fairway if they are participating.

CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF TOUR PROS AND THEIR SCHOOLS

SAN DIEGO (AP)—Hunter Mahan is playing five straight tournaments to start the season, a West Coast swing that includes a 17,000-mile detour to the Middle East.

Mahan is playing the Qatar Masters next week, situated right between Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach on the golf calendar. It will be his first tournament overseas during the PGA Tour season since he was a rookie and played in France.

He said he was offered the invitation over the holidays and had two days to reply. It was a tough decision for Mahan, who is playing every week through the Match Play Championship in Arizona. Not only does he face a round-trip flight halfway around the world to a course he has never seen, Qatar is opposite the Phoenix Open, which he won two years ago.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t want to pass up,” Mahan said. “I wanted to see if I even liked it over there, if I wanted to do it again, maybe an Abu Dhabi-Qatar swing. There’s a lot of world ranking points right now. They kind of own all the big tournaments, other than the World Golf Championships and the majors.”

Qatar is in the middle of the European Tour’s “Desert Swing,” which starts with Abu Dhabi and concludes with Dubai. PGA Tour players, along with the top European Tour players, are offered appearance money in these events. Tiger Woods, K.J. Choi and Jason Day are among the regular PGA Tour members in Abu Dhabi this week.

Among those who have gone to Qatar in recent years are Steve Stricker and Scott Verplank. Woods has been a regular at Dubai. Phil Mickelson played Abu Dhabi last year, although last year it was opposite the Bob Hope Classic.

“It’s a big trip,” Mahan said. “But nowadays, that’s what you have to do. Golf is worldwide. If you want to play against the best players … if I go over and play well, it’s going to mean a lot more to me than playing well here. It’s just a fact.”

All three of those tournaments had more or at least equal ranking points than the PGA Tour events last year.

The only awkward moment for Mahan is the Phoenix Open learned of his decision before he had a chance to tell them. He had to get a release from the PGA Tour before accepting the invitation from Qatar.

Not only is he a past champion in Phoenix, but Ping, his longtime sponsor, is headquartered there.

“It’s unfortunate it got out to them before we could say anything,” Mahan said. “It stinks because it is one of my favorite tournaments. I love the 16th hole. I’ve won there. It wasn’t like it was an easy decision. It wasn’t like a no-brainer.”

Mahan said he doesn’t ever see himself taking up dual membership on the PGA and European tours, and admires players like Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose who have been doing it for years.

He said how he performs over the next five weeks will be more about his golf than his travel. After Qatar, he has Pebble Beach, Riviera and the Match Play.

“This is part of the game. This is the lifestyle. You’ve got to travel,” Mahan said. “When you fly over there, it’s not an excuse. When you fly back, it’s not an excuse. It’s about playing well.”

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP)—After going winless in 2011, three-time major winner Padraig Harrington is sensing a victory is just around the corner.

Harrington shot a 3-under 69 Friday in the second round of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. His 140 total has left him in a tie for ninth place so far, only three strokes behind clubhouse leader Thorbjorn Olesen in a tournament that features the world’s four top-ranked players and Tiger Woods.

“I’ve been telling you it’s coming for a good while,” said Harrington, who last won in November 2010 at the Johor Open. “So I’m always optimistic but I’m seeing some great signs out there. I’m getting a quality strike on a lot of shots and as I said, I seem to be rolling the ball nicely so just kind of have to get used to it now and run with it.”

Harrington said he has started working with Dave Alred, who was credited with helping No. 1-ranked Luke Donald find his current form. Describing his role as a practice coach, Harrington said he was “trying to get the biggest transfer from the practice round to the golf course.”

“He’s making me more diligent in my practice,” Harrington said. “As I said all through last year, I felt I played well in practice and just never took it to the golf course. He’s all about taking your practice to the golf course. Really we time the practice, we count the balls. There’s a lot of things … it’s really putting a lot more precision into the practice.”

Winning in Abu Dhabi would be especially satisfying for the 40-year-old Irishman, who led going into the second round last year but was disqualified for signing an incorrect card after a slow-motion replay revealed that his ball moved ever so slightly after he replaced his marker.

The Royal & Ancient and USGA have since decided to revise the rule so that players who learn of a violation after they sign their cards can be penalized without disqualification.

Harrington said he was especially happy with his putting Friday in what he called a “solid round.” At one point, Harrington had four birdies in a row and closed out the round with five birdies and two bogeys.

“Certainly a little bit better into the groove but my irons, maybe I was better off the tee today,” Harrington said. “Showed a lot of good signs. I rolled the ball really nicely today. Nearly every putt I took, I gave the hole a run. Certainly scared it a few times. So, yeah, I was happy with that.”

But Harrington isn’t getting ahead of himself, knowing he still will need several good rounds this weekend to give him a legitimate chance of winning.

“Eight-under par, if it’s only one guy, it’s not too far behind,” Harrington said. “But if there’s a whole six or seven guys or eight or nine guys on 6-, 7-, 8-under par, 4-under is a little bit of work to do.”

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

SAN DIEGO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Noh Seung-yul is wary of setting himself over-ambitious goals but the emerging South Korean has confidently targeted rookie of the year honours for his PGA Tour debut season.

Widely regarded as one of the best ball-strikers among the sport’s younger generation, the 20-year-old has set an additional goal of qualifying for the lucrative FedExCup playoffs in the latter part of the U.S. season.

“Every rookie is trying for rookie of the year and that is a big dream of mine for this year,” Noh told Reuters after shooting a three-under-par 69 in the Farmers Insurance Open first round on Thursday.

“After that, my second goal is to make the FedExCup playoffs and I would like to play in the third stage of that,” he added, referring to the four-tournament season finale.

Noh, who at 18 became the youngest professional winner on the European Tour when he beat compatriot K.J. Choi by one stroke to claim the 2010 Malaysian Open, is continually learning from his peers.

“Before every tournament, I play practice rounds with K.J. or Y.E. (Yang Yong-eun),” he said. “Korean players work hard and practise hard and everybody is teaching and supporting everyone else to become better and better.

“We have good team work and there has been a lot of good advice for me.”

Noh, who burst onto the Asian Tour as a 16-year-old in 2008 when he landed a maiden title in China during his first season before being voted rookie of the year, has never felt the burden of expectation.

“Even after I won the Malaysian Open, I never felt any extra pressure after that because I am still so young,” he added.

“Every time I play, I am aiming to go higher and higher and higher, but not too high. My place (golfing status) is low at the moment compared to KJ, with his eight victories on the PGA Tour, and Y.E., with his major win. So I feel no pressure.”

YANG MOTIVATION

Noh, who is coached by swing guru Butch Harmon, said Yang’s remarkable victory in the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine National had been a huge source of motivation for him.

Yang became Asia’s first male major winner after overhauling Tiger Woods in stunning fashion to triumph by three shots.

“So I am thinking I can do it too if Y.E. has won a major,” Noh said.

“And I am so young, only 20-years-old, much younger than Y.E. and K.J. so I have more chances than them in the future. I got a lot of confidence when Y.E won that major.”

Ranked 116th in the world, Noh is making his third successive appearance on the 2012 PGA Tour this week.

He finished 66th at the Sony Open in Hawaii and then missed the cut at last week’s Humana Challenge despite opening with a 65.

“I qualified for the tour at Q-school and then had one month of practice before the start of the season,” Noh said. “By the time I started in Hawaii, I wasn’t consistent with my golf swing and with my short game.

“But I mainly played good today. On the front nine, I am scoring two over but I was driving the ball okay. Then I played well,” he added, referring to his back nine five-under 31 on the North Course.

Noh plans to play in next week’s Phoenix Open before returning to the European Tour for the Feb. 9-12 Dubai Desert Classic, and he fervently hopes fatigue will not become a negative factor.

“Here on the PGA Tour I am playing for four weeks straight so maybe I could lose body condition and that could be difficult,” he said. “I need to be careful.” (Editing by John O’Brien; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

SAN DIEGO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Phil Mickelson, an unabashed fan of Torrey Pines where he has triumphed three times, was totally perplexed after battling to a five-over-par 77 in the opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open on Thursday.

In near-perfect scoring conditions on the South Course picturesquely laid out on bluffs above the Pacific coastline, Mickelson mixed seven bogeys with two birdies to end a glorious day of sunshine a distant 15 strokes off the lead.

He had a golden opportunity to finish his round with two consecutive birdies but missed a three-foot putt at the par-five 18th to match his second highest score at an event he has played 23 times.

“I had some good days of practice and I was ready to play,” a dumfounded Mickelson told reporters. “I don’t know what happened. I just wasn’t able to focus.

“Obviously, I made some bad swings just in the wrong spots and so forth, but I felt like my game was ready heading in. I don’t know what to say about the score because it was pathetic.”

Asked why he had difficulty in focusing, Mickelson replied: “I just didn’t put the ball where I wanted to and see it clearly. I ended up making a lot of swings where I missed the ball in the wrong spot.”

Mickelson, who lives in nearby Rancho Santa Fe, had high hopes for this week, having tied for 49th at the Humana Challenge on Sunday at La Quinta where he improved after opening with a two-over-par 74.

“It’s a little disappointing that the first round here and the first round last week have been so poor, because I felt really ready and sharper than I have in a long time starting the year,” said the four-times major champion. “So to shoot those numbers, I don’t get it.”

Mickelson, who this week is competing in his second PGA Tour event of the year, faces an uphill task to make the cut but he will at least have the easier North Course to negotiate in Friday’s second round.

“There is an opportunity tomorrow to go really low over on the North if you play well,” the 41-year-old said. “I birdied 17 today and I thought I had a birdie on 18, but I missed that little one there.

“That would have gotten me to a point where I thought if I could have shot six or seven under par on the North, I’d at least get here for the weekend and build some momentum.”

Mickelson’s worst score at the Torrey Pines event was a 78 in the third round in 1978. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in San Diego; Editing by Frank Pingue; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

SAN DIEGO, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A freak accident during a pro-am prize presentation in his native South Africa scuppered Ernie Els’ plans of starting the 2012 PGA Tour season with his long-time caddie Ricci Roberts on his bag.

Roberts, who had competed in a charity tournament to raise funds for the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation, broke his ankle after accepting a prize and will be out for at least two months.

“I called Ricci up on stage and he did a little speech but when he walked off he just kind of missed his first step and he went down,” Els told Reuters before Thursday’s opening round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

“It was so damn dark and this stage was about this high,” the South African added, pointing six feet above the air. “The poor guy broke his ankle so he’s out for a while.

“So I’ve got Dan (Quinn) to caddie for me instead but they (Quinn and Roberts) were going to share (the bag) in any case. I think Ricci’s going to be back with me probably by the middle of March.”

Els, a former world number one who has over 60 tournament victories worldwide, has spent most of his professional career with good friend Roberts on his bag.

In 2010, he employed two caddies with Roberts and former National Hockey League player Quinn splitting the duties. Last year, Els recruited a new caddie in Zimbabwe-born Mike Kerr but, by the end of 2011, he had decided to reunite with Roberts. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in San Diego; Editing by Frank Pingue; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)—Meg Mallon is the next U.S. captain for the Solheim Cup.

Mallon is a four-time major champion, including two U.S. Women’s Open titles, and she played in the Solheim Cup eight times. Her overall record was 13-9-7, including 5-2-1 in singles. She is second only to Juli Inkster in most Solheim Cup points earned by an American.

The Americans are coming off a loss to Europe last year in Ireland.

The 2013 Solheim Cup will be played at Colorado Golf Club in Parker, Colo. Mallon was an assistant to captain Beth Daniel in 2009 when the Americans won outside Chicago.

The announcement was made Thursday at the PGA Merchandise Show.