A 72nd hole eagle from rookie professional Ryan Ruffels and a top 10 finish for Aaron Baddeley were the Australian highlights from a Monday finish at the PGA TOUR’S Farmers Insurance Open.

Ruffels made an impressive debut on the world’s biggest stage, making the cut in his first ever event as a Professional and on the most competitive Tour in the world, while Baddeley’s bid to get back to the big show took another positive step.

17-year-old Ruffels handled the pressure of both the tournament and media attention brilliantly shooting rounds of 70-73-74-76 to finish T43 and cash a cheque for $20,843.

In a tournament that saw players the calibre of Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy and Justin Rose miss the cut, it was an impressive performance from Ruffels who will play again in two weeks at Pebble Beach.

Baddeley, too, was impressive in California with his second top 10 of the season as he desperately tries to earn back playing privileges on the world’s biggest Tour.

For 13 straight years the three time winner retained his PGA TOUR playing rights but at the end of 2015 found himself relegated to the secondary Web.com Tour for the first time in his career.

But Baddeley has made the most of his limited starts so far since the 2015/16 season began, a T4 finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship last November combined with this week’s top 10 seeing him move to 84th on the FedEx Cup standings.

Gaining starts will be the key for Baddeley as the bigger events of the season begin but he will be confident with the state of his game and no doubt fancies his chances of returning to the PGA TOUR sooner than later.

At T8 Baddeley was the best of the Australians at Torrey Pines followed by Australian Open champion Matt Jones who snuck up the leaderboard late on the final day.

In brutally difficult winds that saw damage to much of the course overnight, Jones plucked two birdies in the last two holes to jump 22 places to T31.

Playing the front nine second after the field was sent out early off two tees yesterday, Jones’ 75 was among the 10 best scores of the final round, testament to the state of his game as the bigger events of the season approach.

John Senden was the last of the Australians to make the cut but struggled in the final round to eventually sign for a 10-over 82 and T69 finish.

Missing the weekend were Marc Leishman, Rod Pampling, Cameron Smith, Jarrod Lyle, Jason Day, Geoff Ogilvy, Cameron Percy and Rhein Gibson.