It's an early Wednesday start to the PGA action this week with some of the world's best golfers set to tee it up at Torrey Pines for the Famers Insurance Open!

By: @Ryan_Humphries on Twitter & LineStar Chat

Tournament & Field 🏆

The PGA Tour sets its sights on Torrey Pines Golf Club in San Diego, California for the Farmers Insurance Open. In many people’s minds, this is where ‘the road to The Masters’ often begins. This event typically hosts one of the stronger fields that you will see outside of Majors and WGC tournaments. It is a bit weaker than it has been in years past, but within the 156-player field, we have nine of the world’s top 20 golfers on site this week as well as 33 of the top 100. Similar to last week, this will be a multi-course event but with two courses in play instead of three. The traditional cut rule is also back in play, so the top 65 (plus ties) after 36 holes will move on to play the weekend.

Most importantly, remember that this event will start on Wednesday with the first tee times set for noon ET/9 am PT (local)! This is a savvy move made by the PGA in order to avoid losing 90% of its viewership to the NFL’s Conference Championship Sunday doubleheader. Make sure your lineups, bets, and OAD picks are all set by tomorrow at first tee!

The Course Preview ⛳

Torrey Pines North

Par 72 | 7,258 Yards

Greens: Poa/Bent

Difficulty Last 5 Years: 48th, 44th, 33rd, 45th, 28th

Torrey Pines South

Par 72 | 7,765 Yards

Greens: Poa

Difficulty Last 5 Years: 15th, 4th, 7th, 18th, 8th

Cut Line Last 5 Years: -3, -1, -1, -5, -3

Torrey Pines GC features two Par 72 courses – Torrey Pines South & Torrey Pines North. Golfers will alternate both courses through the first two rounds, and the South Course will be the only one played across the final two rounds. The South Course checks in as the longest track on the PGA Tour circuit at a whopping 7,765 yards. It routinely plays as one of the more difficult courses on Tour and was the host venue for the US Open in 2008 and 2021. The North Course is around 500 yards shorter in length, stretching 7,258 yards, and plays much easier – last season it ranked as the 48th most difficult course on Tour. Typically, the South Course will play anywhere from two to four strokes tougher than the North Course. Renovations were made to the North Course a few years back to provide golfers with a more difficult challenge, but there is still a stark difference in how challenging both of these tracks play. If you’re someone who plays single-round PGA DFS contests, over the first two rounds I would highly recommend stacking golfers playing only on the North Course. The same idea of targeting golfers playing on the North Course on Wednesday would also apply to first-round leader bets if that’s something you dabble in. You can find a link to the tee times and course assignments below in the weather/tee time section.

With three rounds being played on the South Course and the North Course expected to be a bit of a cakewalk by comparison, that will be where we should keep the majority of our stat-based focus this week for traditional four-round DFS contest formats. Torrey Pines South features narrow tree-lined fairways that have an average width of 27.3 yards and are riddled with bunkers throughout. The fairways are challenging to hit (average fairway accuracy is about 55%). The gnarly 2.5+” rough can be ruthless to hit out of as well. Given the extreme length, bombers tend to have a clear advantage here… if they manage to mostly avoid the rough. However, even when bombers do land in the rough, they are going to be the golfers who have more strength and clubhead speed which is needed to make a decent shot out of the thick stuff. Ten of the last 15 winners here have ranked inside the top 30 in driving distance. All of the recent rain in California has also softened up the course which will make it play even longer than usual. This shouldn’t completely rule out the shorter hitters but, on top of being very accurate off the tee, they’ll need to be excellent long iron players as well if they want to really compete and push for a high-end finish. And, inevitably, every golfer is going to find themselves in the rough at some point, even the most accurate of guys off the tee.

The smaller, multi-tiered poa annua greens are well-protected and will provide one final challenge for players this week. Poa annua grass is a unique putting surface in that it grows quite fast throughout the day, so golfers teeing up in the afternoon could experience bumpier and more unpredictable putting reads. Golfers either love it or hate it – not much in between. Overall, the greens will typically run fast (~13 on the stimpmeter) and the back-to-front slopes will lead to a copious amount of fast putts. It can depend on overall weather conditions (more on that below) but the cutline often falls to around one to three under at this event. This is also no birdie fest either as winning scores have been anywhere between 6-under and 16-under in nine of the last 10 years with Justin Rose being the lone outlier when he won in 2019 with a score of 21-under. So, with all of that said, let’s jump into a look at the weather, some key stats that take priority for the course, which golfers are popping in my personal Farmers Insurance Open tournament model, and dive into the cheat sheet I have put together for this week at Torrey Pines!

Weather & Tee Times ⛅

(Click the images above to view the most up-to-date forecast)

Weather Verdict: So we have an interesting weather-related conundrum this week. Since two courses are in play over the first two rounds, tee times are condensed and every golfer will begin their round within a two-hour time frame between 9 am and 11 am PT (local time). With that in mind, there is not much of an “AM/PM” wave discrepancy.

Instead, I believe we’ll want to focus on which course golfers will be playing on during the second round on Thursday when those problematic winds and 20-30 mph gusts come into play. On one hand, you could argue that having more ideal conditions to play with on Wednesday on the much easier North Course should lead to a low round. On the other hand, having to play the much more difficult South Course in very windy conditions on Thursday will likely lead to even tougher scoring conditions. Ultimately, there may not end up being any sort of noticeable advantage, but I would consider giving a slightly favorable lean toward golfers who begin the tournament on the South Course and play the North Course on Thursday.

Farmers Insurance Open Tee Times & Course Assignments

Key Stats to Consider 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Tee to Green | 25%

2. Birdie or Better Percentage | 20%

3. Driving Distance | 15%

4. Strokes Gained: Putting (Poa) | 15%

5. Par 5 Average | 15%

6. Rough Proximity | 10%

PGA Tour Stats Page

Farmers Insurance Open Model Standouts

Below are the top 20 ranked golfers in both my overall model and my key stats model. Below that are the top 20 leaders in average fantasy points over the last five and last ten starts. The players ranked on these lists do not necessarily mean they are the top golfers I’m targeting for this week's event, but many of these guys should no doubt be favorable DFS options.

Overall Model Rank: A golfer’s ranking (within the current field) in my personal DFS model, which weighs all of the key stats listed above in this newsletter, as well as things like course history, recent form, recent average fantasy scoring results, and odds to win.

Key Stat Rank: Provides a golfer’s overall rank (in relation to the field) in my "key stats only" model, which considers only the key stats listed above in this newsletter with the specified percentage weights allocated towards each statistic.

Farmers Insurance Open PGA Cheat Sheet

Click the Cheat Sheet above for the direct image link

Alternative Cheat Sheet Direct Image Link

Cheat Sheet QR Code:

That will do it for our PGA preview! Best of luck this week and, once again, feel free to hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @Ryan_Humphries with any questions.

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