The PGA Tour this week heads to Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, San Diego, California for the Farmers Insurance Open which hosts the second event in the ‘West Coast Swing’.
This event has been played at Torrey Pines since 1968. The first 36 holes are split between the South course and North course, with the last 36 holes played on the South course. The North course is the shortest and easiest of the two courses. The South course measures 6956 metres and is the longest course played in a regular PGA Tour event.
Torrey Pines hosted the 2008 US Open which was famously won by Tiger Woods after an 18 hole sudden death play-off with Rocco Mediate. Tiger has won this event on seven occasions, including 4 in a row from 2005-2008. This week he has decided to play in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Farmers Insurance have sponsored this event since 2010, prior to this to was more commonly known as the Buick Invitational from 1992-2009. It was originally called the San Diego Open, dating back to 1927.
Last year Farmers Insurance approached the PGA Tour with an idea to raise money for charity. They wanted to get four PGA Tour players to star in a music video and for every 100,000 views the video received on Youtube, the Insurance giants would donate $1000 to the chosen charity. The 4 golfers were Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, Ben Crane and Hunter Mahan. They called themselves the ‘Golf Boys’. To date the video has had 2.85 million views. If you get the chance have a look at it on Youtube, well worth the laugh.
Interestingly Bubba Watson won the event last year and Ben Crane was the defending champion from the previous year.
There are a few keys to winning this event, however the main one is LENGTH!
If you look at the past winners of this event, you will notice names such as Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, Nick Watney, John Daly and Phil Mickelson. These guys rank highly on the distance charts year in and year out.
Another factor is the Poa Annua greens, these can be quite testy at times especially in the morning when fog is around the course. It can make the greens inconsistent and really test a players patience. So we need to take this into account when looking for a possible winner. Guys who have a good putting game should be looked at closely.
Scrambling stats are also a factor at Torrey Pines. Good scramblers have always done well here. Look for a player who is able to get it up and down to win.
Taking all these factors in to account I have come up with 2 players who I believe could be worth following for this weekend.
Nick Watney
Nick won this event in 2009 and was T6th last year and T9th in 2010. This is his second start for the season after a solid T12th in the Hyundai 3 weeks ago. Looking at his 2011 stats he had 22 starts for 2 wins and 10 Top 10 finishes and was ranked 16th Distance, 12th Scrambling, 8th Par 5 performance, 12th Putting. These figures will stand him in good stead for the coming week.
Odds: $17 at Sportsbet.com.au
Brandt Snedeker
Brandt is coming off an excellent T8th in the Humana last week where he was ranked 4th in putting. He is also currently ranked 3rd in scrambling. Last year he was T9th in this event as well as T2nd in 2010 and 3rd in 2007. He was also T9th here in the US Open on 2008. He loves the course and this will give him a lot of confidence heading into Sunday if he is near the top of the leaderboard.
Odds: $23 at Sportsbet.com.au
Good Luck everyone, I will see you next week when we head to Arizona for the Phoenix Open.
