Torrey Pines was built in 1957 and designed by William F. Bell. The course plays to 7,698 yards at a par-72. It has a 144 slope and a 78.2 index. Normally, the slope is meant more for higher handicap golfers as the index is more for lower handicap golfers. Thus, Torrey from the championship tees is a difficult test for high handicappers, but extremely difficult by low handicap standards. Typically, this represents a course that does not have a lot of penalty areas in the way, but is difficult due to being very long.
Torrey is a public course owned by the city of San Diego. They have early tee times available on weekends where golfers can tailgate and spend the night, even the night prior, to get a tee time on a first come, first serve basis when the course opens at 7:30 AM. However, there are usually plenty of tee times available online. Usually the non-San Diego resident pays roughly 4-5x more than the San Diego Restaurant for a tee time.
Despite being the longest course on Tour, Torrey has very narrow fairways. Torrey is often the course with the lowest field hit fairway percentage of any course on Tour. And to top it off, it usually has the second lowest make percentage on the putting greens as only Pebble Beach has a lower make percentage. This is due to the slow, bumpy and undulated Torrey green complexes.
The players will play the North Course in either round 1 or 2 and then play the South course. If they make the cut, they will play only the South course on the weekend. The North Course usually yields a lot of low scores while the South course causes the scores to climb.
This is a long ballstriking and putting course. The good putters can do well here because of the undulated greens which result in low make percentages. Thus, a good putter can gain more strokes than they normally do with the flatstick. But, if they do not have the requisite long game, they'll never make the cut.
The 13th hole is the final Critical Hole on the course, so it makes the tournament less dramatic.
It's actually one of the easiest driving holes on the course, but the 2nd, 3rd and putting is some of the most difficult shots of the entire course. So, if a player hits a weak drive, they are looking at par-bogey scenarios. A good drive certainly does not guarantee a birdie, but given it is a par-5 the average length birdie putt is fairly short.
Projected Winning Score: -9
3JACK'S FAVORITES
Jon Rahm +1,000
Rory McIlroy +1,400
Marc Leishman +2,000
Patrick Cantlay +2,200
Gary Woodland +2,800
3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS
Abraham Ancer +5,500
Luke List +6,600
Kyle Stanley +7,000
Jason Kokrak +15,000
Anders Albertson +20,000
3JACK
1 comment:
Love the autocorrect of “resident”. Makes me feel hungry just thinking about it:)
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