What To Look For: 2020 Farmers Insurance Open

Last week, Andrew Landry won his second Tour event with a victory at Palm Springs.


Landry is an interesting golfer as he finished in the top-10 in both Driving Effectiveness and Strokes Gained – Putting in 2016, but failed to keep his Tour card due to performing poorly in virtually every other metric that season. He then regained his Tour card in 2018 and I projected him as one of my Players on the Rise in my annual GolfWRX column (http://www.golfwrx.com/453676/pga-tour-players-on-the-rise-and-the-decline-in-2018/) and he ended up winning at Valero that season, a tournament that I had him as one of my picks to win, at 150/1 odds.

His iron play and short game around the green improved greatly while his driving and putting dipped slightly in 2018 and he was able to have an excellent season finishing 36th in FedEx points. Then in 2019 he became a pretty good iron player overall but started to see bigger declines in his putting and driving and his play dropped even more as he finished 96th in FedEx points.

Now he goes out and wins at Palm Springs at 200/1 odds. Strangely enough, I had Landry as my 64th best pick to win Palm Springs with 2nd place finisher, Abraham Ancer, as my 65th best pick to win at Palm Springs.

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This week the Tour heads to the longest course on Tour, Torrey Pines.



Torrey Pines was built in 1957 and designed by William Bell. Bell built a lot of famous golf clubs in Southern California and you can see the influence he had on course design in the area just like the influence that Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones had on Upstate NY golf courses.

Torrey Pines is owned by the city of San Diego. Residents of San Diego can play the course at very inexpensive rates of less than $50. Non Residents are looking at somewhere of $150+ for a round of golf.

The Tour will play both the North and South course. The cut will be after the 2nd round (instead of after the 3rd round like they did in Palm Springs). Each player will play one round at the North Course and then one round at the South course in the first two rounds. The weekend will consist of the golfers playing just the South course both times.

The North course is substantially easier than the South course as it typically plays about -1.6 strokes easier than the South course. The South course is difficult due to narrow fairways that are about 24-26 yards wide instead of Tour standard of 28-30 yards wide. The rough is not overly difficult, but the distance of the course presents a problem.

Normally, Torrey Pines has the second lowest make percentages on the greens of any course on Tour. Only Pebble Beach has a lower make percentage. This is due to big time undulations of the greens on the south course. The greens are a bit slower due to their undulations and they use Poa Annua grass.

Here’s a look at the weather forecast via Weather.com:

Humidity is expected to be fairly high in the 70% - 80% range. That should negate the effect of distance loss due to the weather being cooler. Distances off the tee will be about how firm the course is, but Torrey is one of the lowest hit fairway % courses on Tour and thus the ball will not roll as far on many of the holes.

It’s a long approach shot course that requires good driving and good play with the 3-wood.

The last critical hole on the course is the last hole…the 18th. It’s a hole that can play to 570-yards as a par-5, but last year they played it to 540 yards, making it much more reachable, particularly with a tailwind coming from the south.

It’s a very birdie-able hole if the golfer can hit a good drive in the fairway. But, players tend to get antsy when they hit a good drive that finds the rough due to the water in front of the green.

A shot in the rough can also make the lay-up shot more difficult. On Sunday they will place the flag in the front left location.

Players hitting wedge approach shots from the fairway will need to land the ball past the hole and then have it spin back to the hole. If the ball does not land far enough past the hole on the front-left pin location, the ball could easily spin back into the water.

If a player has an approach wedge from the rough, it’s almost impossible to get the ball close to the hole on that front-left pin location.

PROJECTED WINNING SCORE: -13


3JACK’S FAVORITES
Rory McIlroy +600
Tiger Woods +1,100
Xander Schauffele +1,600
Justin Rose +1,800
Hideki Matsuyama +2,000
Rickie Fowler +2,000
Gary Woodland +2,500
Tony Finau +2,500


3JACK’S DARK HORSE PICKS
Joaquin Niemann +5,000
Ryan Palmer +5,000
Billy Horschel +6,600





3JACK




3JACK