Last week on the PGA Tour, Jason Dufner and David Lingmerth went to a playoff in the CareerBuilder Challenge with a score of 25 under par. There is going to be none of that this week at the Farmers Insurance Open. The event is split over two very different courses at the fantastic Torrey Pines Golf Club in La Jolla, California. The South Course is the longest used in any regular PGA Tour event at a touch under 7,700 yards while the North Course is significantly shorter with an official measurement of 7,052 yards.
Each player will have a round on the North and South Courses before the 36 hole cut is made, after which only the South Course is used. That means a couple of things for the players and for those looking for a winning bet. The first is that it is absolutely imperative to make the most of the round on the North Course. When Jason Day won this event last year it was with a score of -10, the same score held by the 36 hole leader. That shows how tough scoring can by on the South Course, which brings us to the second point. The winner is almost certainly going to be one of the longest hitters in the field whilst also being able to get up and down out of trouble as the fairways and greens are difficult to hit.
Taking what is needed to win into consideration, it is no surprise that Day sits at the top of the betting. Not only is he the highest ranked player in the field with Jordan Spieth being absent but he is the defending champion and has all the distance any golfer could wish for. Day led the driving distance stats, he ranked eighth for scrambling and outscored the field on the par fours. All of that and he’s playing even better now. The 7/1 that Bet365 are offering is probably a very fair price and not one to pass up.
Another player with a huge amount of distance in his bag is Dustin Johnson. DJ had a poor attempt to win here last year but he has finished third here in the past so his course form is not enough to write him off. He’ll hit the ball as far as Day this week and it’ll just take a good week on and around the greens for him to drag himself up to the top of the leaderboard. At 18/1 with BetVictor, Johnson looks like a good value bet.
Jimmy Walker may not have had the stellar start to his season that he’s enjoyed in the past couple of years but he has not been too far away. A 10th and 13th place finish in Hawaii showed signs that he may be getting back to something approaching his best and this is an event in which he has done fairly well. In four starts here he’s got three top 10 finishes and a missed cut so he could just be trending in the right direction. Walker is a tempting 28/1 with Betfred so get on board.