Hey ... get in here! Farmers is starting
Here’s your annual reminder in advance of this week’s Farmers Insurance Open: Once again, the tournament will start on Wednesday (first tee times 11:50 a.m. ET).
For the last few years, there have invariably been those planning to invest in this PGA Tour event who walked by a TV on Wednesday afternoon and thought, “Must be a re-air of last year’s tournament” or saw reserved DFS lineups stacked up in last place and assumed, “They must’ve made a mistake.”
That’s not the only difference between this one and the first three events of the year.
At Kapalua, everybody in the field was booming topography-assisted 400yard drives; at Waialae, things felt much more claustrophobic; and in Palm Springs, it largely became a contest of who could make the most birdie putts.
At Torrey Pines, though, we should be looking for brawny ball-strikers. Think of it this way: If every player was on the practice range smashing four-iron into the cool, heavy, coastal air, which ones would appear the most impressive? Not that wedge game and putting aren’t important — they always are — but I want to identify and invest in the flushers this week.
After three straight long-shot winners, the trend could halt in a big way at this one, as I’ll start my selections with the pre-tourney favorite.
Outright winner
Short odds: Xander Schauffele (+900)
— Players often consider their hometown events to be a proverbial “fifth major,” and that’s the case with Schauffele here, as he grew up not too far from Torrey Pines. While some might’ve predicted immediate success for him at this event, he instead struggled early and missed the cut in his first three starts.
“I don’t know,” he said before his fourth appearance in 2019, when trying to assess why he hadn’t fared better. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have missed all these cuts. … Whenever I play in front of fans and friends, I always want to do that little extra. So if I’m playing poorly, it will piss me off a little more than if I’m in New
York or somewhere way away from home. There’s added pressure just to perform better.”
He finished T25 that week but again missed the cut in 2020, as those struggles on a venue which should fit him quickly grew into a pattern. Schauffele turned things around in 2021, though, finishing in a share of second place. He then added results of T34 and T13 over the past two years, which is enough to have us believing that whatever bad mojo was hindering the local guy early should be behind him now.
Perhaps moving to Las Vegas a few years ago helped alleviate some of that pressure. In any case, he’s fresh off a T3 at the American Express where the ball-striking was fine and the putter got hot. After victories from Chris Kirk, Grayson Murray and Nick Dunlap, I can understand anyone’s reluctance to play someone near the top of the board, let alone a +900 favorite.
However, it just might take a big name to break this string, and Schauffele is trending in the right direction, both recently and at this event. If you prefer to wait a round or two and see if that +900 number drifts to, say, 15/1 or bigger without him being too far back, I don’t dislike that idea whatsoever.
Long odds: Austin Eckroat (125/1)
— Look, if you skipped right past the winner with short odds section and came straight to this one seeking a long shot, I suppose I don’t blame you. In last week’s preview, I wrote about the public buying up more lottery tickets after the first two results of the year; that strategy is only going to gain momentum after Dunlap’s win. There are plenty of intriguing triple-digit options for this tournament, though each has some fallibilities — hey, that’s why they have triple-digit odds. My favorite amongst these long shots is Eckroat, who missed the cut here last year but has a T42 and T25 to his name over the past two weeks and leads the PGA Tour in Total Driving.
Some other long-shot options: Taylor Pendrith (100/1), Thomas Detry (100/1), Kevin Yu (125/1), Sam Stevens (175/1), Chan Kim (225/1) and Chris Gotterup (300/1).