RADIO
We have another fantastic field once again set to take on the dual course setup at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open. The first two days, players will rotate between the much more scoreable North Course and the brute that is the South Course, which will be played solely on the weekend by all players who make the cut this week.
In this article, you will find my TourPicks Top 10 Power Rankings for The Farmers Insurance Open, which provides a first look at the players who I believe are primed to make a significant impact and play well next week. It should come as no surprise that many of the players listed below are favorites next week, but I put some serious thought into who I believe the course and event set up best for based on stats, course history, and, of course, motivational narratives.
I hope that these rankings will become a staple in your weekly preparation and the place where you start your research for the week. I have carefully evaluated each player in the field to project course fits and expected results in an attempt to give you a glimpse at how my brain operates when it comes to handicapping professional golf. In addition to my Top 10 rankings, I will provide a brief summary for each player to give some reasoning behind their rankings. As always, thank you for your support and I hope you can put these rankings into proper use for The Farmers Insurance Open.
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#10. Tony Finau
Dating back to the year 2017, Tony Finau has been a consistent plug-and-play anytime you get to the Farmers. Since 2017, Finau has five different top-9 finishes at Torrey Pines which includes a T2 in 2021 that slipped away. The main reason he is NOT in the top five rankings this week is because of the deterioration of his Driver which was long a weapon for Finau, coupled with the disaster that has been his putting.
Before the Amex, he has lost strokes putting in five consecutive starts and more surprisingly lost strokes to the field Off The Tee in four of those five starts. As shown by his long-term course history, this is the type of golf course where you typically want to back Finau. He gained 3.6 strokes OTT last year at this event and putting level to the field, netting him a T9 finish. He understands the formula and the test, it is just all about execution for Big Tony.
#9. Ludvig Aberg
After consecutive perplexing starts at golf courses that did not accentuate his prowess in this young player's game, Torrey Pines and Ludvig Aberg might just be a match made in heaven. The South Course in particular is a big-boy ballpark, featuring long, repeated, and monotonous fairways that look like thin strips of bacon from the drone shots. BetTheNumber golf predicts that 14 holes will be Driver holes, and hitting it 20 yards longer than field average is worth 2.1 strokes per round at Torrey Pines!
Ludvig has of course never played this event and I expect his pricing and odds could be tempered a bit considering his below-average starts in Hawaii where he managed to finish just T30 and T47. He can really step on the gas at Torrey, and his ability to hit it longer and straighter than almost anyone in the field should land him firmly in contention.
#8. Jason Day
If you are looking for another course history stud who has been slightly more consistent than Finau, I have your guy. It's Jason Day. He has 2 wins at this event since 2014 and has posted a grand total of six top-7 finishes in the last 10 years at this very event. After a top-10 at the Sentry and another solid performance at The Amex, he looks primed for a big year and his eyes should certainly light up heading back to Torrey Pines.
Day's putting on the greens at Torrey Pines is just special. He's gained nearly 15 strokes putting at this event over the past five seasons. Day has been surging lately looking to reconnect with some of the form that made him the #1 player in the world at one point, and a win at Torrey Pines would absolutely put him squarely back on a path to greatness.
Jon Rahm, Ryan Palmer, Justin Rose, Tony Finau and Jason Day have the most Strokes Gained: Total over the past five years at the Farmers Insurance Open pic.twitter.com/Vk31pMGGQ0
— Pat Mayo (@ThePME) January 23, 2023
#7. Min Woo Lee
Chef Min Woo has been cooking and showing no signs of putting the spatulas down any time soon! Once he completes enough rounds to have his stats officially recognized by the PGA Tour, they will show he is one of the longest hitters in the game with somewhat ridiculous ball speed numbers given his size. During the first two rounds of the American Express, Lee averaged over 330 yards in Driving Distance which ranked 1st in the field.
Torrey Pines should present a wonderful landscape for his game. This will mark his debut at the Farmers, but expectations will be extremely high after another nice showing in the desert last week. A rapid ascension up the OWGR ranks has taken place over the past 6 months, and a win at Torrey Pines could continue to throw gas on the fire. I'm excited to see more of Min Woo Lee on the PGA Tour this season, and let this man cook!
#6. Sungjae Im
I will rinse and repeat my take from last week's article on Sungjae Im...the win is coming soon. Through the first three rounds at The American Express, he made 21 birdies. This came just two weeks after blistering Kapalua at The Sentry to break the PGA Tour record for birdies in a tournament with 34! He's back and locked in with his irons, giving himself as many looks at birdie as anyone in the field.
Sungjae has also been excellent at Torrey Pines the past 2 years, finishing 6th in 2022 and 4th place last season in 2023. The area that has been a bit shaky with Sungjae has been his wedge play of late, particularly from the rough. Fortunately for him, he excels from 175+ yards and that is exactly what Torrey Pines asks a player to do well, over and over again.
#5. Justin Thomas
How could you not be pleasantly surprised by the performance of Justin Thomas at the American Express where he made his season debut? Sunday was of course a letdown as he made collasel mistakes on the early par fives which destroyed his chances I believe that most, myself included have high expectations for Thomas in the 2024 season and he'll arrive at Torrey Pines nearly 20 months since his last professional victory which came at Southern Hills when he dramatically won the PGA Championship.
We have also seen definitive signs of life in the areas of the game that hurt Thomas last season. During the Fall swing, he played the Wyndham and the Fortinet which resulted in top-12 finishes and he gained over 3 strokes putting in each of those starts. He then made a start on the European Tour for the Nedbank Challenge where he proceeded to gain over 11.5 strokes with his short game. After a nice week where the irons looked to be dialed in, he's definitely a player to watch at Torrey who is eager to get back to winning big tournaments.
Justin Thomas may be back.
He finished the fall with three top-5 finishes and currently second at the AmEx. SG: Approach numbers looking much better compared to last summer’s struggles pic.twitter.com/8DO6cWrdQZ
— Fried Egg Golf (@fried_egg_golf) January 20, 2024
#4. Patrick Cantlay
One week ago, Patrick Cantlay was the highest-ranked player in this field. He was just surpassed by Xander Schauffele and in what will likely come with some pushback, I have him ranked #4 this week. I watched Cantlay rather intently at The American Express, and while there were flashes of brilliance, he honestly looked rusty on some rather simple shots. He was also legitimately awful on Sunday, finishing +4 on a day where the course played well under par. The recent results have shown similar inconsistencies, as he has been losing strokes with the putter, a club that was extremely reliable and clutch when he was playing his best.
The California native has never really taken to Torrey. In his three previous stints at The Farmers, he's finished T15, MC, and 51st. While Cantlay often looks stoic and unflappable, I have concerns that some residual negative juju from the Ryder Cup in conjunction with the additional pressures and responsibilities on the Tour Policy Board could be weighing on Cantlay. He can pop at any time with his skill level, but there are three players I like more this week than World #6 Patrick Cantlay.
#3. Collin Morikawa
It's hard not to take notice of the obvious positive signs on full display for Collin Morikawa lately. The smooth-swinging, world-class iron player and tempo king has returned. His worst finishing position in his last 4 starts on the PGA Tour is 7th. We, unfortunately, do not have strokes gained data from his win at the ZoZo Championship, but his performance from Tee to Green at the Sentry was special, gaining 8.5 strokes on the field.
Morikawa has been simply awesome at Torrey Pines, finishing T4 at the US Open held here in 2021 and a solo third-place finish last season at this event. He's essentially tour average in ball speed but he hits nearly 10% more fairways than the rest of the field. Morikawa is able to really leverage that ability at a course like this where they are so tough to hit and the rough can be a legitimate penalty. Do I worry about the putting? Of course, but then I remember Luke List won here so I like his chances.
#2. Xander Schauffele
Checking in at the #2 spot on the Power Rankings this week is Xander Shauffele. He played well at the Amex with a top-5 finish after deploying his famous Sunday backdoor finish that will look much better a year from now even though he was never a real threat to win it. The hometown kid has always wanted this trophy though, and I think early on during his career the extra pressure this week was a lot to handle. He missed the cut in four of his first five starts at this tournament.
He finally settled in during the 2021 edition of the Farmers, where he finished in 2nd place while scoring the best on the South Course for the week by a decent margin. He then followed that up with a T7 at the US Open. More recently, Schauffele has just sort of been lingering around leaderboard top-10s without ever feeling in real contention late on a Sunday. That could very well change this week as nobody knows the ins and outs of Torrey Pines quite as well as Schauffele. He literally played this course every single day in High School.
Xander Schauffele played Torrey Pines as his home course in High School and says, “I think it would mean a little bit more if we were able to win here.” pic.twitter.com/lRiTWBUUee
— Fantasy Golf Pod (@fantasygolfpod) January 22, 2020
#1. Max Homa
Yes, I think Max Homa is going back-to-back. The defending champion won't likely be the favorite on any odds board this week, but I have him #1 in my power rankings and I like his chances better than anyone. Homa rounded sneakily into great form to end last season, playing very well during the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs before being the best player on the United States Ryder Cup squad in Europe.
Home loves himself some California golf, and it likely has much to do with his comfortability on the greens. He won the Farmers last year and finished 2nd at the Genesis Invitations in Los Angeles, gaining a combined 15.8 strokes putting in the 2 starts. Homa has amassed 6 wins on the PGA Tour, and 4 of them have come within the borders of California. His swing has become so smooth and in rhythm since switching to his new coach Mark Blackburn and the only thing left for Max to prove is whether can he perform to his ability in the Majors.
We'll have to wait another couple of months before we get the answer about the Majors, but I feel strongly that he sets up better than any other player in the field to win this week at Torrey Pines. He lapped the field on Sunday last year, proving to himself and golf fans that he can come up big when it matters most.
Max Homa beat the field scoring average by 8.15 strokes today to win the Farmers Insurance Open.
Over the last 20 years, only 2.5% of PGA Tour winners have beat the field by that many strokes in the final round.
— Justin Ray (@JustinRayGolf) January 29, 2023
Thanks again for reading and we'll be back next week with Power Rankings for the signature series edition of Pebble Beach!
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