Preview and Prediction for the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines
The West Coast swing continues as the PGA Tour heads to Torrey Pines in San Diego for the Farmers Insurance Open, which starts on Thursday. This tournament is one of the first that starts to assemble the best players in the world.
Justin Rose heads up a list of 13 players inside the top 25 in the world rankings. One of those is not Tiger Woods.
Woods is more cat-in-a-shark-suit than a big-game feline these days. Flubbing his chips has him saying things on television broadcasts like "between patterns" and he "hasn’t found the bottom." Oh, no, Woods has found the bottom, all right.
He simply needs to practice and play more tournaments, which is exactly the plan as he takes on a field that is swollen with world-class talent.
There’s a lot to get to for this tournament, so let’s sting one down the middle and get on the green in two.
Where to Watch and Tournament Info
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Where
Torrey Pines GC (South)
7,698 yards, Par 72
What
Total Purse: $6,300,000
Winners Share: $1,134,000
FedEx Points to Winner: 500
When
Thursday-Friday
3-7 p.m. ET, Golf Channel
Saturday-Sunday
1-2:30 p.m., Golf Channel; 3-6 p.m., CBS
Biggest Storylines
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Will Tiger Woods Make the Cut?
Woods’ performance at the Phoenix Open raised more questions than answers. His 82 on Friday put him in a tie for last place and put him on Air Tiger back to Florida instead of driving to Glendale, Arizona, for the Super Bowl.
Woods returns to the site of his last major triumph when he defeated Rocco Mediate on one leg in the 2008 U.S. Open nearly seven years ago.
Now Woods has a case of the chip yips—the king, pharaoh and malevolent dictator of all yipdom. Golf.com’s Eamon Lynch makes a great point when differentiating between putting yips and chipping yips. While both are frustrating, one becomes Groundhog Day and the other does not.
"The chip yips are even worse than the putting yips. At least a yipped putt usually leaves a tap-in. A chunked or bladed chip often leaves one facing the exact same shot again. There's no more debilitating affliction for golfers. It is a depressing spectacle to see the best player of his era so adrift, so lost in technical thoughts and so lacking the short-game swagger that defined his career.
"
Time will tell, but it’s fair to say that Woods needs to make cuts just to get extra competitive reps. Forget winning or even contending for now. Just get to Saturday.
Dustin Johnson Returns
It has been six months since we last saw Dustin Johnson bombing drives and winning Bradley Cooper lookalike contests*.
He missed the cut at the Canadian Open back on July 25 and then took a leave of absence for “personal challenges.” “Took a leave of absence” could be PGA Tourspeak for suspension, but God forbid the PGA Tour sully the artifice it so carefully constructs.
Johnson is kind of the Rob Gronkowski, only not as fun, of the PGA Tour. He told The Associated Press, via ESPN.com:
"It was more of a compounded thing. I was not enjoying myself. I was not playing the way I wanted to play. I did my fair share of partying. It's not like I was drinking every day. It was more like alcohol abuse—that's not the right word, but more along those lines. When I drank, I drank too much.
"
He’ll be met with a plethora of questions about whether his “leave of absence” after exactly six months had anything to do with several failed drug tests, all of which Johnson denies.
Either way, his return, no matter how he plays, is a significant storyline to follow at least until Friday.
*This never happened.
Jason Day Looks for Revenge
Revenge is a strong word for Jason Day, but he did finish second at this event a year ago to Scott Stallings. Day had a chance to win this tournament late and couldn’t close.
So far in 2015, Day has played two events, and he’s a combined 30-under par while finishing T3 at the Tournament of Champions and T17 at the Sony Open.
Day, the No. 8 player in the world, stands a good chance of holding up the trophy at the end of this tournament. So far this year in his two events, he ranks No. 1 in greens in regulation at 77.08 percent and No. 1 in birdie average with 5.38 per round.
If he can hit a drone, he can win at Torrey Pines.
The Favorites
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Scott Stallings
Some props must go to Stallings for having won this event in 2014.
He won this event when eight players had a legitimate shot at winning the tournament in the final hour of play.
"You don't get very many opportunities to win golf tournaments on this tour," Stallings said on PGATour.com. "I didn't necessarily understand the situation I was in as far as the score, but I did know I had an opportunity. ... I was playing to win."
Stallings hasn’t played well in his three 2015 events. He finished T14 and T64 at the Tournament of Champions and the Humana Challenge, respectively. He, like Phil Mickelson and Woods, missed the cut at the Phoenix Open.
So far Stallings’ putting has been his downfall. Among the number of poor putting statistics is his strokes-gained putting, which, at this point, is minus-.267, good for 154th on tour.
Having won here may give him confidence to play above his current performance.
Jason Day
Day could taste victory in this tournament a year ago, and it slipped away from him.
He finished just one shot back of Stallings after bogeying the No. 17 when he was tied for the lead.
“Overall,” he said on GolfChannel.com, “I’m very happy with myself, how I played, how I handled myself.”
Day ranks eighth in scoring average this season and is third and fourth on tour on approaches from 100-125 yards and 50-125 yards, respectively. If he can clean up his driving accuracy (53.45 percent), he would give himself a far better chance to capitalize on his elite approaches.
Jimmy Walker
Nobody is playing better golf than Jimmy Walker.
In his first tournament of the year, the Tournament of Champions, he finished second after a playoff. He followed that up the next week by winning the Sony Open.
In both events he finished 21-under and 23-under par. He sits atop the FedEx Cup standings and has earned $2,003,607 already this year.
Walker is killing it in all the big stat categories. He’s fourth in birdie average, 13th in strokes gained tee-to-green and 11th in strokes gained putting.
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The Dark Horses
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Phil Mickelson
Mickelson didn’t fare as well as many had hoped at the Phoenix Open. He too shipped out early after missing the cut on Friday.
“It was a difficult round, I thought, for everyone out there with the weather and the rain," Mickelson said in USA Today. "My short game was off today. I let a lot of shots slide around the greens, and I've got to fix that. That happened last week, as well.”
Last year is still a bitter reminder of how bad it can be for Lefty. He had just one top 10 all year, and the whole plan for 2015 was predicated on not repeating that 2014 effort. Mickelson didn’t miss a cut until the Honda Classic in 2014.
After missing the cut in Scottsdale, he flew back to his home base in San Diego and planned on getting in an extra round or two to sharpen his already dull saw.
"I will go back to San Diego and watch,” he said in USA Today. “I will maybe get even a little extra practice round in or two over at Torrey and get ready. See if I can get my short game sharp."
Hideki Matsuyama
If you’re not paying attention to Hideki Matsuyama, hop on this bandwagon before it gets too crowded.
Matsuyama is just 22 years old and has finished T3 at the Tournament of Champions and T2 at this past weekend’s Phoenix Open, which included this amazing eagle.
He’s one of the best ball-strikers on the tour and ranks ninth in strokes gained tee-to-green.
Matsuyama isn’t quite ready to be a favorite in these tournaments, but he’s making a strong case for it with his consistent play.
Bill Haas
What happened to Bill Haas at the Phoenix Open? He came into the event having won the Humana Challenge with four straight rounds in the 60s and then followed that up in Scottsdale with four straight rounds in the 70s.
The Farmers Insurance Open will be his third start of the year, and it’s a tournament he’s done quite well at in years past. He finished T9 in 2013, T4 in 2012 and T9 in 2011.
The comfort and familiarity are there. It’s just a matter of playing at a high level for four rounds like he did at La Quinta.
Tiger Woods
It would be patently irresponsible to leave Woods off the list of dark horses. There's one reason and one reason only Woods is even flirting with dark-horse status: Torrey Pines.
Put a blindfold on Woods, and he'd break 100 on this course, maybe even 82.
Woods has eight wins at Torrey Pines including the 2013 Farmers Insurance Open. This was also the site of Woods' famous playoff against Mediate, when Woods won major No. 14. Sadly, we're in a post-fire hydrant era.
Will Woods even make the cut? Will he get over the chip yips? If ever there was a course where he could at least qualify for four rounds of golf, it's Torrey Pines.
Prediction
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Winner: Jimmy Walker
It’s hard to stay hot for long on the PGA Tour, but Walker is playing with so much confidence that he’s hard to bet against.
He took some time off after winning the Sony Open, so he’s on target to shoot a low one and be the first two-time winner on the tour this year.
Biggest European Influence: Justin Rose
Justin Rose, who hasn’t been mentioned much up to this point, is No. 5 in the world and wouldn’t be shipping over from Europe if he wasn’t ready to start serious major prep.
Rose has played two events in 2015 and finished T12 and T13 on the European PGA Tour’s Gulf Swing.
His iron play has been top-notch, and he’ll contend here if he can clean up his driving accuracy, which was a balmy 59.92 percent in 2014.
Bouncing Back: Luke Donald
Luke Donald, a former world No. 1, failed to make the three-day cut at the Humana Challenge, shooting just two-under at La Quinta.
He shot a disappointing five-under at the Sony Open, good for T51.
Donald’s driving distance is way down, ranking just 186th, and his accuracy ranks 203rd on tour. It all falls apart for Donald off the tee, so if he cleans that up, he could contend at Torrey Pines.
All stats came courtesy of PGATour.com.
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