American Express - Recap
Let’s start with the young Mr. Dunlap1. That was one of the most impressive things I have seen on a golf course in a long time. The kid is a 20-year-old sophomore at Alabama sleeping on the lead of a PGA Tour event2. Then he comes out and struggles early. He is facing down major champ (and Bama grad) Justin Thomas and multi-event winner Sam Burns in his group and getting chased by a host of other guys going super low. He rebounds, steadies himself, and then plays clutch golf, including a great chip on 18 to give himself under 6’ to win the dang thing. Amazing.
We also have now started the year with the following winners:
Chris Kirk 200-1
Okay, to our picks. We not only didn’t we win, but we didn’t have anyone in contention all weekend. The only big day we had was Friday, but it was not enough.
The only ticket we were able to cash was JT Poston Top 20, which was our big bet this week, but it felt like we were snake-bitten this week (wait until you read the DPWT recap). JT finishes tied for 11th so we lost our T10 bet. Eric Cole was in deep contention all week, but fell apart yesterday and fell out of the Top 10 and Top 20. Oh, and if you want to be annoyed, if you check the SG stats, so things are adjusted by day and by course, JT Poston had the 8th best which means he had a bit of bad luck with his draw.
That is a funky tournament and I honestly should have kept it lighter than I did. You live you learn and I will do that next year.
Farmers Insurance Open
The courses:
The PGA Tour’s West Coast stays in Southern California as it heads to San Diego to play one of the most famous public courses3 in the country, Torrey Pines.
Torrey Pines boasts two William Francis Bell-designed courses and both are utilized during this tournament:
North Course plays to a par 72, across 7,250 yards; Bentgrass greens; Tom Weiskopf redesign in 2016
South Course plays to a par 72, across 7,750 yards4; Poa greens; Rees Jones redesign in 2001 and 2019
Each golfer will play one round on each of the courses during the first two rounds, while the 3rd and 4th rounds are exclusively competed on the South Course.
Four things that must be noted this week:
This tournament starts on Wednesday
Expect this tournament to be VERY different than what we have seen the last few weeks. We will see some big boy tough golf this week with incredibly penal rough.
The North Course is the far easier of the two courses so it will be important for those players who want to contend to make the most of their 18 holes on that course. On the difficulty of the South Course here is a perfect time to remind you that the South Course has hosted two editions of the US Open (The 108th US Open which was won by Tiger Woods on a broken leg and torn ACL5 and the 121st US Open was won by Jon Rahm).
While I would be SHOCKED if this tournament were to stop being played, this will be the final version of Farmers Insurance being the title sponsor.
One of the things I have been keeping an eye on each week is the field that enters these tournaments. The reason I find it so interesting is that one of the big concerns with the implementation of the designated events this year was that the lesser events would have none of the top guys in them but it seems that the restrictions on the designated events have had the opposite effect. Now we are seeing tons of guys in the 25-50 range learning from Justin Thomas last year and are playing in these “lower level” tournaments to try and get as many FedEx Cup points locked down so they don’t have to scramble later. I’m VERY interested to see if that continues throughout the calendar.
This week, the field is quite strong as we have 8 of the top 20 OWGR players and 20 of the top 50, but Torrey Pines’ reputation usually means we have a pretty good field. When we talk about the field, something that we have to mention is that we have several players quite good players (e.g., Adrian Meronk, Ryan Fox, Nicolai Hojgaard) doing the reverse of what Fleetwood, Cam Young, Harmon, and Hatton did, by flying from Dubai back to the US.
Prior results:
2023 - Max Homa (22-1) shot -13 to beat Keegan Bradley (60-1) by 2 strokes
2022 - Luke List (90-1) beat Will Zalatoris (35-1) in a playoff, both shot -15
2021 - Patrick Reed (25-1) shot -14 and ran away from the field when he won by 5 strokes over Tony Finau (20-1), Viktor Hovland (30-1), Henrik Norlander (150-1), Ryan Palmer (50-1), Xander Schauffele (12-1)
2020 - Marc Leishman (55-1) shot -15 to top Jon Rahm (9-1) by 1 stroke
If you would like to bag further, Ron Klos has the winners and their odds going back through the 2010 tournament. As you will see, there are some long shots in there but a lot of 20-30 winners in there.
Last year’s first-round leaders were Sam Ryder, Brent Grant, and Aaron Rai who all shot 64’s on their way to T4, T25, and 52nd finishes. Ultimate winner, Max Homa, was sitting 4 strokes back after shooting an opening round 68.
We did not bet that Farmers last year.
The bets:
I am seeing a ton of value in the shorter range and the longer range so yes, I am going a lot longer of an outright card than normal with 7 guys but spreading the risk out. Sure, Homa could repeat and Collin could absolutely win this, but their odds are far too low for me. I really wanted to add Keegan and Finau to my card given their course history, but Keegan’s choke two weeks ago is still in my mind and Finau hasn’t looked right in about 8-9 months. I need to see more before I go back in on Tony.
We also have to keep in mind this week we have the Ras al Khaimah Championship on the DP World Tour (link to picks) where I will attempt to break our 2-week streak of guys finishing 1 stroke back from winning.
Let’s get to this week’s card with about 7.50u of risk:
Outright:
0.55u Sungjae Im 25-1
0.55u Min Woo Lee 25-1
0.55u Jason Day 25-1
0.2u Beau Hossler 70-1
0.12u Michael Kim 125-1
0.12u Alex Smalley 125-1
0.11u Davis Thompson 135-1
T10 (0.25u on each):
Min Woo Lee +250
Jason Day +275
Tony Finau +300
Beau Hossler +525
T206
1u Sungjae Im +115
0.75u Jason Day +130
0.5u Min Woo Lee +120
0.25u Beau Hossler +250
0.25u Michael Kim +325
0.25u Mark Hubbard +550
Matchups
0.67u Tyler Duncan over Joel Dahmen -134
0.635u on Mattieu Pavon over Alexander Bjork -127
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Daily Fantasy
For those unfamiliar with Daily Fantasy, this is a game you can play (I use Draft Kings) where they give you a budget to allocate to golfers and use their scoring criteria to try and win money. The dollar values you see below are the “salaries” for each golfer I select. You can mirror what I do, do your own thing, or do some combo and as always I am just showing what I am doing, and is good for me.
I usually only do this for full-field events so let’s take a swag
Day 9,500
Min Woo Lee 9,100
Straka 8,600
Berger 8,100
Hossler 7,600
Pavon 7,100
Good luck with all your action!
For those who might remember, we bet him back at the Butterfield Bermuda last November. Sadly, it didn’t out as well for us
This should not be underestimated. We have seen numerous guys wilt in this situation…..even last week Keegan Bradley did and he has a major title to his name!
That is right! This is a public course so you can reach into your pocket and tee it up on the same course that the pro’s play
This is the longest course on the PGA Tour calendar
Not to mention these were still the days of 18-hole playoffs AND he and Rocco had to play a 19th hole.
If you want one more name. I like Ryo Hisatsune at +400 but I didn’t want to go past 7.5u of risk this week