Farmers Insurance Open Preview: Picks, Key Stats & Players to Watch at Torrey Pines
Welcome to a new weekly series where I will highlight my top picks and players to watch for each PGA Tour event. Reminder that we have a PGA API available through our Data Feeds product here. Let’s get into this week’s action…
Farmers Insurance Open
This week the tour stays in California for the Farmers, one of my personal favorite tournaments yearly due to the venue – Torrey Pines. Golfers will play one round on the South Course and one round on the North Course before the cut is made, with the third and fourth rounds both being played on the more challenging South Course. This week is also highlighted by a major return – it will be Brooks Koepka’s first round on the PGA Tour since the 2022 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play event. To accommodate his return, ESPN will be broadcasting the tournament on their main channel both Thursday and Friday with Koepka in one of the featured groups.
Torrey Pines North Course
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,258
Greens: Bentgrass
Torrey Pines South Course
Par: 72
Yardage: 7,765
Greens: Poa annua
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: OTT – emphasis on Driving Distance
Strokes Gained: Putting —- emphasis on Poa greens
Strokes Gained: Approach - Proximity from 200+ yards
Bogey Avoidance
Cam Young
I, like many, are expecting a big year for Mr. Cam Young and I’m looking for him to get off to a hot start in his first event of the season. He’s one of the best drivers of the ball on the planet so it’s no stretch as to why I think he is set up to succeed on a long challenging course like this.. He doesn’t have a super strong history in this event – his best result being a T20 – but he also hasn’t played here as the current version of Cameron Young. He’s one of the best drivers like I noted, but over the last year he is also one of the best putters on tour as well. A perfect recipe for success this weekend.
Hideki Matsuyama
Hideki can be a frustrating player with a wide range of outcomes, but he is coming off a T13 in Hawaii and has made the cut in this event in nine consecutive tournaments. That fits with how well he has played in California in general and he comps extremely well at this venue in addition to other difficult courses. His putter is his biggest enemy, but when he is on, few players on tour can match him and he led this event in SG: Approach last year. He’s never won the Farmers, but I won’t be shocked to see him in the mix on Sunday afternoon once again.
Max Homa
I’ve always been a fan of Max Homa and I’m excited for him to have what I think will be a bounceback season on the PGA Tour. He’s really fixed his swing since rejoining old swing coach Mark Blackburn in November of 2025 and he’s coming off a nice T27 finish at the American Express last week. We know he plays well in California, and he has finished inside the top–20 here in four of his last six starts including a win here in 2023. In fact, four of his six PGA Tour wins have come in his home state of California as well. I’m banking on a big rebound year from him, and there’s no better spot for him to capture some of that magic from a few years ago.
Dark Horse: Johnny Keefer
I’m going to tailor this blog to highlight my three favorite golfers in various price ranges as well as my favorite longshot or dark horse. This week, my focus is on Johnny Keefer who I fully expect to break fully onto the Tour scene soon. He only has a handful of PGA Tour starts under his belt, but still sits top-55 in the OWGR. He set the KFT single season scoring average last season and I want to be ahead of what feels like an inevitable rise up the leaderboard one of these weeks.