PGA DFS Core Plays: Farmers Insurance Open
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various salary ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
While it was fun to watch Nick Dunlap become the first amateur to win a PGA TOUR event since 1991, my wallet could have used Justin Thomas winning the event. He was one of my favorite plays in DFS, and I had him on my outright betting card. Ultimately, it wasn’t the best week for yours truly, but hopefully many of you had better luck. If you have played PGA DFS long, you know that there are going to be major swings on a week-to-week basis.
We now turn our attention to the Farmers Insurance Open, which is one of my favorite events of the year. It’s the first event that challenges golfers, as The Sentry, the Sony Open, and the American Express are all birdie-fests. We do have another course rotation on tap this week, but only for the first two rounds. Golfers will play the Torrey Pines North Course one time this week. It is a Par 72 that measures 7,258 yards. It is routinely one of the top-15 easiest courses on TOUR, so golfers will need to take advantage of their lone round on this course. We don’t have any ShotLink data from this course, so I’m not prioritizing course fit here when it comes to my golfer selection.
Noto’s PGA Model Download & Video for the Farmers Insurance Open
The South Course at Torrey Pines is the course that everyone knows. It’s been on video games, this used to be an event that Tiger Woods would dominate, and it hosted the U.S. Open a few years back. It is a mammoth of a course, measuring nearly 7,800 yards. The fairways are narrow, the greens are small, and the scoring is very difficult. The fairways are tough to hit on average, and with the course being so long, driving distance is much preferred over accuracy. With the greens being tough to hit in regulation, scrambling and around-the-green play are more important than most weeks.
The easier the course, the more likely it is that we see a surprise winner. When everyone is hitting fairways and throwing darts at greens, it’s harder for the best golfer to separate from the pack. When it comes to a difficult course like Torrey Pines, those who are the best tee to green typically rise to the top of the leaderboard. When it comes to statistics, I am leaning on driving distance, strokes gained tee to green, proximity with long irons (175+ yards), strokes gained around the green, bogey avoidance, and strokes gained putting. Experience at this event and experience in California are both positives.
Before we get into this week’s picks, I want to remind everyone that the event starts on Wednesday. The PGA TOUR does not want to compete for ratings with the NFL on Sunday, so they are starting the event a day early. Make sure to get your DFS teams and your bets in before Wednesday morning.
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for the Farmers Insurance Open
Field Size:
- 156 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties
Weather Forecasts
Golf Courses
- Location: La Jolla, California
- Torrey Pines South Course (will host 3 rounds)
- Par 72 — 7,765 yards
- Difficulty: 2023 (4th), 2022 (15th), 2021 (4th), 2020 (7th), 2019 (18th)
- Fairway width: 27 yards
- Green size: 5,000 square feet
- Grass type on greens: poa annua
- Torrey Pines North Course (will host 1 round)
- Par 72 — 7,258 yards
- Difficulty: 2023 (24th), 2022 (48th), 2021 (44th), 2020 (33rd), 2019 (45th)
- Green size: 6,000 square feet
- Grass type on greens: bentgrass
Event Notes
- We have another multi-course rotation this week at Torrey Pines
- The South Course will host 3 of the 4 rounds
- Golfers will play the North Course on Thursday or Friday
- It’s by far the easier of the two for Showdown purposes
- The South Course features narrow fairways and small greens
- Golfers who play difficult courses well tend to shine here
- Driving distance and scrambling are needed skills
- Course history and success in California are positives
- The winning score will likely be in the mid-teens
What to Look For
- Bogey Avoidance
- Strokes Gained: Approach
- Driving Distance / Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee
- Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green
- Strokes Gained: Putting (Emphasis on poa)
Core Plays
Xander Schauffele
DraftKings — $10,600 / pOWN: 23.0%
FanDuel — $12,000 / pOWN: 37.2%
Driving Distance — 53
SG: APP — 5
Bogey Avoidance — 2
SG: ATG — 23
SG: Putting — 5
Stat Rank — 1
Noto Rating — 97.3
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