Posted in: Golf
The small community of La Jolla in San Diego, California is one of the most beautiful places in the country. San Diego’s gorgeous coastline varies significantly from smooth sands of Mission Beach and to the north comes the jagged cliffs and coastline where the PGA makes their next stop.
The Torrey Pines Golf Course is a 36-hole course made up of two courses, the North and the South.
The North Course is rated less difficult and the South Course is the longer of the two. In fact, it’s the longest course on the PGA Tour.
There are some quite distant par 4’s, seven of which go for 440+ yards.
The bombers should fair well kind of like they did at the Tournament of Champions except for one thing. The fairways will not be as wide as a 7-lane major highway like the links in Maui.
Driving accuracy along will be key this weekend along with driving distance, of course, as well as an efficient short game to deal with the bentgrass greens.
Sound the trumpets!
Tiger Woods is making his return to the Tour after finishing out the 2018 FedEx Cup season with a victory at the Tour Championship as Summer came to a close in mid-September.
Woods has won here a few times, eight times in total actually. He has 7 Farmers Insurance Open titles under his belt as well as a US Open victory here back in 2008.
Several other superstars will be in contention at Torrey Pines. Rory McIlroy will be looking to put together more than 3 good rounds of golf for once. Solid Sunday play has eluded McIlroy for quite a while now.
He hasn’t shot better than 1 under for a final round in 5 months. At the BMW Championship last year, he posted -2 for the final round losing by 2 strokes to guys who shot 6 under for the day.
It’s a good thing Reggie Miller doesn’t commentate golf as well as basketball or he would’ve already called out McIlroy.
That’s him saying “In the 4th round Rory, when it counts, you choke.”
World #1 Justin Rose is in the field as well with defending tourney champion Jason Day. Another couple of golfers I really like at Torrey Pines are the ever-consistent Marc Leishman and Masters winner Patrick Reed.
Leishman is the quintessential top 10 pick and Reed can make you rich paying out (+3300) to win.
Let’s look at a few different betting options for you and see where each golfer fits the best.
|
|
While there a handful of other golfers with an excellent value next to their name, they will be much more likely to hit as a top 10 or top 20 bet.
BetOnline has several different betting options available for you.
Even though you’ll make less money with him than anyone else, Rahm can’t be ignored. He shot 7 under in the final round on the South Course in 2017 to finish at 13 under for the tournament three strokes ahead of Charles Howell III and C.T. Pan.
Last year was considered a “Process” for Tiger Woods. He wanted to get his confidence back firstly and secondly, he wanted to peak later in the year as opposed to earlier.
Well, I would say mission accomplished Mr. Woods.
That brings us to 2019 where I’m hearing a lot of the same.
“This is a process. He is trying to peak at the Masters, so he likely won’t be as sharp in his first week back.”
He won the last major, the Tour Championship, and is the best player of our generation.
You have to throw Tiger’s name on your ticket.
Most of the golfers on this list have played well at Torrey Pines before, so picking a winner will not be easy.
Here are some other betting sites options for you as well.
This one is likely going to come down to experience over the weekend as well as a superior short game.
It’s no secret Cameron Champ is leading the PGA Tour in driving distance, but his driving accuracy ranks all the way down at 136th.
Champ has played very well this season including an early surge among some good talent at the Tournament of Champions.
I like Champ to make the cut and have a couple of good rounds, but Reed should outlast him in the bentgrass when it gets ugly on days 3 and 4.
Milton “Tony” Finau’s last appearance on the PGA Tour was at the Hero World Challenge where he finished 2nd to Jon Rahm. He had a 2nd place, 4th, 8th, and 15th in the FedEx Cup Playoffs last year.
6th last year at Torrey Pines and 4th the previous year are helping Tony’s case right now.
What about the “Pastel Pompadour” Rickie Fowler?
Well, he had a decent Fall series and performance in the playoffs. He wasn’t quite as good as Tony, but he played very well.
The difference is the last two tournaments here at Torrey Pines. Rickie didn’t make the cut in either year while Tony finished 6th and 4th, respectively.
Guys, picking a winner is tough. I picked San Diego native Xander Schauffele’s victory at the Tournament of Champions but didn’t crack the top ten at the Sony Open as my best pick Patton Kizzire came in 13th.
Last week, though, we were close again! The former hockey player Adam “please call me Happy Gilmore” Hadwin almost did it but fell short by one stroke along with Phil Mickelson to a relative unknown Adam Long.
Leishman and Reed are my value picks, while Jon Rahm and Tiger Woods are my favs.
I like Marc Leishman more as a top ten bet (+240).
Reed has the ability to take over. I’m not sure about all of that but I like him to outlast the youthful Champ over the course of four days.
Tony Finau is a good pick to win (+1800) and top ten (+220) as well.
Good luck and enjoy the tournament as we will be sans football on a Sunday for the first time since August.
