PGA Course Preview for the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open: Scouting the Routing

With two of the first three winners on the PGA Tour reaching final scores of 25-under-par, golf fans will be salivating at the prospect of a venue with the capability of sending golfers in both directions on the leaderboard. Enter Torrey Pines South: a golf course that has crowned two U.S. Open Champions since 2008 and routinely ranks as one of the more difficult tests on the entire golfing calendar.

This event will also feature the inclusion of some of the brightest names in the game, including 11 of the Top 30 players in the Official World Golf Rankings, the much-awaited Torrey Pines debuts of Luke Clanton and Michael Thorbjornsen, as well as the start of life on the PGA Tour for two of the European Tour's most highly regarded talents: Niklas Norgaard and Thriston Lawrence.

Before we get into the odds board on tap for golf bettors Monday morning, this piece will serve to set you up to make those crucial decisions before the market shifts later in the week. Without further ado, here is my comprehensive scouting. report on Torrey Pines South and the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open!

The Golf Course(s)

Torrey Pines South Course - Par 72; 7,765 yards

Torrey Pines North Course - Par 72; 7,258 yards

Past Champions

• 2024 - Matthieu Pavon (-13) over Nicolai Hojgaard
• 2023 - Max Homa (-13) over Keegan Bradley
• 2022 - Luke List (-15) over Will Zalatoris (playoff)
• 2021 - Patrick Reed (-14) over Finau/Hovland/Schauffele/Palmer/Norlander
• 2020 - Marc Leishman (-15) over Jon Rahm
• 2019 - Justin Rose (-21) over Adam Scott

Torrey Pines by the Numbers (Off-The-Tee)

• Average Fairway Width -- 26.5 yards; third-narrowest on the PGA Tour
• Driving Accuracy -- 52.8%; fifth-lowest on Tour
• Average Driving Distance -- 288.8 yards; 16th-highest on Tour
• Missed Fairway Penalty -- 0.34; 18th-highest on Tour
• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee Difficulty: -0.024; eighth-toughest on Tour

Tipping out at nearly 7,800 yards and featuring the second-highest average length of Par 4's/5's on the PGA Tour, Torrey Pines South makes it abundantly clear what sort of driving profile it will favor this week.

Unlike the last two weeks at Waialae and PGA West, playing for position off the tee with a fairway wood/driving iron is completely out of the question, and the exceedingly narrow 26-yard-wide fairways around the South Course mean that even the most accurate drivers of the ball will be missing 35-40% of their fairways this week.

This combination of immense length and difficult-to-hit fairways means that distance is oftentimes all that matters around Torrey Pines in a player's mission to gain strokes off of the tee.

Last year, only one player managed to rate out inside the top 10 in SG: OTT whilst sitting below 295 yards in average driving distance, and to do so, Adam Schenk had to beat the field average in accuracy by over 20 percentage points (76.2% vs. 54.5%).

By contrast, Kevin Dougherty rated third in last year's field off the tee despite hitting just 40% of his fairways on the week. Min Woo Lee gained well over half a stroke per round with a paltry 42% accuracy rating, and Nicolai Hojgaard gained 0.88 shots off of the tee in his Saturday round despite hitting just five of 14 fairways on the day.

Simply put, if you want to give yourself the best chance at leading this field in the most important driving metric, distance is far and away the path of least resistance. While the rough penalty at Torrey Pines has sat at over 1/3 of a shot since 2021, the noticeable lack of penalty on offer for wider dispersion patterns is another key factor in the extreme distance bias we've seen.

Since 2015, the South Course has surrendered a penalty fraction of just 1.7% (fourth-lowest on the PGA Tour) and a reload rate over six times lower than what we've historically seen at the PGA West Stadium Course featured last week.

Although we have seen a path for an exceedingly accurate driver of the ball to separate themselves with pure precision (Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, and Corey Conners have all put up stellar driving numbers around Torrey Pines despite rating out well below field average in distance), cases like these are very much in the minority when projecting for this week's most prolific drivers.

I'll be weighing driving distance as highly as I have all year to this point -- it's far and away my most important stat within the off-the-tee catalog in this week's modeling.

Torrey Pines by the Numbers (Approach)

• Green in Regulation Rate -- 61.0%; 11th-lowest on the PGA Tour
• Strokes Gained: Approach Difficulty: +0.001; 16th-easiest on Tour
• Key Proximity Ranges:
  • 200+ yards- (has accounted for 26.3% of historical approach shots)
  • 175-200 yards (20.0%)
  • 150-175 yards (19.6%)

While the sheer scale of this property will cause driving to be at the top of mind for many handicappers this week, the No. 1 historic through-line for success at Torrey Pines has been elite iron play.

The top 10 finishers at the South Course have gained nearly a stroke per round to the field on Approach (2.6x the amount they gain off the tee), and only one of the last six Farmers Champions have done so whilst ranking outside the top five in SG: Approach for the week.

As you'd probably expect at a golf course measuring nearly 7,800 yards, we don't expect to see a ton of wedge shots into the greens at Torrey Pines. Last year, a whopping 73% of approach shots came from over 150 yards, and nearly one-half of those came from outside of 200.

From Jon Rahm to Jason Day, Tony Finau, and Max Homa, it's difficult to find anyone who's had repeated success around Torrey Pines that doesn't also rate out exceptionally well in long-iron proximity.

When modeling for this week's best iron players, I'll be looking specifically at a player's long-term acumen from 150+ yards (both in Proximity to the Hole and Strokes Gained per shot), as well as a historic proficiency at other venues that require you to hit a high percentage of long irons (Quail Hollow, Bay Hill, Muirfield Village, etc.).

While I do expect the greens this week to be a bit more receptive than the courses in this subset, any player who has continually proven himself capable of raising his approach baselines around these demanding tracks should have no trouble conquering the second shots the South Course has in store this week.

Did you know RotoBaller has a Premium DFS PGA subscription? Like what you read today? You can show your support for Ian by using the discount code BALLER when purchasing a PGA Premium Pass. You get 10% off and full access to all of our Premium PGA articles, DFS tools, and Lineup Optimizer! You also get access to weekly betting picks from Spencer Aguiar, one of the top betting minds in the industry.

End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod

2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 Units

Total Winnings: +311.229 Units

Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36

H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE

— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022

Torrey Pines by the Numbers (Around the Greens)

• Scrambling Percentage -- 52.1%; 5.5% below Tour Average 
• Sand Save Difficulty -- (-0.001); 13th-toughest on Tour
• SG: Around the Green Difficulty: +0.005; 15th-toughest on Tour

With a Green in Regulation rate projected to fall into the low 60s and a scrambling percentage that sits 5.5% below the Tour average, Torrey Pines has all the ingredients necessary to be considered a short-game test.

Over the last 12 years, Top-10 finishers here have gained more shots around the greens (0.40 per round) than they have off of the tee (0.37), and only one champion here since 2015 has managed to do so whilst losing strokes with his short game.

The biggest test on tap for players attempting to scramble around Torrey Pines will undoubtedly come from the rough. Torrey Pines has ranked fifth and eighth over the last two years in regards to SG: ARG difficulty from the rough, and the 3.5-4 inch ryegrass grown around these greenside surrounds will test players in a way we haven't seen since last year's FedEx Cup Playoffs.

With this in mind, I do believe this is a viable week to include some short-game metrics within your modeling.

In particular, I'll be looking at a player's history around the greens of similarly defended courses with high rough (Muirfield Village, Bay Hill, etc.), as well as a comprehensive scoring model that includes Bogey Avoidance, Sand Saves, Scrambling %, and Strokes Gained in Difficult Scoring Conditions.

No matter how elite your ball-striking splits have been coming into this week, it's difficult to imagine any Farmers Champion attaining that title without a few crucial par saves down the stretch.

Torrey Pines by the Numbers (Putting)

• Average Green Size -- 5,000 square feet 
• Agronomy -- Poa Annua
• 3-Putt Percentage: 4.1%
• Strokes Gained: Putting Difficulty: -0.020; 2nd toughest on Tour

Although the gaudy scorecard yardages and thick rough are the attributes most closely associated with the test that is facing players at Torrey Pines this week, there is a legitimate argument to be made that the green complexes at the South Course are actually its greatest hurdle.

This week starts a run of three venues in four weeks that feature pure poa annua greens - a putting surface predominantly found on the West Coast known for its splotchy coloration and uneven texture. Take one look at the slo-mo clip of Tiger Woods' putt on the 18th hole of the 2008 U.S. Open (at about the 23-minute mark of this video), and you'll get a general sense of the challenges players will face:

This inconsistent roll (and the indecision it creates) makes poa annua one of the most difficult surfaces to navigate for those unused to its properties.

As a result, Torrey Pines has ranked either first or second in putting difficulty inside of five feet in six of the last eight seasons and No. 1 in putting difficulty from five-15 feet on five separate occasions since 2016. Players without any experience on this surface (or, worse, an extensively negative history) will receive a sizeable reduction in my projection this week.

Notably, with the exception of Matthieu Pavon (for whom there is limited data considering the time he spent on the European Tour), every champion here since 2018 had at least one instance of positive poa annua history to draw from in the lead-up to their win (+3.5 SG or better). I'll be looking for similar trends when weighing the viability of potential winners this week.

Key Stats Roundup: 

• Huge week for Driving Distance. I'll have that weighed even beyond more comprehensive driving stats like SG: OTT/Total Driving. Accuracy stats are more or less a throwaway in my modeling this week
• Long-Iron Play: Specifically looking at Proximity splits from >150 yards as well as a player's history around other long-iron intensive courses
• Around the Green Play is a factor for me as well this week. Special emphasis on ARG splits at venues with high rough guarding the greens, as well as scoring stats like Bogey Avoidance, Scrambling %, and Strokes Gained in Difficult Scoring Conditions
• Long Term Poa Annua Putting
• Par 5 Scoring
• SG: Total on Long, Difficult Golf Courses

The Sunday Shortlist

Before the odds come out on Monday morning, here are two to three names I’ve identified as significant targets upon my initial research.

Tony Finau

Tony Finau pitches it in for birdie from the rough on 14! 🇺🇸👏

📺 Golf Channel 📱 NBC Sports app | #PresidentsCup pic.twitter.com/RBTFiXeaIY

— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 26, 2024

Unlike the last few weeks, where long shots proved to be an ever-present threat to take down the tournament, my outright betting strategy this week will primarily focus on picking my favorites among the many marquee names at the top of the board.

Unlike a course like PGA West, Kapalua, or Waialae, Torrey Pines is very capable of separating the elite tee-to-green talents in the sport -- and especially those whose games are best suited to its formidable 7,800-yard layout.

Tony Finau checks virtually every box you could in that regard, as not only was he long ranked as one of the most prodigious ball-strikers in the sport, but 2024 saw the ascension of Finau's short game as a legitimate weapon in his arsenal.

Over his last 50 rounds, Tony sits fourth in this field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens, and notably, many of his best short game weeks came on the most difficult around the green stops on the calendar:

• +4.3 at Pinehurst
• +4.5 at Castle Pines
• +4.0 at TPC River Highlands
• +2.2 at Muirfield Village

Here at Torrey Pines, Finau has enjoyed one of the better baselines you'll see around these uncomfortable greenside surrounds: losing strokes just once around the greens in 10 career Farmers starts. He boasts a similar record when it comes to gaining strokes with the driver and has gained an average of 1.07 strokes per round at Torrey Pines, with his iron play dating back to 2019 (tops in the field).

This established comfort around one of the Tour's most difficult stops has netted Tony a Rahm-like resume here in San Diego: missing just one cut in 10 career starts and logging a whopping five top-six finishes since 2017.

By my numbers, Finau sits third in Weighted Proximity from >150 yards, 10th in Projected Driving Distance, and has surprisingly gained strokes with the putter in six of his last nine starts.

It's been nearly two years since Tony found the winner's circle in Mexico 2023, but given his history around this venue and some of the concerns I have with others at the top of this odds board, this could be the perfect opportunity for the 35-year-old to reestablish himself as a Major threat in this 2025 campaign.

Ludvig Åberg

Ludvig Aberg makes another birdie to grab an early share of the lead at 3-under🔥🇸🇪pic.twitter.com/CKQwls8lwo

— Golf On Tap (@OnTapGolf) June 13, 2024

I more or less gave away my hand in the first write-up of this section, but unlike the "spray-and-pray" approach we've taken over the last few events, this week is very likely a spot where I bet two of the top five to six names and call it a day.

While Ludvig Åberg doesn't yet possess the historical record that Finau does at Torrey Pines, his game screams of a player capable of replicating the repeated success we've seen at this venue from the likes of Finau, Rahm, Jason Day, etc.

There are some that hit it longer than Ludvig and a few more that hit it straighter, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better combination of the two driving elements than the 25-year-old Swede. Åberg ranked fourth on Tour last year in Total Driving and seemed to thrive most on the courses that asked the most out of his greatest weapon.

He gained five strokes to the field at 7,500-yard Pinehurst, he gained 4.0 at TPC Sawgrass, one of the most heavily penal, positional driving tests we see all year, and gained 2.1 strokes to the field in three rounds in his Farmers debut at Torrey Pines South: ranking sixth that week in Driving Distance and beating the field average in fairway percentage by 2.5 points.

A similar story can be told about Ludvig's aptitude on difficult approach courses: recording his best per-round iron performance here 12 months ago (+4.7 strokes gained in three rounds) and rating out second in my Weighted Proximity modeling from 150 yards and beyond.

As many of the most highly touted prospects we've seen come through the PGA Tour ranks in recent years, Åberg seems to have a special ability to thrive in the most brutal golfing environments the U.S. has to offer.

He gained strokes putting in each of his first three poa annua starts last season (Torrey Pines, Pebble Beach, and Riviera), and opened his 2025 campaign with a fifth-place finish around Kapalua where he rated out positively in each of the four strokes gained categories.

It's not exactly a hot take that Åberg will eventually find his breakout victory, but with the skillset he currently boasts, a venue like Torrey Pines feels as likely as anywhere on the golfing calendar.

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