2020 Farmers Insurance Open (Tiger goes for #83)

The tour returns to San Diego this week for what could be a history making event.

Tiger Woods won for the 82nd time in his last PGA Tour start in Japan. That ties him with Sam Snead for the most Official PGA Tour wins in history. A win this week moves Tiger to #1 by himself.

Tiger has won this event seven times in his career and also won the US Open on South Course.

Fed Ex Cup points: 500

Purse: $7,500,000 with $1,350,000 going to the winner

Courses

Torrey Pines (North) Par 72 of 7258 yards, players play this course either Thursday or Friday

Torrey Pines (South) Par 72 of 7698 yards, players play once on Thursday or Friday then both days on the weekend

OWGR: SoF 397/ 1st Place Points 54

If Rory McIlroy wins he moves back to #1 in the world replacing Brooks Koepka

We also will get a look at the new CBS announce team

Field https://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/farmers-insurance-open/field.html

Tee times https://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/farmers-insurance-open/tee-times.html

notables

Tiger Woods #6 in the OWGR

Rory McIlroy #2

Jon Rahm #3

Justin Rose #8 and the defending champion

Xander Schauffele #9

Patrick Reed #12

Gary Woodland #15

Tony Finau #16

Francesco Molinari #21

Hideki Matsuyama #23

Rickie Fowler #25

Marc Leishman #28

Cameron Smith #33

Sungjae Im #34

Billy Horschel #39

Jason Day #44

Jordan Spieth #45

Byeong Hun An #47

Brandt Snedeker #48

Scottie Scheffler #51

Keegan Bradley #53

Collin Morikawa #55

Bubba Watson #56

Joaquin Niemann #58

Cameron Champ #73

Phil Mickelson #82

Matthew Wolff #102

Steve Stricker #798

and here's a few highlights from the past from Phil, John Daly and Tiger

big tournament ... rory/tiger return to the pga tour this calendar year ... decent field ... new announcers ... big day for golfers across the land ...

would really, really like to see a top 10 by spieth ...

Ah yes, this is always my birthday weekend tournament and it kind of gets the season started for my golf watching on TV

I'm picking Robby Shelton to win it all!

Do we think Cameron Smith will make another run here like he did last year? Debating on putting him in my fantasy lineup in place of Marc Leishman or Byeong Hun An.

Tiger with SIM in the bag?

Can't see Tiger doing much here. Rory or Rahm will take this. Slow start for Tiger leading up to his defense of the Masters and then on route to 3 other wins.

I’m not feeling a Tiger win here. His history round the place is of course absolute without rival but, I don’t see him being a huge force on US Open type courses these days. I get that the setup is not going to be the same as it is for the US Open but my memory is that that is a big ball park with plenty of rough either side of the fairway. Happy to be proven absolutely 100% incorrect on that as well but just my thoughts.

I always enjoy the fall series events but then I look at this field and I'm super pumped for this one. I'm gonna go with Xander on this one. Played college golf at SDSU so knows the courses well and not afraid of the big moments. Plus I think he'll be looking for a bit of redemption for boning up the end of the TOC.

If Tiger were driving it like the Tiger of old I'd agree with you as Torrey is no fun trying to score from the rough. But Tiger 2.0 has been a fairway finding machine so even though he's lost a little off the fastball if he can hit some fairways I'd like his chances here because he's still the best iron player in the world. I picked Xander above but Tiger's not a bad choice if he's driving well.

FEATURED GROUPS

(tee times not set as of this post)

Tiger Woods/ Jon Rahm/ Collin Morikawa

Rory McIlroy/ Cameron Smith/ Brandt Snedeker

Rickie Fowler/ Phil Mickelson/ Xander Schauffele

Jason Day/ Justin Rose/ Jordan Spieth

Woods/Rahm/Morikawa.

TM licking their chops.

Does anyone know how players get into the pr-am? Are they chosen through OWGR?

I see a Tiger win here. TW's history here speaks for itself.

Farmers Insurance Open

R McIlroy 7/1

J Rahm 9/1

T Woods 12/1

X Schauffele 16/1

J Rose 16/1

H Matsuyama 20/1

R Fowler 20/1

G Woodland 25/1

P Reed 30/1

T Finau 30/1

C Morikawa 30/1

S Im 30/1

J Day 40/1

S Scheffler 40/1

C Smith 40/1

J Spieth 50/1

Winning Score: 271.5 (Par=288)

Eh we'll see. I think a top 10 would be huge for his "season debut".

83 baby!

Tigerrr! Gonna take out the young guns like

DK picks: Fowler, Finau, Im, An, Perez, and Gooch.

Tiger said in an interview today that he hadn't touched a club during his off time, except for fooling around with Charlie on his birthday. So sure, he'll be trying to win, but he's not going to, and he doesn't really expect to. He's just starting his build-up to the Masters.

Tee times now up and added to the first post.

Tiger begins at 12:40 EST/ 9:40 PST on #10 on the North Course Thursday

Friday on the South he starts at 1:40 EST/ 10:40 PST

Rory's group is the lucky one that gets to be right in front of Tiger's group.

OWGR: projected first place points of 56 down from 60 last year.It's now down to 54, even with all the big names.

I guess I didn't realize how strong the Zozo was -- it had no history, and since it was co-Japan Tour, I assumed it was weak, and I thought it was too bad Tiger got win #82 in a second-rate event. But it turns out it was very strong, awarding 64 points. if you take out the majors and Players, which automatically get 80-100 points, there were only six events that awarded more points last year --- 3 of the WGCs, two of the FedEx Playoff events, and the Memorial.

I'm really interested to see how Spieth looks this week. This doesn't really strike me as his type of course, but interested to see how the long game looks and to see if he gets any momentum going. Anyone have any expectations/predictions for his performance this week? I'd say a top 25 would be a solid start to the 2020 calendar year for him.

especially if they wait by the wall whiles he takes them down one at a time. :)

How do you know he doesn't expect to win? Did he say so? If so, I missed it.

I have never known Woods to play in a tournament he can't think he can win, He refers to 2nd place as "first loser".

I think by the time things are in swing, people will be jumping ahead in front of Rory’s group to see him then wait for TW. I think that helps a little.

I tried to follow TW at the PGA and it was ok...for like 3 holes since he teed off on the 9th like a huge hike from the gate and it was early am. But by the 4th, wasn’t worth trying.

This should be good ; )

That's what they said at Augusta last year too. :)

There were a few WDs like Charles Howell III that knocked the final number down a little.

2019: SoF 479/ 1st Place points 60

2020: 397/ 54

All four PGA Tour events to start 2020 have featured weaker fields than 2019.

Any natives from san diego play torrey in the last 2 months? I wonder if its playing wet with chunky rough around the greens.

There's a difference between not expecting to win, and not thinking it's possible to win. I very much doubt he expected to win most of the events he entered between 2014 and 2018, but I also very much doubt he thought it was impossible.

His quotes from around 2000, of course, are a different story. Back then you could make money taking Tiger against the field every week, and he probably did expect to win every time he teed it up. He was like 20 points ahead of everybody else in the world rankings (today, Koepka's average is 9.88 points, while Tiger's was over 30 at his peak).

But those days are gone. He's still one of the best golfers in the world, and may even be #1 again if things fall into place, but he isn't two or three times as good as everybody else any more, and he isn't taking this event seriously. Yes, he'll do his best to win, but if he was taking it seriously, he would have been practicing last month.

He's 44 years old, with a lot of scar tissue. He knows he can't go all out at every event. He said again today that he is ramping up for the Masters, and that's what he should be doing. He'll try to win, he'll be happy to win, but I think he'll consider it a successful week if he doesn't get hurt, doesn't have a really bad round, makes the cut, and identifies the parts of his game he needs to work on the most.

Just hope Tiger's in the mix come the weekend, anything more than that is a bonus. Predicting a Top 20