Brooks Was Here 🪂
Horse kicks me once...Three outright predictions in the top eight, four picks in the top 13, and five of our six outrights finished in the top 24. Unfortunately, not one of them had a chance. Scottie Scheffler taught us a valuable lesson on Sunday, bet the "without Scheffler" in 2026. The fact is, if we did, Ryan Gerard would have cashed us a wonderful 50-1 ticket or better. I thought we could slip one by the world's number one, but I was wrong. Going forward, every card with Scottie in the field will include outright considerations where we remove HIM. Scottie Scheffler was the 68th-best approach player by strokes gained standards at The American Express, and he won by four strokes. If he's not sitting in jail, he is finishing in the top 5 every time he tees it up. The Farmers Insurance Open takes place at one of the most beautiful venues on the PGA TOUR: Torrey Pines. Together, the North and the South Course test the world's best every January. Twenty-seven of the top 50 players in the world are competing, highlighted by six players in the top 15 of the OWGR. A field of 142 has been increased to 147 players with the addition of Brooks Koepka. Shocking, this is probably the first place you heard this news. Lol. We are going to use a wait-and-see strategy for Brooks. It has been quite a while since he has seen a field this talented and done some damage to the leaderboard. As a US Open venue, the South Course is a good fit, but without any recent form, we will pass. Koepka does look motivated to play, and he should be. Given a path back to the PGA TOUR, he can start to earn signature status. That starts with making the cut. The top 65 and ties will play the weekend for $9.6 million and $1.73 million to first place. Farmers Insurance Open starts in... North and SouthThe Farmers requires a quick update on the format. The first two rounds are played on the North and the South Course. Players will compete on each course one time across Thursday and Friday. Those who make the cut, will play the South Course all weekend (36-holes). The South Course is the longest course on the PGA TOUR (7,765 yards). It has the fifth smallest greens on TOUR (5,000 sq/ft) and an average par 4 length of 456 yards! Host of the 2008 and 2021 US Opens, this beast of a layout favors power and accuracy. Probably nothing defines the Torrey Pines experience more than long iron skill. Of the eight par 3s across both courses, seven of them are over 200 yards in length. The North Course measures 7,258 yards. A similar test of the elements, there are a couple of "shorter" holes on this coastal cliff design. The average green size is a little larger at 6,000 sq/ft, and there are about half as many bunkers to contend with. The South has 82 sandy graves while the North has 42. The average winning score of the Farmers is 13 under par over the last decade. Due to the heavy reliance on driving and long iron acumen, we do have several long-shot winners. Three of the last five Torrey trophy champions held pre-tournament odds of +8000 or higher! I'll explain why in the outrights section, but it happens often. Our second career RTL win was Luke List (2022) in a playoff over Will Zalatoris. List was +9000 to start the week. One round on each course, and the average cutline for the last decade is two under par (-1.9). With 147 players in the field and ideal coastal California conditions, players had better plan on going a little deeper to play the weekend. Course history is quite sticky here, and it goes back to the skills required. Let's not get caught up in all of the Brooks banter. We had the field figured out in the Palm Desert. When the Genesis was moved to Torrey Pines last year due to the fires, we won with Ludvig Åberg. Our process is proven at this venue; let's stick to it and grab another win on William Bell's beautiful golf setting. Read The Line media ⤵️How to win?Some venues have a wide array of featured player traits needed to contend. Torrey Pines, a true US Open venue, is NOT one of those places. The skill set required to contend reminds me of the gliders high above the Pacific Ocean alongside this amazing coastal venue. Flying high above the ocean, they seem to hang effortlessly in the air. That's what players need to win the Farmers: hang time. Considering we know the championship characteristics so well, it should be easy to handicap. The modern PGA TOUR schedule is the biggest challenge when it comes to predicting a winner. With a limited visit to Hawaii, the uniqueness of the WMPO and two signature events in the near future, guys are very selective in choosing venues. Go ahead and filter for great drivers in this field; there are a ton of them. Why? Because the players know what it takes to win here, too. That’s primarily why we have seen so many long-shots steal the show! The field at the Farmers is full of bombers and long iron artists. To successfully pick a winning outright will take some insight beyond what strokes gained tells us on paper. Understanding playability from a PGA professional's perspective across two courses will determine how the field will separate. Each specific key this week will have a deeper research point. Understanding what matters will make a world of difference. Tons of content circling the golf betting industry will refer to long irons and driving, but those are broad categories. Walking the property at Torrey has allowed me to reduce those wide-angle approaches to a more focused view. In doing so, these three keys will ensure you build a successful betting card.
A couple of secondary factors I am also interested in are par 5 scoring and shot apex. Both courses have an incredibly brutal set of par 3s and 4s. Twelve of the 20 par 4s measure over 450 yards. Limiting the scoring chances on the 3s and 4s puts more pressure on par 5 scoring. Those eight holes are no picnic either. Those who can grab a couple of sub-par scores on the 5s will get closer to that 15-under winning score. I mentioned this earlier, and it bears repeating in this week's narrative. Torrey Pines South is the longest course on the PGA TOUR and has the fifth smallest set of greens. Accuracy with your irons is important, but so is apex. The higher your trajectory, the better your chance of holding these greens. Launch it high with a long iron, and you'll make it on to this week's betting card. Outright Winners - Farmers Insurance OpenLPGANew Year's resolutionWhat a difference a year makes! Last January, the LPGA was without a Commissioner as it started the season. As they embark on their 2026 campaign, Craig Kessler and his team have given the world's best women golfers a brand-new platform. The new Commissioner was hired last summer, and his team has hit the ground running. Together, they have breathed new life into the women's professional game. At a time when women's sports are catching a ton of attention, the LPGA was literally unnoticed. A new television deal, a brand-new indoor league (The WTGL), and a bevy of bright stars, foreign and domestic, have us all bullish on the seventy-five-year-old tour. Even with all of this momentum and change, we will start the schedule in the same place as we have since 2022, Lake Nona Golf and Country Club. Let me be clear, the LPGA should be starting here. Fresh off the PGA Merchandise Show one week ago, much of the attention in golf remains in town. Not to mention, Lake Nona is one of the premier host venues on tour. Hey, this isn't rocket science. Find a great course, pull together a stellar field with a celebrity component, and engage a hospitality sponsor in Orlando! The Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions invites 39 players from the LPGA to compete alongside a star-studded field of amateur players, retired professional athletes, and pop-culture celebrities. Sixteen of the top 25 in the Rolex World rankings are competing for a $2.1 million purse. Not bad with fewer than 40 players in the field! No cut, just 72-holes of stroke play to start the season at a world-class country club facility. Lake LifeLake Nona Golf and Country Club is famous for its Tom Fazio golf course (1986) and first-class hospitality. The LPGA has truly found a launching pad for its season. Hey Craig, keep this event going. What better way to start the year than have Nelly play alongside Annika at her home course! The par 72 scorecard stretches 6,642 yards. Not the longest track on tour, Lake Nona tests the women in other ways. Accuracy is the key to success around these fairway turns. This is by far one of Fazio’s best designs. Nine holes have water in play, and the course features 61 bunkers. Twenty-four acres of fairway are surrounded by freshly overseeded rough and overhanging Spanish moss. The average winning score is 16.5 under par over the last four years. All four HGVTOC at LNG&CC winners are major champions. In fact, that's how the women get invited. Each player in the 39-woman field has won at least once in the last two years; that's how they qualify. The celebrities? Well, just RSVP. Nine rookies are competing alongside 30 ladies who have played here before. The modern LPGA player is quite capable of learning and winning on a course like Lake Nona. My betting card will be biased toward experience, but not every player. We saw a ton of rookies win on tour last year. The new wave of players from Japan is incredibly impressive. Watch for one or two of them to contend come Sunday. RTL readers know I spent several seasons working in Orlando at Isleworth CC. Lake Nona and Isleworth are sister clubs. I have covered this tournament on-site on multiple occasions and played the golf course over 20 times. I'll break down those experiences more in the outrights section, but your first impression of LNG&CC will be the same every time. Tom tests the player in multiple ways. Nestled among the lakes of central Florida, the cold forecast and weekend wind will create a championship test. I cannot wait until the celebrities show up and figure out it will be below 50 degrees! The LPGA is going to have a record year, and RTL will be right with them every step of the way. It is time these stars see the spotlight, and our readers get a bunch of outright wins! How to win?When I think about competing at Lake Nona, there’s a very specific strategy I know you need to succeed. You can miss a couple of fairways, but you won’t be able to miss a majority of them and hit these green surfaces, especially in these challenging conditions. The greens are relatively small at 5,900 sq/ft, and the approach angles from the rough make it nearly impossible to hold them. Two years ago, Lydia Ko hit a ton of fairways on her path to victory. Over the past four years, the top 10 finishers have averaged hitting 74% of their fairways. That level of accuracy helped them hit 75% of their GIRs. That’s the first step to winning this week. Hitting a ton of fairways will be important, especially on the longer holes such as the par 5s. Those 16 scoring chances (par 5s, four rounds) are a key to contending. In the past few years, our LNG&CC winners have averaged nine under par on the 5s. Second shots from the rough will wear you out as you try to get close, or on, those greens in two. Watching the world's best women, you can see 75% of the approach shots come from 125-175 yards. That’s longer than the weekly average, but not an insurmountable task for the modern LPGA winner. Master the mid-irons and play conservatively on approach. Go ahead and attack pins with a wedge in your hand, but do not start firing at targets from long range and make mistakes. The winners gain on the greens. What I mean is this tournament will be won by making mid-range putts on Poa Trivialis surfaces. Some of the smoothest greens these ladies will see all season. There’s always a little Bermudagrass grain left in these greens, even with the overseeding, but I'm told the putting surfaces are perfect. Based upon the way they performed the past four years, players benefited a ton from their flatstick. Players who finish in the top 10 gained over two strokes (on average) while contending. These greens aren’t just difficult to hit, but with small shelves and run-offs, they can lead to many 3-putt situations! Navigating them with expert lag putting is a priority. Miss the greens altogether, and you bring in a whole other set of issues. This is where previous course strategy kicks in. I like players who have competed here before because they already have a specific game plan. You cannot miss these putting surfaces in certain places, even if you land on the green. A solid gameplan is required. Players are going to miss fairways, and that will lead to missing GIRs. I took a look at the past leaderboards and compared their par (3, 4, and 5) scoring. We’ve established that par 5s are vital to making sub-par scores, but the leaders definitely played the par 4 holes great as well. Above all else, we want players who can score in difficult conditions. There are moments this weekend where it will play like a British or Scottish Open. Solid ball strikers who can save par are my focus. One-third (or more) of the field is going to eject over the weekend when they feel these conditions. I know this course very well and thoroughly understand the skill set needed. Combine that with a list of players who can survive the lakes, and those ladies are the ones to look for at Nona. Outright Winners - Hilton Grand Vacations TOCRTL Weekly Editorials 📰Do you want to be a better bettor?Become a member of Read The Line today!
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