In about ten hours, I will be hopping on a plane to Dallas to see one of my good friends Doug. He and I played on the golf team in college and lived together for one year. He works at Farmers Insurance which is sponsoring the Farmers Insurance Open so we will be likely watching that as well. Before I get to who are my picks this week, I thought I would tell you my plans while I am down there.
Since Illinois is covered in snow, golf has been non existent for about a month. So we are going to play 18 holes for sure, possibly 36. One of the courses we picked out is called The Tribute. The 18 hole complex is remakes of famous Scottish golf holes throughout Europe. I am very excited to play some of these famous holes! Also, I hear the mexican and southern barbecue is top notch so we will be making a few stops at these establishments.
Alright, onto my golf picks. The great thing about this tournament is that it is played on two separate courses. You have the famous South Course of Torrey Pines which plays much harder than the shorter North Course. So strategy is very important for the first two rounds. So after the first round, I will be flip-flopping each player no matter how bad they played the South Course.
In my A group, I have Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. I don't need to talk about Tiger's track record at Torrey Pines. I am a little hesitant to use one of my ten picks on Phil at this tournament but he has had some quality finishes here and he is a perfect match for Tiger since they are on opposite courses the first two rounds.
In the B group, I have Ryuji Imada and Rickie Fowler for the first round. Both Imada and Fowler have had good showings here. I really believe Imada will get a top ten which is all I can ask from him. Fowler might be a little rusty (I feel like he has not worked that hard on his game with his time off) but hopefully he surprises me. Plus he can go low.
Then I have Ben Crane and Justin Rose to use in the second round. Ben Crane the defending champion keeps the ball in play and that is needed on the South Course. He is my safety pick pretty much for the weekend. Not going to go really low but also not going to shoot a 76 and get me a goose egg in points. Justin seems to finally be putting better which is what you need at Torrey. He is my sleeper pick for this week.
The C group always gives me fits during the season. So what I look for is track record and these two players have it. Charles Howell III and J.B. Holmes. Charles always plays great here and he had a good tournament last week so it was a no brainer picking him. Plus I stop using him once the West Coast Swing is over because he always dies off for the rest of the season and I don't want to be trying to guess which tournament he will get a top 10 in. Holmes has had good success here (Top 30 last year) and his putting has gotten so much better over the last year. Plus he has been tweeting a lot about how excited he is for this tournament and I love Twitter!
