Pat Mayo’s 2026 Farmers Insurance Open Picks, Sleepers, Stats, Course Preview | Fantasy Golf Picks 2026

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Picks

Pat Mayo takes a deep dive into tournament and player stats with the Rabbit Hole Tool from Betsperts Golf, making his early 2026 Farmers Insurance Open Picks, highlighting stats that matter inside the model, and previewing the course.

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Preview

  • Field: 147 Players
  • Cut: Top 65 and Ties
  • Lineup Lock: Thursday, January 29
  • Defending Champ: Farmers

Once considered the unofficial start of the PGA season, Torrey Pines has lost its luster due to scheduling issues. Plus, no Tiger and Phil as influencers for the event. Even at his most gimped, Tiger routinely made the Farmers his yearly debut, giving the Farmers an extra head turn from the general public. San Diego is one of the 17 places Phil called his “home course,” so he was always here, too. Jon Rahm was another who routinely made starts at Torrey. Which isn’t shocking considering he notched his first PGA TOUR win at this tournament and won a U.S. Open on the grounds. But he’s too busy halfway around the world accepting the “Jon Rahm Award for Excellent Achievement in being Jon Rahm” at the LIV awards at the moment.

Now with Pebble (two weeks) operating as signature event (then another the week following at the Genesis) the fields just don’t have the same BANG to them. Not to say it’s bad. The field remains quite solid, just not amazing. Especially at a course which also doubles as a Major venue.

Xander Schauffele is returning to Torrey Pines after a rib injury kept him out of the Farmers’ a year ago. He’s joined by Cameron Young, J.J Spaun, Justin Rose, Alex Noren, Chris Gotterup, Alex Noren, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg, Maverick McNealy, Patrick Cantlay, Jason Day, and Si Woo Kim.

There are also some of the international contingent making their debuts. Marco Penge is over the illness that kept him out of the first two events and will make his first start this week. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, winner of the Australian Open in December, is making the trek to California as well. RNP played the last two weeks in the Middle East. We’re getting both Hojgaard brothers too: Rasmus was T44 at the AMEX one the weekend while Nicolai was T4 in Dubai.

Let’s be real, though, there’s only one player in La Jolla everyone wants to see: Brooks Koepka. Brooks is making his first since LIV. No clue what to expect from his game. In his final nine LIV starts in 2025, Brooks didn’t finish any better than T17. He made one cut in Majors (T12 at US Open) and looked completely out of sorts until the DP World Tour fall season, where he finished the year 4/T15. Is it a skill issue? Is it a motivation issue? Was/Is he injured? Tuning in to find out is one of the better subplots this tournament has had in years.

There is one thing Farmers does to elevate itself: The course. While I like Sony, mainly because it provides a banger finish almost every season, Torrey Pines is the first real test of the year. It’s not a USGA setup for the Farmers, but it’s difficult enough. If you consider the birdiefests in Hawaii and at AMEX a pre-season warmup, The Farmers remains the true start of the PGA season. As this kicks off a four-week period of awesome events before shifting to Florida.

Some internet people really hate Torrey Pines because of its boring layout. That overlooks the main attribute of a PGA TOUR golf course, its familiarity to the viewer. Of note, these people all look like they exist on a diet of Pop-Tarts and no fresh air.

The event is split between the Torrey Pines North and South courses for the first two days, before the South Course hosts all players who make the cut for the final two rounds. Of note: The North course is about 500 yards shorter and significantly easier than the South Course. There’s only shotlink at the South Course, so any stats you see — this year or researching previous seasons — will only be from that course.

I’m not normally someone who dabbles in DraftKings single-round showdown contests; however, the first two rounds of this event are the exception. Stack bombers at the North Course and maybe print. I still have leftover funds from doing this last year…

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Key Stats

  • Strokes Gained: Approach
  • Strokes Gained: Around The Green
  • Proximity Gained: 200+ Yards
  • Par 4s Gained: 450-500 Yards
  • Ball Speed

Mayo’s Key Stat Rankings Powered by the Rabbit Hole Tool

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Course(s)

Torrey Pines South (Three Rounds)

  • Par: 72
  • Yardage: 7,765
  • Greens: Poa
  • Green Size: 5000 sq. Feet
  • Shot Tracker: Yes
  • Water Holes: 1
  • Bunkers: 82

Par 3’s (4): Average Distance — 208 yards

  • English: Five bogeys in three rounds on the South course … the first three were Par 3’s
  • The only three holes that are par’d over two-thirds of the time are all Par 3’s

Par 4’s (10): Average Distance — 457 yards

  • English: Didn’t birdie a Par 4 on Sunday
  • Three holes have a bogey rate over 27%, they are all Par 4’s, and two on the back-9

Par 5’s (4): Average Distance — 593 yards

  • English: five straight Par 5 birdies bridging Saturday and Sunday
  • The four easiest holes on the course, the two lowest bogey rates on property come on the two Par 5’s on the front-9 (both under 8.5% with a birdie rate over 30%)

Torrey Pines North (One Round)

  • Par: 72
  • Yardage: 7,258
  • Greens: Bentgrass
  • Green Size: 6000 sq. Feet
  • Shot Tracker: No
  • Water Holes: 0
  • Bunkers: 42

Par 3’s (4): Average Distance — 215 yards

  • English bogey’d the first Par 3 of the week (par’d the other 3)
  • All four rank among the eight toughest on property

Par 4’s (10): Average Distance — 426 yards

  • English birdied three of the five Par 4’s on the back-9
  • Two of the three toughest holes are Par 4’s on the front half of the front-9

Par 5’s (4): Average Distance — 535 yards

  • English birdied the two front-9 Par 5’s (rest of the front-9: +1)
  • Three have an eagle rate of +3% (two include a birdie rate over 51%)

2026 Farmers Insurance Open DFS Streak

The rare, very clear advantage takes place at The Farmers for Showdown players. Since the field alternates between courses for the first two days, target bombers at the easier North Course for DraftKings Showdown purposes. If your golfers can start on Hole No. 1 instead of Hole No. 10, that’d be a big advantage, too. No need to get tricky or too cute, though. Simply stack six golfers from the North Course on Thursday and Friday, and you’re way out of the field. It’s the best two rounds of the year to play DK showdown.

Hole 18 on the North Course is the toughest on the property (average score: +0.22), and Holes 2-3-4 are also among the five most difficult. Hole 17 is a gimme (60.1% under par rate), and Hole 1 is average, but getting home on #18 is a tough ask, and if you fail to get #17, you’re drawing close to dead when it comes to a wrap-around streak.

There are a few ways to streak when playing this course in order, the statistically most likely being the 9-10-11 stretch that features a pair of Par 5s. Hole 11 is a short Par 4 with a 27% birdie rate. You can be aggressive here with two holes holding an under-par rate north of 44% prior; one good wedge shot puts you in position for the bonus.

In 2025, Round 1 went exactly to plan, with the North playing far easier than the South. Round 2… not so much. Unexpectedly high winds forced the players off the course for a while and made the North Course tougher than almost ever before. That was an outlier. If anything, it will convince people to use SC players in their showdown builds instead of a complete stack of NC golfers. The current weather report isn’t showing much of any gusts this time around.

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Past Winners

2026 Farmers Insurance Open WINNER NOTES

2025 – Harris English (+8000), -8 beats Sam Stevens by 1

– The top-8 finishers all lost ground putting 20-25, but seven of them gained 5-10 feet

– 12 of the top 13 on the final DraftKings leaderboard were priced under $8,000 (Sungjae Im was the exception, Tony Finau missed the cut as the 3rd most expensive golfer)

2024 – Matthieu Pavon (+12500), -13 beats Nicolai Hojgaard by 1

– Pavon: Friday 65 was his best round by four strokes

– 17 of the top-19 finishers gained ground on the Par 5’s

2023 – Max Homa (+2000, tied for 7th shortest odds), -13 beats Keegan Bradley by 2

– 9 gained 4.5+ strokes with the putter, and five of them cashed top-10 paychecks

– Of the top-8 finishers, all of them gained fairways while six lost driving distance

2022 – Luke List (+6000), -15 before topping Will Zalatoris in a playoff

– Five strokes better than Zalatoris on Sunday (66, his best round of the week)

– Finishing position for the top approach golfers of the week (starting with the best SG: APP): 2nd-11th-20th-1st-6th-6th

2021 – Patrick Reed (+2500, tied for 4th shortest odds), -14 beats five (Finau, Hovland, Schauffele, Palmer, and Norlander) by 5

7 of the top 9 finishers gained ground on approach from 175-200 AND 200+ yards

The top-9 all gained ground on the Par 5’s (Reed was the best player by a mile on Prox 75-100 for the week)

2020: Marc Leishman (+5000)

– A hot putter carried him over Jon Rahm by a stroke. He was +8 strokes putting (Rahm was next best at +5.9) and that was enough despite losing ground (albeit slightly) both off the tee and around the green)

– 17 of the top-20 finishers gained distance off the tee (Rory McIlroy finished T-3 despite gaining just 0.6 strokes with the putter as a result of the third most ground gained distance-wise from the tee box)

2026 Farmers Insurance Open First Round Leaders

2025 ROUND 1

2024 ROUND 1

2023 ROUND 1

2022 ROUND 1

THE CUSTYS BALLOT IS LIVEEEE!!!!!!!!! Remember, you only get to vote once, so take your time on your selections. I’ve been having problems deciding on WORST TAKE

VOTE FOR THE 2026 CUSTY AWARDS

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Notes

14 of the past 17 winners have posted a top 10 at this event prior to winning. Mathieu Pavon and Jon Rahm won in their first starts in 2024 and 2017. So beware of a first time EURO in 2031. Scott Stallings in 2014 was the other exception.

Torrey Pines South is the longest course in the annual PGA Tour rotation.

12 of the past 19 winners at the Farmers have finished the season inside the top 30 in Driving Distance, but this trend has starts to swing back the other way over the past five years with winners like Patrick Reed, Marc Leishman, Max Homa and Harris English. Distance will help dominate the North Course, but when the conditions ratchet up, a pure blend of T2G with some hot putting is required.

Very rarely does Strokes Gained: Around The Green factor into the winning score. However, the greens at the South Course are tiny and pairing an average-or-better short game with a big driver is tested method to crack the Sunday leaderboard. Not the only way, but the path of least resistance. Obviously, fairways + distance off the tee will equal a slew of GIRs, which would be optimal, but that’s just simply unfeasible for three rounds on this course with the average scrambling percentage hovering around 55%.

If you feel the need to put shorter hitters in your lineups, make sure they gain strokes off the tee through their accuracy and know how to hit a long iron. There are six par 4s measuring over 450 yards and five of them are inside the six most difficult holes on Torrey Pines South; they all played over par. Holes No. 12 and No. 15 are two of the 50 toughest holes on the PGA Tour almost every year, majors included.

The driving accuracy percentage of players who made the cut generally hovers around 50%. Both courses sport some of the most difficult fairways to hit every season.

Although Poa Annua putting surfaces tend to run slower on average, expect greens on the South Course to run faster because of the windy and dry conditions. After renovations in 2016, there’s actually a split in grass type between the putting surfaces at the courses when the North Course switched to bentgrass. Both courses average more three-putts than the PGA Tour average.

2026 Farmers Insurance Open Picks

Nicolai Hojgaard — Nicolai was trending better towards the end of last season with three Top 15 finishes over his final five PGA TOUR starts including a T4 in Scotland and a T14 at The Open. He’s made four starts worldwide since, going T3/T11 in the DP World Tour playoffs, and a T52/T4 run through Dubai the past two weeks. Nicolai’s fifth in the field in ball speed, third in distance, and earned a silver medal in his first and only start at The Farmers in 2024.

Pierceson Coody — Coody made all five cuts in the swing and has opened 2026 with a pair of Top 15 finishes. He’s first in SG: OTT over the past six months with his lethal combo of distance (3rd) and accuracy (35th) to compliment his improving short game (26th in the field over the past six months). There’s a worry his awful performance in two career starts may be just who Coody is at Torrey Pines, but I choo-choo choose to believe he’s simply a better player now. Plus, La Jolla a very expensive enclave of San Diego, so there’s a good chance Coody’s family owned seven summer homes in the area in his formative years, so expect him to be quite familiar with the terrain.