Tournament Matchups Farmers Insurance Open Well, the rain moved up to Las Vegas and sunny skies in San Diego made for a wonderful Wed afternoon to scout out the field at Torrey Pines for the Farmers Insurance Open.
First off, with the heavy rain last week and more on Tuesday has made this track play as long if not longer than ever before. If they use the U.S. Open tees from 2008, I doubt more than a handful could break par. However, the rough has been cut down to one inch in spots and is not penal.
We saw Phil Mickelson up close and personal. He hit two crooked drives and missed some easy putts. He does not seem sharp, rusty and his swing is crossing the line at the top, but I will not go against him here at his home course. I don't think he'll win. Perhaps with a tune-up, next week at Riviera, he might be a look ahead bet, as he defends that title the Northern Trust Open.
So, what kind of player should fare well this week? Long and straight always sounds good, but this week it is paramount. I look for long hitting players like Dustin Johnson, Charles Howell III, Bill Haas (LWs Winner), Ernie Els and Robert Allenby to be on or near the lead.
[B]Charles Howell III -120 [/B]vs. Luke Donald
The punters over in the UK love Donald. He is always a top scoring average machine. Even though he has a good record in this event, he'll always recall a major wrist injury that put him on the shelf for 6 months after he sprained his right wrist badly in the U.S Open at Torrey. He hasn't been the same since. We saw him today on the first tee on the South course. He was out of rhythm and pushed his tee shots.
CH3 has had 2 runner ups in this event. I got word today from a golf handicapping friend that he has really worked hard this off season, conditioning wise. And it has shown with a T5 at the Sony and T26 LW at the Hope.
Donald in his only start this year missed the cut at the Sony Open.
[B]KJ Choi -115[/B] vs. Stuart Appleby
KJ had a very poor year last year, and then also add that his Korean buddy Y E Yang won a major and played on the Presidents Cup team. Yang has become the superstar golfer in his homeland now. We look for KJ to bounce back and have a good season and I predict he'll be back in the winners circle soon.
KJ played the Sony and a T39 was OK, but the final two rounds were very sharp with a 67-68. Appleby missed the cut at the Sony and has been a go against for over a year now. He had only one Top 10 in his last 26 starts.
We saw KJ on the putting green today. We went to the range, the first tee, had lunch and back to the range etc...and KJ was still there 4 hours later working hard on his putting.
Check back with us throughout the week for more possible round by round/head to head matchups.
