2025 Farmers Insurance Open Picks, Odds, and Course Preview

Last week saw Sepp Straka run the table on the field and grab the third win of his career. The Austrian once again proved that he’s one of the best iron players in the world when he’s on and held off late charges from Jason Day and Justin Thomas.

I targeted Straka in the article in the first two events, so watching him win was bittersweet, even if I did have some insurance dollars on him this week.

Will Zalatoris still had a solid run cashing a top-20, but just missed the top eight needed to cash his each-way.

Farmers Insurance Open Betting Preview

While it’s technically the fourth event on the calendar, the Farmers Insurance Open often marks the real start to the new PGA season. We leave the cushy resort-style properties and the warm weather, and venture deep into the West Coast to one of the Tour’s oldest and most revered settings in Torrey Pines.

While it’s not everyone's cup of tea, Torrey Pines is the first course on the schedule this year that is capable of biting the players back. The 7,600+ yards venue is a true championship course that hosted one of the more famous US Opens in 2008—when Tiger Woods defeated Rocco Mediate on one leg—and also hosted it again in 2021, an event won by Jon Rahm. 

As evidenced by its long list of classy winners (Tiger (x8), Phil Mickelson (x2), Jason Day (x2), Jon Rahm, Justin Rose), the venue rewards players who can do it all as there’s really no part of a players game that will go untested here. The longer rough and longer course aside, the greens at Torrey Pines South are also unique as the pure POA greens tend to drive some players insane—while elevating others—every season. 

Last year, Mathieu Pavon tamed them better than almost anyone, gaining +6.0 strokes putting for the week and nailing a brilliant final round 69 for the win.

The event is also an interesting one for bettors as the players will start by playing one of the first two rounds on the much tamer Torrey Pines North and then venture over to the South course for the weekend. It opens up a lot of interesting in-play opportunities here and live—betting at this event in the outright market can be quite profitable. The winner here often has at least one double bogey or worse on their card too, so fading early leaders here is generally a great idea.

Off-the-tee play at Torrey Pines used to be the go-to stat, but that has changed in recent seasons. Elite putters like Patrick Reed, Marc Leishman, and last season Pavon, have taken over of late and proven that you don’t necessarily need to be ultra-long to tame this venue.

Still, this venue does stretch out beyond 7,600 yards so great off-the-tee play this week is a huge plus. Ultimately, it will come down to sinking putts late on these unpredictable greens, and players with experience on POA and a good history on the West Coast are often the ones that prevail here.

Pavon’s longshot win aside, the more a player has played on this side of the world the better as most of the winners at Torrey Pines tended to be more battle-tested pliers who have taken on this venue or others on this side of the US multiple times.  

We’ll discuss more about the course and history below before getting into the bets.

Let’s dive in and get our Farmers Insurance Open PGA week started!

Farmers Insurance Open 2025 Course Preview 

The Course

• Torrey Pines South/North, used from 1965 to present
• Field Size: 150+ players
• 7,697 yards, Par 72 (South)
• Greens: Poa Annua (South)
• Fairway: Kikuyu overseeded with Ryegrass
• Rough: Kikuyu overseeded with Ryegrass
• Architect: William P. Bell and William F. Bell (1957)
• Alterations/Renovation: South - Rees Jones (2001), North – Tom Weiskopf (2016)

Torrey Pines South is a completely different challenge than what the players will have been exposed to so far this year.  It’s consistently ranked as one of the hardest courses on tour and yields one of the lowest birdie or better percentages every season.

From a statistical perspective, the venue produces a ton of long iron shots with the most popular basket being from >200 yards. Consistency off the tee is a big deal here but it’s far from the only thing players need to be good at this week. The field’s scrambling and GIR% are always far lesser than the Tour average and three-putts here are more common than normal as well. Torrey Pines consistently ranks as one of the hardest courses to hole putts on from inside ten feet so don’t be overly shocked if you see players missing an abnormal amount of short putts.

While we have seen this course yield a few more birdies than normal the past couple of years, it’s worth noting that the wind is expected to be well above 10mph on Thursday and Saturday’s final round (the event starts on Wednesday) has rain in the forecast.

One final note on Torrey for betting purposes, the draw here has produced a few different trends. Nine of the last 14 winners have had a South/North draw—meaning they played the South course on Thursday and the North on Friday.

However, five of the last six winners (2019-2024) have started on the North course, including Pavon last season who shot 65 on Torrey South in Round 2.

The previous idea was that playing the South Course three days in a row was a disadvantage given how tough it plays but perhaps the ability to play the same course three days running is proving to be a better draw.

2025 Farmers Insurance Open Betting Trends

Below are the previous 5 winners of the Farmers Insurance Open and their pre-event odds from the beginning of the week of the event.

Pavon was one of the biggest longshot winners this event has seen in recent years. Still, longshots have been a thing at this event, and with the unpredictable greens and two courses in play, you can understand why.

Favorites can often shoot themselves out of the tournament if they don’t go low on Torrey North or don’t get the lay of the greens early on. I’m not sure if I’ll go as far as 150-1 with my best this week but certainly, as you’ll see below, I like at least a couple of players in that same 80-1 range where both Luke List and Marc Leishman fell in recent seasons.

Betting Odds For The 2025 Farmers Insurance Open

*Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

Picks for the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open

Sahith Theegala

• Each-Way Top 8 (1/5): +2800 (bet365)
• Each-Way Top 3: +4500 (bet365)

I like this spot for Theegala quite a bit.

The industry seems to be very high on Will Zalatoris and Jason Day this week, which isn’t necessarily a mistake, but it’s driven the prices down on those two names while Theegala remains in the +2800 to +3200 range at most sportsbooks. Given the body of work Theegala has put in over the past season, I’m not sure the premium on the other two men is deserved.

Theegala has started a little slow in 2025 but he’s also become a solid West Coast performer, who nabbed his first win at the Procore Championship in the fall of 2023 out in Napa Valley. He’s also done well at several other stops along this swing including Phoenix (T-3 in 2022), The Genesis at Riviera in Los Angeles (T-6 in 2023), and of course at this week’s stop, Torrey Pines, where he finished T-25 in 2022 and T-4 in 2023.

On top of excelling at Torrey Pines, he’s also tended to handle longer golf courses extremely well. He placed T-9 at Augusta on his first go-around there in 2023, nabbed a T-5 at the always-tough Muirfield Village in 2022, and found himself in the top five going into the final round of the PGA at the lengthy Valhalla last season before a poor final round pushed him to T12.

From a greens perspective, the switch to POA also looks to be positive, as he’s got positive POA putting splits, having gained 10.5 strokes over his last 24 rounds putting on Poa Greens, versus losing 1.27 strokes on Bermuda.

I like the +2800 on the each-way to top-8 we’re getting, and added some exposure to him at +4500 with an each-way to the top 3 on bet365 as well.

Kurt Kitayama 

• Each-Way Top-8 (1/5): +3300 (bet365)
• Top 20: +187

Kitayama isn’t a player who gets a ton of press, but I do think he sets up for these tougher kinds of courses extremely well. The American has landed two of his three professional wins now with winning scores of -9 or worse, including an improbable victory at Bay Hill in 2023 where he took down an elite field.

He’s an elite driver of the ball who comes in ranked 9th in strokes gained off the tee stats and 4th in strokes gained approach and posted three top-25 finishes during the fall, including a T-5 at his last start at the Zozo in Japan.

The American has yet to follow up on that breakout win from 2023, but judging by his recent play he may not be far off. He’s yet to make the cut at Torrey Pines in two appearances but he’s also a West Coast native and has had success at the nearby Pebble Beach—where he was in the final group back in 2023. I expect that his experience and overall skillset will translate to a big finish at Torrey Pines soon.

Coming in off a T-37 at the Sony, where he gained 3.2 strokes OTT he’s very under the radar this week, which is to my liking and still available well above +3000 in the each-way market, which is big enough for me considering the lack of depth in this field.

Gary Woodland

• Each-Way Top-8 (1/5): +8000 (bet365)
• Top 20: +375

Woodland rates out as the kind of veteran player with experience on the West Coast who can excel at Torrey Pines and in this weakened field. 

He recorded a T-16 at the Sanderson Farms and a T-9 at the Shriners in October, displaying the same kind of elite ball-striking that helped him win his first and only major in 2019 at the West Coast-based Pebble Beach in 2019.

He started off the season nicely too with a T-16 at the Sony Open and 2025 will mark his 15th appearance at this event and at Torrey Pines, with him having recorded two top 10s over that span.

In short, Woodland has the sort of experience and form that makes him similar in stature to past veteran champions of Torrey Pines like Brandt Snedeker and Justin Rose, who also found late-career wins here.

I think the number is a little too inflated on Woodland this week, who has really started to look more like his old self of late and carries an amazing bag of experience he can look to if the proceedings get tough or the pressure gets high on Saturday.

Michael Thorbjornsen 

• Outright: +8000 (FanDuel)
• Top 10: +650
• Top 20: +300

Since we went the veteran route with our first longshot, I’m not opposed to taking a flyer on the 23-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen this week, who is starting to look more and more like he might be the next big thing in golf.

Thorbjornsen had to pull out of the season-opening Sony Open with tonsillitis, but shouldn’t be discounted too much this week for a slow start to the year. He had some heady moments in the tail half of 2024, landing a T-2 at the John Deere and closing his fall swing with two straight T-8s.

While the ball-striking has been a bit up and down, Thorbjornsen has already proven he can gain big in pretty much every single area of the game, including the greens where he’s notably excelled on POA Annua at the East Coast-based TPC River Highlands (T4-2022).

A Stanford grad, who is sure to be familiar with courses like Torrey Pines, Thorbjornsen also fits the mold of other young stars of past seasons like Jon Rahm and Nicolai Hojgaard, who found immediate success on their first go-round Torrey on the PGA.

At big prices, I’m all for taking a go with Thorbjornsen this week and laddering him all the way through the top 20 to outright markets.

Taylor Montgomery 

• Top 20: +900 (bet365)

I’m throwing in one flyer this week on a top-20-only play with a golfer who has excelled at this week’s venue since joining the PGA a few years ago.

The 29-year-old Taylor Montgomery is a hyper-volatile player, as his ball-striking remains maddingly inconsistent. Luckily for Montgomery, he’s also one of the best pure putters on the PGA, a fact that is reflected in both the stats (11th in SG: PUTT over the last 24 rounds) and his results.

Even in a down season last year, Montgomery still managed three top-20 finishes in 18 PGA starts, a 15% hit rate which is better than the 10% implied odds offered on him at +900. He’s also excelled at Torrey Pines over the last three seasons, gaining over 5.0 strokes putting in both 2022 (T-11) and 2024 (T-13).

While he missed the cut last week, Montgomery did gain over 3.0 strokes on approach at the Sony and had made three cuts in a row before missing at the Amex. I’d play him down to +800 this week given the course history and improved ball-striking we saw in Hawaii.