Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions – 2025 Farmers Insurance Open

Fantasy Golf Picks, Odds, and Predictions for the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open

The 2025 Farmers Insurance Open Fantasy Preview

The lore of sticking with ball-strikers when they have the hot hand was evidenced once more on Sunday when Sepp Straka clinched victory at the American Express. The Austrian had been driving the ball superbly on the Hawaiian Swing, also hitting laser-style approaches, but he just couldn’t get putts to drop.

However, back on the American mainland, Straka found an extra gear on the easy greens of the three host venues, and after opening up a four-shot lead with a round to play, he took the easy, no risk approach to closing out victory. And although Justin Thomas got within two, with Straka making his first bogeys of the week at the 70th and 72nd holes, in the end it mattered very little as the Austrian wrapped up the third PGA TOUR title of his increasingly successful career.

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The West Coast Swing sees the action press on to San Diego this week for the Farmers Insurance Open. Be aware: the action gets underway on Wednesday, running through ‘til Sunday, as the PGA TOUR shows some deference to the NFL Championship games.

Last Week’s Fantasy Results

Last week we ended up wtih three players finishing in the top seven including our top pick, Justin Lower (T3), who was one of our key Sleeper Picks.   

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cash in on anything significant; so we move on to Torrey Pines for some redemption this week!

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Farmers Insurance Open Field

Once again, it’s the list of players not competing at Torrey Pines that raises as many eyebrows as those that are. Scottie Scheffler is still recuperating from his hand surgery and won’t tee it up, and neither – surprisingly – will Xander Schauffele, with the San Diegan missing his hometown event for the first time in years.

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Collin Morikawa and last year’s runner-up, Nicolai Hojgaard, have both withdrawn from the field, leaving just five members of the world’s top 20 – Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg, Keegan Bradley, Sahith Theegala, and Sungjae Im – in situ. Last year’s shock Farmers Insurance Open champion, Matthieu Pavon, returns to try and defend his honor, while other notables in the mix include Tony Finau, Shane Lowry, Akshay Bhatia, and former Torrey Pines winners in Max Homa and Jason Day.

This Week’s Course Preview

It’s another split course rotation this week, albeit Torrey Pines is our host for all 72 holes of action. The field is split in two and tackles the North Course and the South Course in their opening 36 holes, before the action is played out exclusively on the South over the weekend (N.B. the final 36 holes are played on Friday and Saturday this week).

The North Course offers little in the way of description, in that it’s a very standard Par 72 layout, but the players need to be fully focused here: a scoring average of around -2.5 under par last year confirms that the North is so much easier than the South. The South Course has previously hosted the U.S. Open, and with a scoring average of +0.4 here 12 months ago, you get a sense of the challenges that lie ahead.
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A punishingly long 7,765 yards for its Par 72, three of the Par 3s measure 200+ yards, while seven of the Par 4s are 450+ yards… including a 505-yard behemoth at 12. Three of the Par 5s are easy enough, but the thirteenth measures some 621 yards, so the South Course provides a stern physical examination as well as a strong test of golf.

With relatively narrow fairways too, many of the players will spend much of their week trying to find small(ish) Poa Annua greens from the rough, with some of those undulating and protected by sand. Although the South Course would not be described as hard, the total winning score at the Farmers Insurance Open has ranged from -13 to -15 over the past five years, with a good chunk of that scored on the North Course.

So the vibe is somewhat different this week to how it’s been lately on TOUR…

Weather Forecast for San Diego, CA

SAN DIEGO WEATHER

The idea is that the Farmers Insurance Open will run from Wednesday through to Saturday… organizers will be hoping so, anyway, with the possibility of some heavy rain in the forecast for Saturday. At least things should kick off in settled fashion, with sunny spells intermittent with cloud and top temperatures of 69 degrees. Thursday could see wall-to-wall sunshine, with an increase in temperature – 75 degrees – matched by increasing wind speeds of up to 10mph.

Friday looks set to be very similar to Wednesday, while as for Saturday, persistent rain showers are showing in the early predictions, with temperatures that have fallen as low as 60 degrees.

Last Year’s Results from Farmers Insurance Open

The 150/1 outsider Matthieu Pavon won the Farmers Insurance Open 12 months ago, and as well as being an underdog he also had to do things the hard way after only shooting 69 at the North Course in his opening round.

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But a stunning 65 at the South Course on Thursday – the lowest of the entire tournament, propelled the Frenchman back up the leaderboard. Pavon consolidated in tougher conditions on the Friday, to leave himself one adrift of the 54-hole leader, Stephan Jaeger. Four bogeys on Saturday saw Jaeger slip out of the reckoning, while Nicolai Hojgaard wasn’t quite able to put enough pressure on Pavon; he had to settle for second place.

Pavon, in just his third start as a PGA TOUR cardholder, shrugged off a bogey at the first hole to complete his front nine in -4, before a clutch birdie at the 72nd hole was enough for him to cement that one-shot lead over Hojgaard.

Where to Play Fantasy Golf for this Week’s Farmers Insurance Open

The American Express does not vintage DFS potential, but the Farmers Insurance Open does in its way: a unique player profile, on Poa Annua greens, perhaps producing leaderboards that can be predictable, more or less. So here’s two contests in which we can aim to take advantage…

• GOLF TOUR $175k Drive the Green: We can keep it simple with this $5 entry game, which requires us to power through a huge field of rivals, but rewards us if we can with big prizes… not least the $25k jackpot.
• GOLF TOUR $30k Dogleg: If you want a smaller field to try and beat, why not leverage our advantage in a single-entry contest? This $33 game boasts a sizable prize fund, with a bounty of $3k for the winner.

This Week’s Fantasy Notes for Farmers Insurance Open

Some high-quality tee-to-green merchants have won at Torrey Pines over the years, and with finishes of solo fifth and T12 in the U.S. Open and The Masters last season, who knows maybe Pavon will eventually join that company. Max Homa, the 2023 champion, is a ball-striking star from California, Luke List – for all his putting woes – is excellent off the tee and on approach, while Patrick Reed is a former winner at Augusta National. And that’s just the three prior winners to Pavon, with the likes of Jon Rahm, Justin Rose, Jason Day, and other high calibre operators worthy of a mention.

The nature of Torrey Pines South is one of a technical layout, favoring those who hit long and straight off the tee, and who can hit accurate approaches throughout the bag into some smaller-than-average greens. Another point of difference of Torrey Pines is the switch to Poa Annua greens, which of course tends to favor some players – Californians and West Coast merchants in particular – over others.

This is about easy length off the tee, and that ability to find the greens with approaches from 150 yards right through to 250+ yards, so quality with all of your long game clubs is vital. As far as course correlations are concerned, Riviera Country Club has been a good guide over the years. A long ball-strikers test played on Poa Annua, in the past five years the likes of Tony Finau and Will Zalatoris have finished second at both layouts, Homa and Rahm have won at both, while List has prevailed at Torrey Pines and finished second at Riviera.

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Our Top 5 (and Top 2 Sleeper) Fantasy Picks and Odds to Win the Farmers Insurance Open   

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Top 5 Picks/Odds to Win the Farmers Insurance Open  

Top Tier Pick # 1

Ludvig Aberg (Odds: 11/1, FPPG: 101.4, Salary: $10,800)

There’s probably not all that much to choose between Ludvig Aberg and Hideki Matsuyama, although it’s the Swede’s easier, natural power that we are favoring. His length and accuracy off the tee will surely hand Aberg a huge edge at Torrey Pines, where he can expect to find more fairways than most… with the added bonus of being about 30 yards longer than many, too.

The Swede has shown approach play class throughout the yardage bucket, and a maiden look at this pair of courses yielded a T9 finish here 12 months ago. Having also showed well at Augusta National, where long-range accuracy is key, Aberg should once again give a strong account of himself at Torrey Pines.

Key Stats (2024):

• Scoring Average (adjusted) – 8th
• SG: Off-the-Tee – 14th
• SG: Approach – 21st

Top Tier Pick #2

Keegan Bradley (Odds: 25/1, FPPG: 102.0, Salary: $9,900)

Plenty expected Keegan Bradley to go well at the Sony Open, and that’s exactly what he did: gaining strokes on the field in all five of the major strokes gained categories, before finishing just three shots adrift of Nick Taylor and Nico Echavarria.

It’s noteworthy, because Bradley can be expected to go well again at Torrey Pines, too. Within his last seven trips to the property, Bradley has finished second, fourth, and fifth, and he routinely plays well here: he’s made the cut in 12/14 starts. Another with success to his name at Augusta National and Riviera, where he once finished runner-up, Bradley has what it takes to thrive in San Diego.

Key Stats (2024):

• Total Driving – 15th
• SG: Approach – 41st
• Proximity to Hole – 48th

Mid-Tier Pick #1

J.J. Spaun (Odds: 55/1, FPPG: 75.4, Salary: $7,900)

Spaun has hit upon some form early in 2025, posting the best approach play numbers in the field on his way to T3 at the Sony Open. He wasn’t quite able to back that up at the American Express, but it’s worth noting that he finished T29 there despite losing a mammoth -1.42 putting in his 36 measured holes at the Stadium Course.

The more technical test on offer at Torrey Pines should prove far more suitable, with Spaun positing a previous best of T9 here. Given what we saw from him in Hawaii, we can hope for further improvement on that.

Key Stats (2024):

• Proximity to Hole – 14th
• SG: Approach – 17th
• Par 5 Birdie or Better Leaders – 47th

Mid-Tier Pick #2

Jhonattan Vegas (Odds: 80/1, FPPG: 81.1, Salary: $7,400)

We’re not going to read too much into the missed cut at the American Express – an outcome that can happen to anyone in amongst the variance of the three course, pro-am format. Instead, we’re going to take a punt that The Sentry version of Jhonattan Vegas turns up in San Diego. In that Hawaiian outing, he drove the ball well and delivered the best approach play numbers in a stellar field, finishing solo fourth.

Vegas will get a real premium on his long, accurate ball striking at Torrey Pines, a venue he hasn’t missed visiting once in the past 14 years. His record is mixed, as you would expect over such a long timeframe, but there’s a T3 finish in there as well as T11 and T18. The key is that Vegas is playing better golf now than he has for some time… so we can hope optimistically for one of his better Torrey Pines returns.

Key Stats (2024):

• SG: Off-the-Tee – 8th
• SG: Approach – 22nd
• Par 5 Birdie or Better Leaders – 24th

Low-Tier Pick

Taylor Moore (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 72.2, Salary: $7,300)

Although only so much can be taken from a set of 36-hole data, which we have from the American Express, it’s noteworthy that Taylor Moore produced his best approach play numbers since the Genesis Invitational last February. He’s posted T12 at the PGA Championship and T20 at The Masters in-between, but rather leant on his easy power off the tee and excellent short game.

If Moore is able to improve on approach, we have a guy who has won at the tricky Innisbrook before, and whose success at Augusta National shows he’s happy grinding out a score in long, punishing conditions. T11 at Torrey Pines in 2023, Moore has scope to build on that showing.

Key Stats (2024):

• Total Birdies – 20th
• Driving Distance – 45th
• SG: Putting – 55th

Sleeper Pick for the Farmers Insurance Open

Sam Stevens (Odds: 100/1, FPPG: 87.2, Salary: $7,300)

T13 in this event on debut, the requirement to hit big certainly suits Sam Stevens, who is not found wanting in that department. What’s interesting this year is that he heads to Torrey Pines on the back of some much-improved approach play numbers; his best in a year, in fact.

If Stevens can relocate his elite putting, which seems to have deserted him since the Fall, then all of a sudden we have a serious player on our hands. Predicting where he’ll pop will be key, but he has previous at Torrey Pines and the necessarily length to thrive.

Key Stats (2024):

• SG: Off-the-Tee – 17th
• Greens in Regulation – 31st
• SG: Putting – 38th

Alternative Sleeper Pick for the Farmers Insurance Open

Jackson Suber (Odds: 200/1, FPPG: 72.0, Salary: $6,900)

Answers on a postcard if you can fathom how Jackson Suber shot 65 at the Stadium Course last week, and then went round in 77 at La Quinta Country Club. That defies logic, although the takeaway point is that this PGA TOUR rookie is putting up some strong numbers right now. Fresh from +1.56 on approach at the Sony Open, Suber also gained heartily on the field at the Stadium Course – including +3.01 on approach on Thursday.

Maybe the 25-year-old simply enjoys golf courses that test ball-striking ability… it will be fascinating to see how he fares on debut at Torrey Pines.

Key Stats (2024):

• N/A

This Week’s Sample Fantasy Lineup

Note: Sample lineups provided as examples only.  Be sure to mix-and-match to best fit individual contests.

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Fantasy Golf Predictions – This Season 

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