Farmers Insurance Open 2023 - Betting Tips £300

Location: San Diego - Torrey Pines North and South Courses. Wednesday and Thursday each player plays each course, with the South Course used for the weekend which is the course used in the US Open. (This event starts and finishes a day early due to the NFL schedule on Sunday).

North Course, par 72, 7,258 yards, stroke average in 2022 - 70.13

South Course, par 72, 7,258 yards, stroke average in 2022 - 68.77

Field: 10 of the OWGR top 20 tee it up this week with Rahm (3), Schauffele (6) and Zalatoris (7) the top 3 ranked players.

Purse: $8.7m - with the winner taking $1.556m

Horses for courses: In the last 5 years unsurprisingly (and not including the US Open win) Rahm (69.29) has the lowest average score at the Farmers. Justin Rose (69.33), Ryan Palmer (69.65), Will Zalatoris (69.70) and Tony Finau (69.91) all average under 70 to make the top 5.

Previous Winners and their prices:

2022 - Luke List 94/1

2021 - Patrick Reed 35/1

2020 - Marc Leishman 80/1

2019 - Justin Rose 18/1

2018 - Jason Day 25/1

2017 - Jon Rahm 55/1

2016 - Brandt Snedeker 18/1

Betting Summary:

If you're willing to ignore Jon Rahm then on the face of it there's value to be found.

22 for Justin Thomas with a field of average strength at best stands out - so does Hideki at 60 and Cameron Champ at 280.

I just can't look beyond Rahm who I backed in 2021 for the US Open at a track he loves - so when he's won 3 out of his last 4 events he's going to turn up at Torrey Pines expecting to win at a canter and my money won't be anywhere else this week.

Bets

Unusually, especially because of the value on offer, I'll be backing only the favourite with 100% of my stake this week.

Rahm's run will end at some point and if it wasn't Torrey Pines this week he would likely have been swerved but he's clearly hungry to add another trophy to the cabinet or he'd have taken a week off. The frustration of not being brought into the inner circle with Rory and Tiger when the future of the Tour was being discussed and defended last season stung Rahm and, just as Rory did, he's channelled the distractions from 2022 into results on course.

He said in Hawaii that he felt like he was the best player in the world at the back end of last season so not being recognised as such will make the chip on his shoulder bigger and he'll want to put an exclamation point on where his current form puts him - firmly on top of the world and above Rory - how he's still 3rd shows how flawed the current OWGR system is.

So Jon Rahm get's £300 on the nose on the exchange at 5.9 to return £1,770 and I fully expect to be in healthy profit for the season when the conference championships kick off on Sunday.

The Nearly Boys

Cam Champ (£10 at £280), JT (£100 at 22), Ryan Palmer (£10 at £220), Hideki (£30 at 60) are all very backable at decent value but whilst it may not be a procession I can only see Rahm lifting the trophy on Saturday evening.

Good luck!