Torrey Pines a favourite of Australians
The entrance to Torrey Pines
The Farmers Insurance Open and its venue, Torrey Pines, have been good to Australians over recent years, not only in terms of the wins it has produced but also in terms of several other meritorious performances at the Southern Californian venue.
Jason Day has won the event twice, Marc Leishman once, and in their rookie years on the PGA Tour, both Nathan Green and Andrew Buckle led the event until late in the final round.
Day and Leishman have also been runner-up at the venue.
Day and Buckle were also winners of Junior World Golf Championships at Torrey Pines and so the North and South Course clifftop layouts have provided several Australians early exposure and great success.
This week, the $US9.3 million Farmers Insurance Open is played, and Day is firming as one of the favourites given his history in the event and his recent good form, which including a third-place finish at the American Express event last week.
Day and Aaron Baddeley are the only two Australians in this week’s field.
“I am looking forward to the week, said Day today in his pre-event press conference. “It’s always fun to come back to a place that I’ve been coming to since I was pretty much 16 years old. It’s nice, it’s a fun place to play. It is very difficult. Obviously U.S. Open style golf course on the South and then the course conditions are fantastic right now, so I’m looking forward to hopefully a successful week.
“It’s obviously nice to see all the work — I took, what, four months off pretty much, three and a half months last year at the end of the year and worked very, very hard on my swing,” said Day in his media conference today.
“That was one thing that was holding me back last year. Even though I had some pretty good stats around the short game area, could have improved dramatically with the irons. So it was nice to be able to see that pay off.
“Even though I didn’t get the results that I wanted to at Sentry, it was nice to be able to get the results at Palm Springs and try to take that forward here even though this is a very difficult golf course, both sides actually since it changes on the North.”
Day was asked where the Farmers Insurance stands now there appears to be a two-level tour developing following the introduction of the Signature Series
“Well, there are two tours within a tour now if you could understand that. I think you have the top guys playing the Signature Events and you have the other side of it, too. I think that just happened purely because of the way that when LIV came about, and it’s unfortunate but that’s what — ultimately that’s what we’re dealing with now.
“I don’t know if I speak for the Tour, you know, as well as some of the other guys because I sometimes — sometimes the Tour sends me emails and I don’t even read ’em. I know there’s guys out there that are a lot more qualified than me to answer for that reason. Yeah, it is tough. “The two tours is difficult. I mean, ultimately I think at the end of the day you would probably, you know, if you wanted everyone to play in a tournament, you have to shrink the schedule down dramatically.
“You can’t have 40-plus events or I’m not sure where 5 it is, it used to be 48 events on the schedule and you knew that it wasn’t — you weren’t going to have the best players in the world.
“The only way you’re going to get the best players in the world is shrink the schedule down dramatically, and I think essentially that’s kind of what they’re doing now within the Tour is that you have the Signature Events and you have the major championships and then you throw in your Memorials, your Bay Hills, your Tiger events, all that stuff, those bigger events within that offer three-year exemptions instead of the typical two-year exemptions.
“Then you might sprinkle in some golf tournaments that you actually like and play well in. Then the rest of the guys that are not quite in those Signature Events yet. So like I said before, I would love to give you the correct answer, but I just don’t know where they’re even taking it.
“I just typically just keep my head down, I keep my mouth shut and try and play good golf because I’ve got a hard enough time trying to keep the ball down the middle of the fairway.”
Baddeley is playing the event for the 20th occasion having recorded top tens on two occasions.
