Best bets
3pts each-way Jon Rahm @ 7/1
1pt each-way Marc Leishman @ 28/1
1pt each-way Francesco Molinari @ 66/1
1pt each-way Xander Schauffele @ 16/1
1pt each-way Hideki Matsuyama @ 18/1
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We’re paying SEVEN places at the Farmers Insurance Open!
Two terrific tournaments this week, one in San Diego, on America’s Pacific Coast, the other in Dubai at the heart of the United Arab Emirates, 8400 miles apart and with a 24-hour differential on the clock… golf truly is a global game.
Let’s start in California because the Farmers Insurance Open at famed Torrey Pines tees off first with a rare Wednesday to Saturday shape, a ploy aimed at avoiding a Sunday head-to-head with mega NFL action.
Such a clash, despite the box-office presence of world No. 1 Jon Rahm and big-name Americans such as Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and the charismatic Bryson DeChambeau, would inevitably have worked to golf’s detriment in TV ratings.
So get those bets on early for this second leg of the West Coast Swing and despite his low-key American Express effort last weekend, expect Rahm to justify favouritism on what must surely be his favourite course.
For it was at Torrey Pines five years ago that the beefy Spaniard spectacularly broke through on the US scene for the first of his seven Stateside successes and it was on the same 7765-yard municipal monster that reigning US Open champion Rahm bagged his first Major last year.
His majestic driving, long and arrow-straight, will be much more of an attacking weapon on this severe test than on the three resort courses generously set up to flatter the hacker element of the pro-am that we all used to call the Bob Hope.
That downbeat 14th place at the AmEx doesn’t in any way alter the chances of a guy with such positive mental associations of this course and 7/1 is fair enough.
In fact, only an eight-birdie blitz by Marc Leishman prevented a Rahm encore at Torrey in 2020 when he led going into Sunday but started badly and went down by a single shot.
Rahm’s seventh to runaway winner Patrick Reed last year prepped him nicely for that far tougher Major test in June when Torrey was set to typically exacting US Open standards, so exacting that Rahm’s six-under-par proved good enough in a week when only a dozen finished in red figures.
For the Major, all four rounds were played on the South – as when a walking-wounded Tiger Woods heroically captured the 2008 Open there – whereas the Farmers uses the easier North (7258 yards) to share the burden until the halfway cut.
With DJ making his 2022 bow – his first appearance since a T45 in the CJ Cup in October – and those gifted but unpredictable pals Thomas and Spieth raring to get their years into top gear, it won’t be a stroll in the park for Rahm but he was in great birdie order at Kapalua first time out and must surely be the man to beat.
There are plenty more queuing up to be Rahmbo-wreckers. San Diego native Xander Schauffele, fourth in the Farmers last year and seventh at the US Open, will enjoy big crowd support, Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama is already a January winner at Waialae, Reed’s 274 was the only score double digits under par last year and the ever-dangerous DeChambeau is back after pulling out of the Sony with a sore wrist.
Matsuyama rates the pick of that quartet on recent evidence, backed up by a Torrey third to Justin Rose three years ago, but it is 2020 champion Leishman who could be the main threat to Rahm.
All eight of his rounds in the Hawaiian Swing were in the 60s and he began the 21/22 campaign with a pair of top fours after the recess for the Tour Championship.
And although fellow Aussie Cam Smith’s Rahm-taming exploits at Kapalua failed to rub off on Leishman at Waialae the following week, he tees off safe in the knowledge the has already had one electrifying victory over the favourite on this very course.
Form is temporary, class is forever so we’ll give the revived Francesco Molinari a spin after his eye-catching sixth on Sunday. He won’t be a 150/1 shot after last week but the long South course didn’t bother the metronomically straight Italian last year when he was tenth in the Farmers and seventh at the US Open.
It is less than four years since little Frankie could arguably be called the best golfer in the world but blowing the 2019 Masters was followed by an understandable reaction and back trouble last year didn’t help as it limited his commitment.
He was five from five in Europe’s massive 2018 Ryder Cup victory and with the next match in Rome, a back-to-form Molinari would be manna from heaven for the next captain, rumoured to be Luke Donald now that Lee Westwood has said he‘d sooner play than lead if good enough.
Best bets
2.5pts each-way Tyrrell Hatton @ 16/1
1pt each-way Rafa Cabrera Bello @ 40/1
1pt each-way Sergio Garcia @ 20/1
1pt each-way Adam Scott @ 25/1
2pts win Rory McIlroy @ 15/2
0.5pt each-way Shubhankar Sharma @ 100/1
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Even with a solid tournament like the Farmers on their own calendar – an infinitely more tempting prospect than last week’s dreary three-course pro-am at La Quinta – those PGA Tour regulars who went over to Abu Dhabi are staying on for the Dubai Desert Classic.
And why not? The giant prize-fund boost from $3.25m to $8m, in keeping with its new elite Rolex Series status, puts the Classic virtually on a par with the $8.4m Torrey Pines pot and this grand tournament, launched in 1989 when Dubai bore little resemblance to its current world eminence, deserves nothing less.
All the great names from Tiger Woods downwards have come to the UAE in those 33 years to spread the golfing word and this week Open champion Collin Morikawa and dual Dubai winner Rory McIlroy head a cast even superior to last week’s as Sergio Garcia has now come to the party, along with another past winner, Paul Casey.
Morikawa was a big letdown last week, looking at odds with his putter in the wind on those big, undulating Yas Links greens. Rory, back on the Emirates course where he bagged his breakthrough victory in 2009 and a winner there again in 2015, blew hot and cold at Yas but won’t encounter such difficult conditions now and must have a great chance. But does he have the self-belief and hunger of his dazzling youth?
The jury’s out on that one but there can be no excuses on familiar territory he loves.
Preference though is for Tyrrell Hatton who would have won in Abu Dhabi if the 18th hole had not been, as he put it, “one of the worst par fives I’ve ever seen”.
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he, after shooting a seven and a career-worst nine on consecutive days? Not even making birdie there on Sunday for a share of sixth place behind 40/1 winner Thomas Pieters made him tone down that withering verdict.
Despite dropping those six shots, the caustic Englishman was still only three behind at the end so make of that what you will. The one certainty is that he won’t be on architect Kyle Phillips’ Christmas card list but he wasn’t the only big name to find Yas hard to say yes to. The course however will be hosting the event for the next three years.
Yet to win in Dubai but third there to Sergio Garcia in 2017 and to Haotong Li the following year, Hatton has no fewer than 11 past Emirates champions, not forgetting Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, the admirable Pieters and Adam Scott, to get past but he’s well up to the task if he can avoid last week’s crippling last-hole disasters.
Hovland, fourth at Yas, comes into the argument again even though the two courses, only 80 miles apart, have little in common bar the desert. But at this early stage of the Year current form counts for a great deal so expect those who fared well in the neighbouring UAE territory to flourish again.
Joint runners-up Rafa Cabrera Bello and Indian No. 1 Shubhankar Sharma pressed Pieters all the way and can show that was no fluke. Winning the Spanish Open last autumn after a long, dry spell has done wonders for Rama’s confidence while this is virtually another home game for Sharma – 3.4 million Indians live and work in Dubai – and the vocal crowd support lifted him to a career best performance.
A magic wand helped as he sank almost 500 feet of putts over the four days, easily the best in the field.
Other than the fact that back-to-back wins at this exalted level only happen when your name is Tiger Woods, there’s no reason why Pieters can’t win again now that this six-time winner has his temperament and putter on a leash and the Belgian is looking a good bet to regain his Ryder Cup place in Italy next year.
More putts are needed to drop for classy Aussie Scott to improve on his Abu Dhabi top ten but the former Masters champion, now disguised in a wispy, greying beard, had the rest of his game in order on his first start of the year and is a past dual winner in the Gulf, at the Qatar Masters.
Garcia lacks a recent outing but goes well fresh, was sixth to Casey last year and champion four years ago. like Scott, class is forever and though both men are now in their 40s, their race is far from run.
Li, Thomas Detry and Adri Arnaus are possible outsiders to create an upset if Sharma doesn’t repeat last week’s flat-stick magic.
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