With rain in the forecast this week in San Diego, the already lengthy Torrey Pines South course will play even longer. It could even play as long as 8,000 yards. Softer playing conditions results in less rollout on your tee shots, which consequently will require players to hit longer approach shots into greens.

We highlighted this same statistic a couple of weeks ago in our Farmers Insurance Open newsletter, however, that week has a completely different field. The Farmers was a non-signature event, with some of the top players withdrawing due to the Genesis Invitational transitioning its host venue from Riviera to Torrey Pines South.

Here are the top 10 players in the field averaging the most strokes on long difficult golf courses:

While these conditions play perfectly into the hands of Rory McIlroy, others such as Tony Finau, Ludvig Aberg, Taylor Pendrith, and even Adam Scott and Sam Stevens may represent the best discount version of this. Despite an up-and-down start to the 2025 season, Tony Finau remains one of the longest drivers of the ball in this field and is an elite long iron player. It should not come as a surprise that Finau has feasted at Torrey Pines in the past, with six top-10 finishes in 12 appearances.

The only accolade missing from Finau’s resume is a victory, and I would not be surprised if that came to fruition this week. While Finau’s missed cut a few weeks ago at Torrey Pines was certainly disappointing, I’m willing to forgive for a horrendous putting week, which is always baked into the risk we take when deploying the six-time PGA Tour winner.

What’s more encouraging is that Finau has shown flashes with the putter. In his last start, Finau actually gained 4.8 strokes putting on the bumpy Poa greens at Pebble Beach. If Finau can gain nearly five strokes putting at putting at Pebble Beach, he can certainly tame the capricious Poa at Torrey. Finau is always one of the most underrated high-wind players on Tour, and I actually have him as the No. 1 player in this field in winds north of 19 miles per hour over the last three years.

Finau also finished top-10 at Torrey Pines in 2024, and I would not be surprised to see a similar leaderboard, featuring the likes of Finau, Pendrith, Aberg, and Stephan Jaeger chasing down Rory come Sunday afternoon in La Jolla.

I would have suggested taking Tony Finau given his course history at Torrey Pines South, but Andy gave the case for him above. My second pick would be Mr. Ludvig Aberg, who we also highlighted in our Farmers Insurance Open preview.

I am well aware that Aberg withdrew from the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and is currently battling some sort of sickness. If we get any confirmation that he is feeling better and is good to go, I would buy the discount on him.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill last year. I followed Aberg for a couple holes during his Wednesday practice round and the way he hits his driver is truly a thing of beauty. Aberg ranks just outside the top 10 in strokes gained on long difficult courses and ranks 13th in the field from 200+ yard approach shots.

The course fit is hard to ignore with Aberg. If you think it’s too risky to take a chance with Aberg given his illness, I love him at Bay Hill, TPC Sawgrass, Muirfield Village, or at any of the majors for your OAD pools.

Over the last two seasons, Jordan Spieth was dealing with a nagging wrist injury that has hampered his play, especially with his irons. This past off-season, Jordan Spieth finally got wrist surgery to repair his issue. 

Just looking back at his 2024 statistics, Spieth ranked 292nd in strokes gained on approach, while being ranked 17th in strokes gained off-the-tee. This trend can be attributed to the fact that when you hit approach shots, your wrist is more impacted by striking the surface than hitting drives off a tee. 

This past weekend, Spieth finished T4 at the Waste Management People’s Open. This was quite a surprise due to Spieth looking quite rusty at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am the week prior, where he has had much success winning the tournament in 2017. 

Spieth finished 2nd in the field last week in strokes gained on approach, averaging 1.84 strokes per round. Ironically, that was his best approach performance since the 2023 Waste Management People’s Open. 

In my opinion from a body language perspective, he looked more confident in his swing than I have seen from him in quite some time. Here is a quote from his final round press conference:

Spieth was very realistic in his press conference on how he is evaluating his play. He knows it’s going to take time to get all facets of his game to click at once. Earlier in the week, he told the media that he has a new putter in the bag and tested a couple others out in the off-season

It’s hard to ignore that his performance was quite encouraging for all the die hard Jordan Spieth fans out there like myself. This shot was vintage Spieth on Sunday:

All in all, the PGA Tour and professional golf as a whole could use Jordan Spieth back in elite form and pulling off these wonderful shots.

It’s not secret anymore that Luke Clanton is one of the rising stars on the PGA Tour. As an amateur last season, Clanton made six PGA Tour starts through sponsor exemptions and amateur qualifications. In those six starts, he posted three top 5 finishes, which is crazy to even think about.

On the Inside Golf Podcast, Andy has compared Luke Clanton to Viktor Hovland. Both golfers are elite ball strikers, but struggle on and around the greens.

Through the PGA Tour University Accelerated program, a college freshman, sophomore, or junior can receive their PGA Tour card if they earn 20 points. You can earn points by winning collegiate awards, your best rank on World Amatuer Golf Ranking (WAGR), collegiate wins, and making cuts/certain finishing positions on the PGA Tour.

Going into the WMPO, Clanton needed 1 more point to earn his PGA Tour card. All he had to do is just to make the cut, which is harding that it seems. Clanton stepped up to the 18th tee box having to make a birdie to make the cut. He would go on and barely miss his birdie putt. Here was his reaction:

I really felt for Clanton after he clawed his way back during round 2 to give himself a chance to make the cut. These are the moments that need to be showcased more on PGA Tour broadcasts, however, cut sweats have been largely taken away due to signature events not having a cut (will speak more on this in another newsletter).

Even though Luke Clanton didn’t earn his card this past weekend, his future is bright and will get his card very soon. The PGA Tour should continue to market their future star, who has the ability to become one of the faces of the sport.