2021 Farmers Insurance Open Odds & Picks: Our Top 5 Favorite Outright Bets to Win at Torrey Pines

This is about the part of the PGA TOUR calendar where things start to heat up. Most players are coming into the Farmers Insurance Open with at least one tournament under their belt. The whispers about the looming Major Championships start getting a little bit louder. And, of course, this event takes place at one of the TOUR's most iconic tracks: Torrey Pines.

Here are our five favorite outright bets to win the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open:

Jason Sobel

Hideki Matsuyama (+2500)

If there’s been a recurring theme during the 2020-21 season, it’s that of former winners finally returning to the winner’s circle. From Stewart Cink to Sergio Garcia, from Brian Gay to Harris English, we’ve been treated to a list of champions whose winning ways had stalled for a while. Even last week’s winner, Si Woo Kim, all of 25 years old, had endured nearly four full years since his previous victory. You won’t get rich betting fringe trends, but there’s no denying that Matsuyama could easily be the next player to break a personal drought.

Like Kim, it’s been almost four years since Hideki’s last win, though he’s hardly been ineffective in the interim, piling up 19 worldwide top-10s and maintaining a top-10 world ranking. As usual, putting has already served as his bugaboo this year. He finished T-41 at the 42-player Sentry TOC, while an average putting performance in relation to the field would’ve at least netted him a respectable T-24; he finished T-19 at the Sony Open, as average putting would’ve resulted in a T-3. I’ll bank on him rolling in more putts at a venue where he should be comfortable, having three finishes of 16th-or-better in seven starts, including two of the last three years.

He’ll not only need to roll it better, his ball-striking needs to be impeccable to overcome any miscues with the flatstick, but I do think there’s a strong possibility he steps it up here. With plenty of other big names, this is a nice number to back Matsuyama to become the latest past champion to rejoin the club.

Josh Perry

Adam Scott (+4500)

Scott doesn’t play here often, but with the U.S. Open taking place at Torrey Pines in the summer, he made an exception this year.

A runner-up finish in 2019 is his only recent result and it should be no surprise given what this course requires to succeed. Scott is long and accurate off the tee and he is one of the best iron players on the planet.

The putter will always be a question mark, but given his tee-to-green prowess and the difficulty of these greens, his main drawback is negated here.

Chris Murphy

Matthew Wolff (+4000)

There was a good bit of talk around Matthew Wolff last week heading into The American Express, but it was his first event of the new year and he certainly showed some rust. He was able to still make the weekend, despite an odd after-the-fact penalty, and I think it will prove important that he was able to play a full four rounds last week.

Wolff now heads to a course that I see as a better fit to his game as he will be able to use his length to it’s full advantage on the 7,765 yard track, and it will feature his preferred poa annua putting surfaces.

I love the fact that he showed progress over the weekend at PGA West, gaining strokes ball-striking in both rounds including more than a stroke on the field on approach both Saturday and Sunday. Wolff should be coming in with more confidence in his game, and getting great value at +4000 on BetMGM on a course he posted a 21st-place finish in his first trip last year.

Matt Vincenzi

Adam Scott (+4500)

A few weeks ago Scott was quoted as saying “I think you’ve got to identify that there’s probably 10 or 12 serious competition events during the calendar year and then the rest is a bit of entertainment, really, but the thing for all of us and people trying to peak for those 10 or 12 serious events is they have got to use those entertainment events to get prepared and get ready.”

You can be sure that a win at Torrey Pines qualifies one of those important events for the veteran. At this point in his career, the 40-year-old Scott is interested in adding accomplishments to his already impressive resume while he still can. Last year, we saw Scott win off of a long layoff at Riviera which shows how quickly he can turn it on in an event he deems important.

As evidenced by a second-place finish here in 2019, Scott fits the course quite nicely. He hits it long and is one of the best iron players on TOUR. While not a good putter, POA annua is by far his best surface and he actually gains strokes on the field in that department.

I think this is the week Scott joins Jason Day and Marc Leishman as Australians who hoist the trophy at Torrey Pines.

Landon Sillinsky

Bubba Watson (+5000)

Course history can be fickle when trying to handicap golf tournaments, however, we know that there are certain guys that are only in play at certain tracks.

Watson fits that criteria this week as we basically only look to him at Genesis, Traveler’s and Augusta. Torrey Pines has also been kind to the two time Masters’ champion in the past, as he’s played here four times since 2011 and in those trips posted a win (2011), T-13, T-23 and most recently a T-6 last season.

In addition to the nice history, Watson is coming into play in superb form, ranking No. 1 in this field in SG:Tee-to-Green across his past 24 rounds. He has the requisite distance off the tee to contend here, which is important considering the South Course is a monstrous 7,700 yards long and will be played during three of the four rounds this week.

This is a really nice price for a former winner here and all of the stats are lining up for Watson to contend again.