Farmers Insurance Open 2024 Each-way Tips: Picks from 40/1 to 90/1

• 40/141.00 Harris English has course and current form

• 45/146.00 Fit-again Will Zalatoris loves this track

• 90/191.00 Tom Hoge is a winner at Pebble and has a 5th here

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It's now a hat-trick of surprise winners to welcome in the 2024 PGA Tour season and they're getting more eye-popping by the week.

Chris Kirk was an unlikely winner of The Sentry, Grayson Murray caused a big upset to win the Sony Open and Nick Dunlap became the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event since Phil Mickelson in 1991. He showed fantastic nerve to make a winning par on the final hole of The American Express in La Quinta last week.

But will that streak continue at an elite venue like Torry Pines South, a course where Tiger Woods (2008) and Jon Rahm (2021) have won US Opens in modern times?

The first thing to note is that this tournament runs from Wednesday to Saturday to avoid clashing with the NFL for prime time viewership.

As usual, the winner will have played 54 holes at Torrey Pines South, a monster 7,765 yard par 72, but also navigated a lap of the easier North Course (also a par 72 but just 7,258 yards) over one of the first two days.

Looking at history, Tiger won this event an amazing seven times while there were three Aussie winners between 2015 and 2020: Jason Day twice and Marc Leishman.

The three latest champions were all American and shot similar scores: Patrick Reed (-14) in 2021, Luke List (-15) in 2022 and Max Homa (-13) in 2022.

Note that Reed won by five so was the only player to shoot double digits under par in 2021.

There was an element of smoke and mirrors to Reed's win although another way of saying that is he was a wizard around the greens and putted great.

But his stats are an outlier. The four other winners in the past five years ranked in the top five for Strokes Gained: Approach, whereas Reed was 39th. Homa was 1st when winning 12 months ago.

To hammer home the point, the four players with the best Approach numbers last year finished first, third and tied fourth (two of them).

Prowess on the greens shouldn't be dismissed though as the five champions from 2019 to 2023 ranked 28th, 1st, 10th, 8th and 9th.

Back Harris English @ 40/141.00

The betting is headed by a quartet of American Ryder Cuppers, with Collin Morikawa, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele all 9/110.00 and defending champion Homa at 10/111.00.

All can be fancied but they're too short for an each-way preview like this.

In fact, the top dozen all seem a little on the short side but I finally see a bet at 40/141.00 in the shape of Harris English.

The 34-year-old was runner-up here in 2015, added an eighth in 2018 and was third when Torrey Pines South staged the 2021 US Open won by Rahm.

"It's hard to play Torrey Pines when you don't hit it really straight," English said once but he arrives here with that part of his game in fine shape.

He's finished 13th, 6th and 20th for Driving Accuracy in his last three events and was in the top 15 for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee in each.

The putter is also hot. In his last four tournaments he's gained between 3.7 and 4.49 strokes on the greens, ranking in the top 13 for SGP in them all.

English played both Hawaii events and posted 14th in The Sentry and 10th at the Sony Open where he rounded off with a 64.

In the first of those, he revealed: "I didn't play a whole lot this fall, but kind of playing the back end with the RSM and Grant Thornton (pairs event) I thought was a good prep for getting ready for this week and the start of the West Coast. I'm going to play a lot here out west and thought I would get right back to it.

"Not really thinking about much in my golf swing right now. It's been great. These past couple weeks these tournaments have been some of the best I've driven it, which is great for me and can give me a lot of chances to get that putter in the hand."

English finished 1st and 3rd respectively for SG: Approach in his two August starts (St Jude and Wyndham) before losing some sharpness with the irons.

He returned to positive SGA figures at the Sony and if he can hit those same August levels here he'd be pretty much the full package.

With four top 12s in his last six starts in California, this is a good area for him so take the 40s.

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Back Will Zalatoris @ 45/146.00

If English boasts that desired majors pedigree (he's finished fourth, third and eighth in three of the last four US Opens), Will Zalatoris has it in spades.

The man born in San Francisco had an incredible run in the American-based majors from 2020 to 2022.

He posted second and tied sixth at the US Masters, was tied eighth and runner-up at the US PGA and tied sixth and tied second in the US Open.

Placing second in half of the last six majors he's played on home US soil is pretty phenomenal stuff.

Then, of course, came last April's back surgery which ruled him out of all four majors in 2023.

Zalatoris did collect a first PGA Tour win when landing the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August of 2022 and he can surely look forward to many more.

This one has to be on his radar. The 27-year-old wasn't right when missing the cut last year but before that he was runner-up in 2022, losing a play-off to Luke List, and seventh in 2021.

Two years ago he said: "So I love this golf course. This is the first start that I ever had on the PGA Tour as a professional, so obviously a lot of great vibes here. This is I think by far one of the best golf courses that suits my game."

Returning to the idea that Strokes Gained: Approach is a big key here, Zalatoris obviously didn't appear in any statistical categories in his injury-wrecked 2023 season.

But wind back to the final 2022 Approach standings and there he is at the very top of the charts.

The big uncertainly and why he's 45/146.00 rather than half that price is obvious: is Zalatoris ready to compete at such a high level again?

At the Sony two weeks ago, he said this: "I feel great. Took me about a year and a half to get to that point, and there were times where I thought I was 100% where in reality I wasn't 100%. Now I definitely feel the best I've felt in quite some time."

We can only really go by results but there's a very real upwards trajectory.

Zalatoris was dead last of 20 in December's Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, missed the cut at the Sony after rounds of 76 and 69 but improved to 34th in The American Express when firing 18-under and closing 65-68 on the weekend.

That's 19-under for his latest five rounds and last week he was 16th in SG: Tee To Green and had positive SG: Approach numbers. Let's take a chance.

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Back Tom Hoge @ 90/191.00

For the final pick, I was tempted by another player on the comeback trail in Daniel Berger.

The American finished 39th at The American Express in his first PGA Tour start since last June's US Open and he was seventh here at Torrey Pines in that event in 2021.

The odds of 66/167.00 are tempting and I wouldn't put anyone off.

Berger is a winner further up the west coast at Pebble Beach and I'll go for another former champion of that same iconic early-season tournament, Tom Hoge.

Hoge won at Pebble in 2022, the year after Berger, and from the start of 2022 he has a first, a second and three other top 20s in California.

Here at Torrey Pines, he's been hit-and-miss but fifth place in 2020 and 12th in 2018 show he can perform strongly.

Opening up in 2024, Hoge was 37th at The Sentry and missed the cut in the Sony Open despite a second-round 67.

But he used that Friday round as a springboard in the birdie-fest at The American Express and really clicked on the weekend when a pair of 65s took him to tied 17th.

His irons were strong towards the end of 2023 when he was in the top five for SG: Approach in both the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth (14th) and the Sanderson Farms (13th) in Mississippi.

They look sharp again in 2024. Hoge was 8th for SG: Approach in The Sentry, had positive figures in the Sony and ranked 12th in SGA at The American Express.

Hoge's flatstick also came alive at La Quinta where he was seventh and eighth for SG: Putting in the final two rounds, both at the Pete Dye Stadium Course.

Tied third at the 2023 Players Championship in another stacked event, Hoge has plenty going for him here at 90/191.00.

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Now read Steve Rawlings' preview of the Farmers Insurance Open