With The American Express in the books, bettors can look forward to this week’s 2023 Farmers Insurance Open for PGA TOUR picks. This tournament once again takes place at the historic Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California. Two entries stand out as golf betting fades this weekend, including Maverick McNealy.
Golfers will play one of the first two rounds at the North Course while the other three rounds will take place on the South Course. Previous leaderboards reveal the metric with the most predictive success for this tournament is strokes gained from tee to green. Let’s take a look at two guys who are overpriced for the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open.
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2023 Farmers Insurance Open Golf Fades
Maverick McNealy Primed for Regression
The main reason that Maverick McNealy currently sits at 28/1 on DraftKings is the fact that he has made each of his last six cuts. More impressively, each of those made cuts resulted in a top-30 finish.
However, now is the time to sell high on the Stanford University alum. His red-hot putter has carried his play throughout the season despite the underwhelming parts of the rest of his game. Relying solely on a hot putter is typically not a recipe for success on TOUR, especially this week at Torrey Pines, a venue that rewards strong iron players. McNealy ranks just 124th on TOUR this season in strokes gained from tee to green with an average of -0.075.
McNealy loses strokes this season in every key category except his putting and green-side play, two areas that are not paramount to success at Torrey Pines. He missed the cut in this tournament two seasons ago, something we could see once again this week.
Bettors can exploit McNealy’s status as a golf betting fade in a handful of ways. One is to take him to miss the cut at +275 at DraftKings. New bettors at DraftKings can even secure $200 in free bets with just a $5 wager!
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Keegan Bradley Could Miss Cut in Back-to-Back Tournaments
Keegan Bradley sits at 60/1 on DraftKings, although, he could be a good fade option this week. Coming off his missed cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Bradley could once travel home early this week.
The second-worst part of Bradley’s game this season has been his iron play, ranking just 104th on TOUR in strokes gained from tee to green. This poor iron play could be detrimental to any potential success at the Farmers Insurance Open, a tournament where he has missed the cut two times previously.
Bradley sits at +190 to miss the cut on DraftKings. The main reason for this generous line is that Bradley has not missed the cut here since 2016, however, his iron game has arguably not been as poor over that stretch as it has been this season.
While Bradley did make the cut last year, he posted a disappointing 65th place finish. Another reason for this inflated line is that Bradley had made the cut in each of his four tournaments this season prior to the Sony Open in Hawaii.
However, those were all in watered-down fields relative to the competition this week outside of the Sentry Tournament of Champions, which does not have a cut line due to the small size of the field. With his poor iron play this season and now facing stronger competition, this week is the time to sell high on Bradley.
Bettors can also take advantage of McNealy and Bradley as golf fades by backing their opponents in head-to-head matchups.
