Farmers Insurance Open Tournament Notes – 2016

Dates: January 28-31, 2016
Where: La Jolla, California
Courses: Torrey Pines Golf Course South Course (host) (72/7,698) North Course (72/7,052)
Field size: 156
2015 champion: Jason Day
Purse: $6,500,000 ($1,170,000/winner)
FedExCup: 500 points to the winner
Format: 72-hole stroke play
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FarmersInsuranceOpen
Twitter: @FarmersInsOpen

A look at the 2015 Farmers Insurance Open and Jason Day’s season

• Jason Day won his first of five tournaments in 2014-15 at the Farmers Insurance Open via a four-man playoff at 9-under-par 279, the largest in tournament history.
• Day parred the second playoff hole (par-3, No. 16) to defeat J.B. Holmes (defending champion Scott Stallings and Harris English were eliminated on the first extra hole).
• Day and Jordan Spieth both finished the 2014-15 PGA TOUR Season with five victories, marking the first time in 45 years two players recorded five or more victories in a single season.
• The last time this feat was accomplished was in 1971 by Jack Nicklaus (5) and Lee Trevino (5).

A look at the field:

• 17 of the 30 players who made it to the 2015 TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola will compete in the Farmers Insurance Open: Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, Danny Lee, Charley Hoffman, Daniel Berger, Patrick Reed, Paul Casey, J.B. Holmes, Hideki Matsuyama, Jimmy Walker, Robert Streb, Scott Piercy, Brandt Snedeker, Bill Haas and Harris English.
• 20 of the top 50 players in the Official World Golf Ranking: Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Hideki Matsuyama, Shane Lowry, Paul Casey, Brandt Snedeker, Jimmy Walker, J.B. Holmes, Marc Leishman, Emiliano Grillo, Phil Mickelson, Anirban Lahiri, Scott Piercy, Danny Lee, Robert Streb, Bill Haas and Billy Horschel.
• Six past champions are in the field: Jason Day (2015), Scott Stallings (2014), Brandt Snedeker (2012), Ben Crane (2010), Nick Watney (2009), Phil Mickelson (1993, 2000-01)
• Three winners from the 2015-16 PGA TOUR Season: Emiliano Grillo (Frys.com Open), Smylie Kaufman (Shriners Hospitals for Children Open) and Fabian Gomez (Sony Open in Hawaii) will look to become the season’s first multiple winner.

A closer look at the field:

• Defending champion and world No. 2 Jason Day will make his seventh start at the Farmers Insurance Open where he owns three top-10s, each coming in his last three starts (2015/1st, 2014/T2, 2013/T9). Day will make his second start of the 2015-16 PGA TOUR Season, following a T10 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
• Fresh off his thrilling win in Abu Dhabi on the European Tour, Rickie Fowler will make his fourth start of the 2015-16 PGA TOUR Season at the Farmers Insurance Open. He comes off a fifth-place performance at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The Farmers Insurance brand ambassador has two top-10 finishes (2013/T6, 2010/T5) in six appearances at the Farmers Insurance Open.
• Coming off top-10 showings at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions (T5) and the Hyundai Tournament of Champions (T10), Dustin Johnson will make his eighth start at the Farmers Insurance Open where he owns just one top-10 (2011/T3). He missed the cut at the 2015 event.
• Three-time Farmers Insurance Open winner Phil Mickelson will make his 27th start, following a missed cut in 2015 and a WD due to injury in 2014. Mickelson started his 2015-16 campaign with a T3 finish at last week’s CareerBuilder Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.
• Justin Rose will make his first start on the PGA TOUR in 2016 following a T6 at the season-opening Frys.com Open in October. In six previous starts at the Farmers Insurance Open, Rose has yet to finish better than T22 (2010) and he comes off a missed cut in 2015.
• Ireland’s Paul Dunne will make his PGA TOUR debut as a professional at the 2016 Farmers Insurance Open. Dunne gained international recognition when, as an amateur, he moved atop the leaderboard at the 2015 Open Championship, sharing the lead after three rounds at St. Andrews. His third-round 66 was the lowest round by an amateur in an Open Championship contested at St. Andrews, and he was seeking to become the first amateur to win a major championship since Johnny Goodman won the 1933 U.S. Open. Dunne carded a final-round 6-over 78 to finish T30. The University of Alabama-Birmingham alum turned professional in late 2015 and secured his European Tour card.
• Australia’s Ryan Ruffels, 17, will make his professional debt. In his only other TOUR start, he opened with a 66 at the 2015 RBC Canadian Open before rounds of 75-76 led to a T87.
• San Diego local and San Diego State University alum Xander Schauffele (pronounced shof-lee) will compete in the Farmers Insurance Open for the first time, following his professional PGA TOUR debut at the CareerBuilder Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. Schauffele, who won the 2011 California State High School championship in his season year at Scripps Ranch High School, finished T45 at Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament in December to earn status on the Web.com Tour for 2016.

Tournament Records

• The Farmers Insurance Open has not produced a first-time TOUR winner since Jay Don Blake in 1991.
• There has never been a rookie winner at the Farmers Insurance Open. Gene Littler won the event as an amateur in 1954.
• There are only three international players to win the Farmers Insurance Open: Gary Player (1963), Jose Maria Olazabal (2002) and Jason Day (2015).
• The largest final round come-from-behind win at the Farmers Insurance Open is eight shots by Scott Simpson in 1998.
• Since 2000, only four players have carried the 54-hole lead on to victory at the Farmers Insurance Open. Phil Mickelson in 2000, Tiger Woods in 2003 and 2008 and John Daly in 2004.
  University Day is back on Saturday
• University Day will return for the fifth straight year. Players will be encouraged to wear their schools colors or logo and Farmers Insurance will contribute $500 to the college golf teams of all players who participate. Fans are also encouraged to wear their university’s colors on Saturday.

Charity

• Since 1968 the Century Club of San Diego has generated more than $28 million for San Diego charities through its combined programs.\
• The Farmers Insurance Open and the Monarch School were recognized as the 2015 PGA TOUR Charity of the Year. The Monarch School is the only comprehensive K-12 school in the country developed specifically to serve homeless students. The 15-year relationship with the Farmers Insurance Open and Century Club has generated over $1.6 million for Monarch School. There are over 22,000 homeless children in San Diego County and 1.2 million nationally. Monarch School is one of 12 at-risk and underserved youth charities in the Century Clubs Champions For Youth program.

2015-16 PGA TOUR Storylines

• The Farmers Insurance Open marks the 11th official event of the PGA TOUR’s wraparound 2015-16 season schedule.
• Year 10 of the FedExCup consists of 47 events including the four FedExCup Playoff events.
• With his Sony Open in Hawaii victory, Fabian Gomez became the fourth Argentinian to win multiple tournaments on the PGA TOUR, joining Roberto De Vicenzo (5), Angel Cabrera (3) and Jose Coceres (2). In 2015, Gomez (FedEx St. Jude Classic) and fellow Argentine player Emiliano Grillo (Frys.com Open) both won on the PGA TOUR, marking the first time in history two players from Argentina won on TOUR in the same calendar year.
• Continuing a trend from the 2014-15 season that saw a TOUR-record 24 victories by players under the age of 30, five of the 10 winners so far this season have also been in their 20s.
• Emiliano Grillo won the season-opening event at the Frys.com Open at the age of 23, making it his second professional victory in a row, as he also captured the Web.com Tour Championship at Dye’s Valley at TPC Sawgrass in the start before. He is the first player to win in his first start as an official PGA TOUR member since Russell Henley at the 2013 Sony Open in Hawaii.
• Smylie Kaufman became the second rookie to win to start the season the very next week at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, winning at the age of 23.
• Justin Thomas, at 22 years of age, captured the CIMB Classic in Malaysia for his first PGA TOUR win in his sophomore season.
• Peter Malnati, another recent Web.com Tour graduate, added to the tally of under-30, first-time winners in 2015-16, winning the Sanderson Farms Championship at the age of 28.
• World No. 1 Jordan Spieth, 22, picked up right where he left off at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, winning at Kapalua by eight strokes over defending champion and 2014 CareerBuilder Challenge winner Patrick Reed.

SOURCE: PGA TOUR