A Data Boy Goes to Torrey Pines

If you’ve followed The Fried Egg for at least a couple of years, you’re already familiar with our position on Torrey Pines. It’s a stunning place and a leading light of American municipal golf. We can’t overstate how enjoyable and refreshing it is to spend a day there and how grateful we are that the facility is open to everyone. But the architecture—especially of the Rees Jones-renovated South Course—falls short in many ways. Andy enumerated some of those weaknesses and offered suggestions for improvement in this 2021 post. He and I also discussed the course in depth starting around 34:55 in the podcast below.

Joseph LaMagna, a Fried Egg contributor and the sharp mind behind the Finding the Edge newsletter, is a Torrey critic, too. But his commentary is not the same stuff you’ve heard from us in the past. He looks at golf architecture differently than Andy and I do. As someone who advises tour pros on strategy, Joseph is highly attuned to how courses play for elite golfers, and how the elements of design and presentation can affect strategic decision-making.

Joseph recently wrote about Torrey Pines here and here, and he spent Thursday and Friday of last week watching the action on site at the Farmers Insurance Open. I called him yesterday to get his thoughts on what he saw. I’ve lightly edited the conversation below for clarity.

Garrett: You said in a recent edition of your newsletter that players do not have to worry about consequences at Torrey Pines’ South Course. What do you mean by that?

Joseph: The part I want to really stress is that a small miss ends up being very similar to a wide miss at Torrey. Now, there are consequences to hitting something directly on target versus being off a little bit, but if your shot is just a couple feet off the fairway, it’s very similar to missing pretty wide. You can see this on a hole like 13. If you just missed that fairway a little bit, there’s so much land out to the right that it wouldn’t be that different if you went 30 yards right of the fairway.

But another really important point that I want to stress is that Torrey Pines, I think, plays extremely well for professional golfers when there’s a little bit of wind—not a ton of wind. And I thought the conditions were difficult but pretty much perfect this past weekend. If it gets really windy, it is much more difficult to control your ball, and it does become a little bit more of a crapshoot.

The one example I would give is I was walking with the Homa-Zalatoris-Morikawa group on Thursday, and Max Homa stuffed a shot on 4. That was really impressive. And then 90 seconds later, Will Zalatoris hit one that got absolutely smoked by the wind. Two totally different shots, 90 seconds apart. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it starts to become more of a crapshoot when the targets are really small and you can’t miss long on a lot of those greens.

Garrett: I mean, the wind is always a randomizer, but Torrey Pines’ South Course is not what you would consider a course that’s designed for the wind because the fairways are so narrow and the greens are so small that if the wind kicks up, everybody’s missing everything. Is that sort of the point?

Joseph: Yes. But I want to give a huge shout-out to the way that the PGA Tour set the course up this week.

Maybe the best example of this is hole 3, the downhill par 3 that’s over a bunker. If there’s a lot of wind up there, I mean, you’re throwing your ball up there and just hoping for the best. It’s a little bit unpredictable what it’s going to do in the air. So playing that tee up in the fourth round was an phenomenal decision. They played it at only 140 yards. That hole does not play well at 190 yards when you have a front left pin and you’re throwing the ball up into the wind.

The third hole at Torrey Pines South

The other thing I would put out there is that I think the weather was perfect, and the greens and fairways were actually a little bit receptive. That was really important this past week at Torrey, versus a course like Bay Hill, which, when it gets baked out, you can’t control your ball on the green nearly as well. So I think the weather was a part of why the South Course was good this week, but the PGA Tour also just did an amazing job on the setup.

Garrett: Is there ever any rationale for not hitting driver off the tee on a par 4 or 5 at the South Course?

Joseph: Not really. I mean, you have to have a really good reason for why you’re hitting less than driver. Like there might be some instances where you could think about it, but not really. I’m bashing driver out there pretty much on every hole.

Garrett: One reason for this is that, as you said, really wide misses—with a driver, for instance—are not heavily penalized at Torrey. Why is that?

Joseph: Well, just think about a hole like 13, right? Very few players are getting home in two. So if you hit the fairway with your drive, versus if you miss it way out right, you might end up laying up to a similar spot. When you combine that with how small the green is, if you do get there in two, but you just leave it in a bad spot—which is easy to do from 280 yards—somebody who has a wedge from the fairway might have a similar scoring expectation as you have with a short-sided, difficult chip. So just think about the difference in what your scoring expectations are on a good drive versus one that’s way out right. And that difference is just not as significant as I’d like it to be on some holes at Torrey Pines.

The 13th hole at Torrey Pines South

But, again, when the conditions are pretty benign, like they were this weekend, it plays pretty well.

Garrett: Well, just for comparison, what is an example of a PGA Tour course where really wide misses are significantly more penalized compared to more narrow misses?

Joseph: TPC San Antonio. [Laughs.] And I know that that might not be a course that is heralded as an architectural masterpiece.

Garrett: I kind of like TPC San Antonio! There are a couple of short par 4s in particular that are pretty cool.

Joseph: I think it’s a phenomenal PGA Tour course, actually. No. 11 has a centerline bunker where, if you go down the left side, there’s a chance you’re going to go in the trees, and you’ll get a really unpredictable lie over there. So it does actually present some options with what you want to do off of that tee.

Most holes out there, if you miss really wide, you’re in a combination of almost desert-like lies and some trees and some penalty areas. So wide misses are penalized, and that’s why a player like Bryson had so much trouble there last year.

Garrett: So I guess one reason why really wide misses aren’t super heavily penalized at Torrey Pines is that you’ve just got this green rough, right? And that rough is going to exact some kind of penalty, but it exacts basically the same penalty if you narrowly miss the fairway versus if you miss it by a wide margin. And if you miss the fairway by a wide margin at Torrey Pines, there’s not a lot out there except for rough. The trees are pretty sparse. There are some canyons, but the canyons mostly aren’t in play. So the difference between those degrees of misses at Torrey Pines—just because the way the course is laid out—is not that huge.

Joseph: Right. And I think another interesting point is that no course on tour has more tee shots end up in a fairway bunker than Torrey Pines. And part of the reason for that is you have some holes out there where there’s a hazard on one side and a fairway bunker on the other side. There’s no reason, with how narrow it is, to challenge the hazard.

Hole 4 is a perfect example. The ocean is on the left, so you had multiple guys in the final group on Saturday end up in that fairway bunker on the right. And that’s why being a good fairway bunker player like Jason Day is a big advantage at Torrey, because often it’s optimal to favor the sides of the fairway that are bunkered, and you’re just going to end up in a lot of fairway bunkers. So I think that’s another interesting point about Torrey—that if it were wider, there might actually be chances to challenge some of those hazards a little bit.

The fourth hole at Torrey Pines South

Another hole is 7, where there’s just no reason to be going toward the canyon down the right side.

Garrett: Yes. Seven could be a great hole. It’s such a good piece of land for a golf hole, and it’s just not the right design at the moment.

In any case, on the positive side, in the final round of round of the tournament, Max Homa and Keegan Bradley really separated themselves from the field with excellent ball-striking. Homa, especially with the irons—like his irons were so good that final day. Almost everyone else in the field really struggled, especially the players who were near the lead. So is there something to be said for a course that allows players with truly buttoned-up games, like Homa and Bradley on Saturday, to stand out in the way that they did?

Joseph: Absolutely. And I think conditioning is a pretty important piece of this puzzle. Those greens being a little bit receptive and the fairways being a little bit receptive was a huge part of that. I’d encourage people to watch Max Homa’s shot into No. 11, which had a completely ungettable pin location. He hit a brilliant shot and it landed soft enough that he had a chance to make a birdie from behind the hole. So if that green’s much firmer, like you’re going to see often at Bay Hill, that shot’s probably over the back and short-sided and he’s just hanging on to make par. So I thought the conditioning was a huge part of why the course played so well.

King of California. Max Homa wins Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines No 11 Par 3 Birdie #maxhoma #pga #PGATour #TorreyPines #torreypinessouthcourse #no11 #birdie #par3 #lajolla #sandiego #FarmersInsuranceOpen pic.twitter.com/DNoYw9CLlE

— WilliamBriggsDDS (@WilliaBriggsDDS) January 29, 2023

Garrett: You’re making an interesting, counterintuitive point there. You’re saying that the greens were soft enough that players who hit great shots could reasonably expect to hold some of the small shelves that the pins are often put on at Torrey Pines, and that this allowed those players to separate themselves. Whereas if those pins were put in the same places and the greens were firmer, you couldn’t reasonably expect anybody to hold that shelf, and so excellent ball-striking wouldn’t be quite as emphasized.

Joseph: Agree. I’m all for firm and fast, but I like firm and fast when it’s big and wide. Like you have to have enough room to actually land the ball. I think a lot about how much of a landing area you need somewhere.

So, again, it’s just a huge contrast with how Bay Hill generally plays. When a pin is up, you’re basically sending it over the back of the green and just giving yourself enough room to chip. Whereas at Torrey you could actually reasonably land the ball and sort of get it to stop, like you could on hole 3. I thought hole 3 was set up so well in the championship rounds.

So yeah, those are my main takeaways.

Garrett: Lightning round here. What is your favorite hole on the South Course?

Joseph: [Long pause.] Um, man, that’s a—[laughs]. I think I gained an appreciation for No. 2 a little bit. Andy made a good point on No. 17. That’s a really demanding tee shot where you can’t just bail out right, away from the hazard, because when the pin’s on the right, like it was for the first couple of rounds, you’re in some trouble if you’re in that fairway bunker on the right. So No. 17 impressed me.

The 17th hole at Torrey Pines South

I’m trying to think if there are any other ones that I enjoyed. No. I honestly don’t have a lot of positive things to say about the layout of the course. Some of the holes that run along hazards are pretty distasteful.

Garrett: All right, least favorite hole.

Joseph: 18. I think it kind of epitomizes target golf, and if you had to pick one hole to play 18 times and feel like you played Torrey Pines, it’d probably be 18. It’s just, how high and straight can you hit it? And then same thing on the second shot. So I’m not a huge fan.

Hole 1 might give it a run for its money.

Garrett: Hole 1 is actually a great example of the general principle you’re talking about, where really wide misses are basically the same as as narrow misses.

So, overall, having spent a couple of days at Torrey Pines, do you come away feeling more positive or less positive about the course?

Joseph: More positive about how it plays for professional golfers under the right conditions, less positive on the layout. I think it’s such a pleasant place to spend a day, and it’s so striking how unbelievable the course could be. But you look at fairways like 13 and even 4, and you just want to see something different.

What are your thoughts about Torrey Pines? Do you, like many locals, prefer the North Course? Or do you think criticism of the South Course has gone overboard? What do you make of Joseph’s point that the South Course, in the right conditions, is a strong tour venue in spite of its architectural shortcomings?