Farmers Open heralds Mickelson return
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2010 Farmers Insurance Open | Preview | 28 Jan 2010
The tournament won’t be quite the same without its six time winner Tiger Woods but there is enough interest in the return of two time winner Phil Mickelson at this week’s Farmers Insurance Open to at least make up for it a little.
Mickelson has an opportunity to creep closer to Tiger Woods during the world number one’s enforced absence from the game and the potential duel between the pair may well be one of the features of 2010, provided of course Woods does return.
The tournament is played over the two courses at the Torrey Pines complex north of San Diego and is the Buick Invitational as we previously knew it. The event was renamed the San Diego Open after the withdrawal of Buick’s support but Farmers insurance came to the aid of the event only a week or so ago.
Mickelson has not played a tournament since his win at the HSBC Champions event in November and at the Tour Championship a month or so earlier. His putting improvement under the eye of Dave Stockton has turned things around for him and although there might be a little rust early on this week he should emerge as a factor by the weekend.
Luke Donald has a great record at this venue despite not winning and although he missed the cut at the recent Sony Open he could well continue his solid record at Torrey Pines.
Robert Allenby is the hottest player on the planet right now having won two of his last three events and finished runner up on the other occasion. Allenby’s biggest concern this week is a less than impressive record in this particular event. His current form and confidence might carry him a long way however.
Nick Watney is the defending champion and his effort at his first and only event of 2010 at the SBS Open was good enough when finishing 16th.
Two of the players involved in the finish at last week’s Bob Hope could do well again as both Bubba Watson and Bill Haas have played well on occasions in the event.
Australia has a very strong representation this week with 16 players teeing it up. In addition to Robert Allenby, Jason Day, David Lutterus, Michael Sim, Marc Leishman, James Nitties, Aaron Baddeley, Matt Jones, Nathan Green, Mathew Goggin, Cameron Percy, Greg Chalmers, Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Nick O’Hern, John Senden and Rod Pampling are all in the field.
Four years ago Nathan Green nearly won the tournament in just his second PGA Tour start when he lost a playoff to Tiger Woods and the Novacastrian has made a great start to his season including a top ten two weeks ago in Hawaii.
