DFS players take a deep breath.
This is a game of variance, and the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open was a reminder of that. Justin Rose entered the week ranked 10th in the world and now sits at third. He wasn’t the favorite at the event, but he hardly came from the clouds.
That fact is going to get overlooked because of the high-end talent that tanked. Xander Schauffele missed a cut for the first time in 73 events, and Patrick Cantlay didn’t stick around for the weekend either. Ludvig Aberg was supposed to take the TOUR by storm, but through three weeks this season, he’s played just four rounds.
Is the talent gap flattening across the sport, or are we in the midst of seeing rust shaken off?
Justin Rose Dominates Farmers Insurance Open Leaderboard
Week to week, I worry less about the names and more about the profiles that grace the tippy top of the leaderboard.
Did we get it right?
Pre-tournament, we highlighted off-the-tee play as far more important than normal and for approach to be critical as usual. We were OK with giving up some putting upside, and while the case could be made for around-the-green play, it wasn’t something we were prioritizing.
- Justin Rose (winner): second for the week in SG:APP
- Pierceson Coody (T-2): first for the week in SG:OTT
- Si Woo Kim (T-2): first for the week in SG:APP
- Ryo Hisatsune (T-2): seventh for the week SG:OTT
I’d say we largely handicapped the event correctly from a “what will be required” standpoint, and if we do that often enough, we will get positive results over the entirety of the season.
Should we have had Rose as an option?
I don’t think so. He’s a great player, and that means that a spike is always possible, but he had lost ground on the field off the tee in seven of his previous 11 events and was -3.37 strokes tee-to-green over his previous four measured rounds at this event.
Outside of that, Jake Knapp and Coody were both top-30 drivers in terms of distance last season and lived up to that profile here. Si Woo Kim has nothing but top-12 finishes on his 2026 resume, and he joined the two names above in our pre-tournament top-20 course adjusted rankings.
We were in the right zip code, just standing at the wrong house. It happens.
So what tweaks are we making for the future?
DFS Lessons From the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open
Rose’s name deserves to be mentioned among the Tier 2 options that we often look at when starting our lineups but insisting on not paying all the way up for the mega elites.
He has 13 career victories, and his wire-to-wire performance this past week is a reminder of just how dangerous a stable skill set like this can be when given the chance to front run.
That said, Rose was in that range pre-tournament. Over his past 11 events on TOUR, he has three top-six finishes and five missed cuts. He’s far from bulletproof, but his savvy around these courses is certainly an asset when he gets a chance to embrace his high-floor style.
The truly interesting part of this event is how we (and the field) handle the struggles of high-pedigree options.
A record-breaking performance 🏆
Justin Rose sets the tournament scoring record @FarmersInsOpen at 23-under par. pic.twitter.com/gTuhvcVvZ7
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 1, 2026
I think we have a buying window on Aberg. He was T-42 at Farmers and a WD at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last season. He also missed a pair of cuts before we got to April and struggled at the big events, but he still finished the season reaching his quota in terms of high-end results.
- One win (Genesis)
- Six top-10s (including three times in a four-tournament run during the summer)
I’d love for the 26-year-old to be more consistent, but this is the type of profile I’d be comfortable playing most weeks and letting the chips fall where they fall.
Cantlay doesn’t get that benefit of the doubt. He turns 34 years of age next month and has missed four cuts in his past 12 events. We know his name, but he hasn’t paid off his potential in a victory since 2023 and has just eight top-five finishes in 40 events since the start of 2024.
I’m not ready to say that he’s struggling to keep up with the modern game, but I do think he’s struggling to keep up, and he’s pretty clearly fallen into the prove-it tier.
For me, Aberg is a pretty clear buy over him, but so are players like Chris Gotterup and Ryan Gerard. In a vacuum, he still deserves our blind trust over the next wave of high-upside players (Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and Johnny Keefer types), but when you take into account price tag, he’s a tough click over options like those who seemingly have a higher floor.
As for Schauffele, the primary talking point as we entered the weekend: move on. Remember that we only had four rounds of Schauffele to judge before March, so while the two rounds this past week weren’t great (he had a putt for the cut on Friday), it’s not as if he imploded.
Schauffele had a run of four straight top-20 finishes before we hit the summer last season, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we saw something similar in the near future.
Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are always going to be priced at the top of the events they enter, and that’s right. Schauffele deserves to be in the conversation for the next name, and if there is an o
