PGA Tour makes Farmers exit from Torrey Pines official. What comes next?

In the winter of 2010, the PGA Tour’s long-standing tournament in San Diego faced an existential crisis. Person fortunes had been lost and businesses were still reeling from the world’s financial crisis that began only 15 months earlier, and among the companies filing for bankruptcy was auto giant General Motors. GM funded the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines for 18 years and hauled in a sponsor's bounty: six victories by Tiger Woods. But after filing for bankruptcy, GM pulled its support one year before the end of the contract and left the Century Club of San Diego scrambling for a new title at a time in corporate America when few CEOs wanted to be seen supporting perceived vanity projects.

That tournament in 2010 was set to simply be called the “San Diego Open” for the first time in five decades. Hats and tickets and banners were made with a simplistic logo that reflected the spartan times.

Then a Martin Luther King Jr. Day miracle happened. On the holiday Monday, Jan. 18—10 days before the tournament was to begin—California-based Farmers Insurance agreed to a one-year sponsorship deal that infused much-needed cash and enthusiasm into the tournament. And though the golf gods didn’t exactly deliver a rousing champion in Ben Crane, Farmers rode in like a white knight and would come through again and again for the tournament over the next 17 years.

“It was the 11th hour of the 11th hour,” Tom Wilson, the Century Club’s then-tournament director, said at the time.

“They saved our bacon,” said Marty Gorisch, the current Farmers Insurance Open CEO.

The reminiscing these days carries a tinge of melancholy, because, as the PGA Tour and Century Club confirmed to Golf Digest on Friday, this will be Farmers' last year as the title sponsor. Though the company’s logo has already been seen prominently during broadcasts of the second-year, tech-infused TGL, Farmers is getting out of the major-league golf tournament business.

This ending has seemingly been written for at least a couple of years, during which no announcement came that Farmers was re-upping. But it’s also rare for the tour to acknowledge a sponsor’s farewell before its last hurrah. In this case, there was sentiment that Farmers should get to take a bow at the tournament that will be played Jan. 29-Feb. 1 on the Torrey Pines South and North courses, rather than shuffling off into the sunset when the final putt drops on Sunday.

“We’ve been through the pandemic with them, date shifts with them, and weather with them,” Gorisch said. “And then we had some really amazing champions and did great charitable work. Business things are taking them in another direction now, but they started great, they’ve been great, and they’re being classy right up until the end.

“I just got off the phone with them,” Gorsich added. “We’re talking about the APGA [tournament] for this year and about our charities. They’re not going out with a whimper; they’re going out strong.”

The PGA Tour and Farmers Insurance each issued short, unattributed statements on Friday about the relationship.

“Farmers Insurance has been a tremendous sponsor of the PGA Tour, and we cannot thank them enough for their support of the Farmers Insurance Open over the last 17 years,” the tour said in its statement.

Farmers’ statement read, in part, “The tournament has generated millions of dollars for charity and delighted golf fans in San Diego and beyond. As our sponsorship comes to an end, we celebrate everything we’ve accomplished and wish the PGA Tour and the Century Club of San Diego continued success.”

Tiger Woods won the last of his eight titles at Torrey Pines at the 2013 Farmers Open.

Donald Miralle

According to the Century Club, during the Farmers era, $20 million in charitable donations were distributed, another $5 million of in-kind contributions were made, and 12,000 hours of volunteer time was logged. Farmers and the Century Club worked their way around the 2021 U.S. Open and significant renovations performed on both of Torrey Pines’ courses. There were numerous fog delays, a couple of Monday finishes and one particularly violent storm in 2016 that forced evacuations from the property. Then came the news four years ago that the tournament would have to move to a Saturday finish so as not to conflict with the NFL playoffs. Farmers pressed on and even created a nationally televised showcase on those Sundays that gave unprecedented exposure to the minority APGA Tour.

By virtually every measure, Farmers involvement in the tournament was a success. The question, of course, is: What happens now?

The San Diego event is one of five on tour whose sponsorships run out after the 2026 season. The others are Sony at Waialae in Hawaii, Genesis at Riviera in Los Angeles, Schwab at Colonial in Fort Worth and Wyndham at Sedgefield in Greensboro, N.C. In each case, no re-signings or new sponsors have been announced for those events, and any further word seems unlikely until the tour’s newly formed Future Competition Committee (FCC) makes its recommendations, possibly sometime in the first quarter of 2026.

Until then, tournaments like those in San Diego find themselves in the odd position of being like a car maker marketing a new model that has yet to built. The parts are all there, but who’s going to buy it if they don’t know what it looks like? Potential sponsors want to understand a tournament’s future stature, cost structure and place on the schedule.

In San Diego and at Torrey Pines, Gorsich believes he has one the tour’s most marketable events, and tour sources indicate there is strong interest in San Diego among potential sponsors. This year’s tournament will be the 59th held at Torrey Pines, and there are only eight current venues that have been associated with the tour for at least 50 years. Two U.S. Opens have been staged on the South Course, and the list of winners in Farmers’ time alone includes six different major champions. Beyond that, there are the drone shots of the Pacific Ocean coastline that are rivaled only by those at Pebble Beach.

“In our sport, the place you play means something,” Gorsich said. “Blindfold me, put me in front of the TV, and take the blindfold off—there are a lot of courses it would take me a while to figure out. Torrey Pines is not one of those. Those watching know the history here, they know what Tiger or Jon Rahm did on certain holes. It’s a special place and people will watch that.”

San Diego might have one other big thing going for it in a tour schedule reshuffle: The chairman of the FCC is Woods, who attended his first tour event at Torrey Pines and and has won there eight times.

Now surrounded by three events on the West Coast Swing that have been designated as signatures, along with having a Saturday finish the last four years, the Torrey Pines tournament has gotten a bit lost in the noise of those, as evidenced by TV ratings that are far lower than in Woods' heyday. This year, however, the Farmers is back to a Sunday conclusion, and Gorsich said corporate hospitality and daily ticket sales are “well ahead” of where they have been in recent years.

There’s always chatter about strength of field, and the Farmers has seen some drop-off of players who most move the needle. Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy, for example, have schedules that usually don’t include Torrey Pines. However, when the Genesis Invitational was moved last February on late notice to San Diego because of the fires in Los Angeles—only three weeks after the Farmers was played—large crowds turned out to see the stars in the signature-level field, and the TV ratings were strong. Ludvig Aberg’s victory on Sunday drew an average of 3.4 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-major broadcast since the 2024 Players Championship.

For this year's Farmers, among the bigger names to have committed thus far are two past champions, Justin Rose and Max Homa, along with Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Patrick Cantlay and Tom Kim. The commitment deadline is Jan. 23.

Despite the challenges and changes he faces in coming months, Gorisch said he’s bullish on both his tournament and what the PGA Tour has in mind for its future.

“Golf is hot and sponsors want to be in,” he said. “Taking Torrey out of it, I’m excited about the change. It’s not change for change’s sake, right? Let’s strategically address some things that maybe we’ve kept a certain way for a long time and really look at it thoughtfully. That’s exciting to me, and it should be exciting to any event, and they should respect that regardless of what it may mean for them.

“It’s hard to argue with the fact that this is purposeful and thoughtful.”