Piercy heads the field at Torrey Pines

American golfer Scott Piercy heads the field after the first day’s play of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. Piercy is playing only his second year as a Tour pro.

With the tournament being played over both the North and South courses, Piercy fired an opening round of 64 – 8-under-par over the North Course, which included seven birdies on the front nine.

With most of the top 15 players on the leaderboard having played the North Course – only Australia’s Robert Allenby broke the streak – it’s clear that the North Course played the easier of the two. And most of the events big names started their tournaments over the tougher South Course, including Phil Mickelson who opened with a two-under par 70.

Allenby – one of the most in-form players in the game at the moment, made two huge par saves late in his round to card a bogey-free 67 over the tougher South course, and like many of the event’s big-guns will tackle the easier North course for their second round.

Phil Mickelson played a cautious first round, but with the North Course to come will be hopeful of making up ground on the leaders over the easier course. Mickelson is bidding to win at Torrey Pines for the first time since 2001.

Also playing the South course were three-times Major winner Ernie Els of South Africa, who also carded a 70 while defending champion Nick Watney of the United States opened with a 71.

Our pick for the title, Ryan Moore opened his challenge on the North course and carded a 70.

To contrast the two courses’ relative difficulty, the scoring average on the 7,698-yard South Course was 72.769 on Thursday, more than 2.5 shots tougher than on the 6,986-yard North layout.