AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am

AT & T Pebble Beach Pro Am

It was a frustrating week for us at Torrey Pines with only one of our team, Patrick Rodgers, getting in to any kind of contention. Ultimately though on the final day like many of those near the top end of the leaderboard Rodgers struggled on the greens and that was the difference between him being right in the mix for the win as opposed to in the end finishing agonisingly one shot shy of the places in ninth.

The event itself was won by Matthieu Pavon. The Frenchman who was playing in only his third PGA Tour event hung on down the stretch before producing a superb birdie on the final hole, when a six looked more likely than a four, to pip Nicolai Hojgaard.

With German Stephan Jaeger the third player in the final three ball and in the mix on Sunday it was a truly international leaderboard!

Pavon who was playing at Torrey Pines for the first time landed the trophy at three figure odds to give the bookies another great week on the back of the victories for Kirk, Murray and Dunlap.

So with seemingly anyone who tee’s it up these days fancying their chances of winning the tour heads up the I1 in California on the coast to Pebble Beach for the AT & T Pro Am.

Those familiar with the event will be aware that for years the tournament has held a pro-am format played over a three course rotation, with Pebble Beach acting as host course. The event is known for its laid back pro-am atmosphere with the likes of Bill Murray and Huey Lewis wowing the fans year in year out….

This year however its all change as the event takes on Signature Event status with only two courses in play, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hills. A field of 80 will tee it up in the no cut event with all players playing a round on each course over the first two days before Pebble takes over for the final 36 holes. Monterey Penninsula, which has been the third course used over recent years is dropped from the rotation.

The amateurs who have been a big part of this event over the years will be present over the first couple of days but in a far reduced basis. In addition those amateurs present will be made up purely from the world of sports so as a result it is bye bye to Bill Murray, Ray Romano and Carlton from the Fresh Prince.

The 80 players will be made up of last season’s Fedex Cup top 50 who are guaranteed starts in all of this years Signature Events, the ‘next ten’ who earnt their place in the event through their performances in the Fall events and the ‘swing five’ who have played their way in over the past three weeks. Finally the field will be completed by members of the worlds top 30 who are not already eligible [such as Justin Thomas] and sponsors exemptions…
Still with me?, great! If not all you really need to know is that as a result we have a star studded field present far superior to anything seen here over recent years.

The market is headed up by the inform Rory McIlroy with the Northern Irishman the closely followed by Scottie Scheffler. This duo are then followed in the market by Viktor Hovland, and Xander Schauffele.

COURSES

As noted above the event will be played across two courses this year. The courses used will be as follows;

Pebble Beach
Spyglass Hills

Both courses are short at under 7000 yards, so length of the tee is not an issue here at all.

Both play to a par 72 and both feature Poa Annua greens.

Historically Spyglass Hills has played as the toughest course in the event however with the wind being the main defence of the courses if it blows one day but not on another this can have a big effect on the scoring averages from day to day.

If the wind does blow then Pebble Beach in particular suddenly becomes a brute, but if Mother Nature is kind to the players the tracks are there for the taking. That said I would expect this year for pin positions to be tougher at Pebble over the weekend compared to years gone by with celebrities not in the picture.

HISTORY

So let’s start by taking a look at the last ten winners

2023 J Rose
2022 T Hoge
2021 D Berger
2020 N Taylor
2019 P Mickelson
2018 T Potter Jnr
2017 J Spieth
2016 V Taylor
2015 B Snedeker
2014 J Walker

In six of the last ten years this has been an event for the ‘big guns’ with Mickelson, Snedeker, Spieth, Walker, Berger and Justin Rose last year winning, however in the other three years there have been absolute ‘skinners’ getting over the line in the form of Nick Taylor, Vaughn Taylor and of course Ted Potter Jnr who took down DJ and Day in 2018.

In 2022 meanwhile although not one of the game’s biggest names a well fancied Tom Hoge triumphed with us onboard.

The obvious thing to point out here though is that the field has been relatively weak over recent years whereas this year of course the games best are in town.

One thing all of the winners over the last decade or so had in common is a decent amount of course/event experience and some previous high finishes.

This can be seen by the fact that all 10 of the last 10 winners had a previous top 16 finish in the event and in most cases they had made several starts in here.

Two of them, Mickelson, Snedeker were all repeat winners. If we then look at the other winners over the past decade, Potter Jnr had finished 16th here previously, Walker had posted three top tens in the three years prior to his win while Spieth had posted two. Vaughn Taylor had finished 10th the year before, Nick Taylor had finished tenth here in 2017 and Daniel Berger had finished tenth and fifth on his two previous visits.

Finally to bring us bang up to date the 2022 champion Hoge had finished 12th the year before and triumphed on his seventh start here, while last years winner Justin Rose, although not a regular over the years here had made several starts with a sixth place here on the resume.

Again though let’s not forget there will be several of the games biggest names here this year who have not played the event at all over recent years and you certainly can’t rule them out.

Ultimately though I am keen to focus on players with past positive course experience here.

Current form coming in is useful but not essential. West Coast specialists Snedeker, Walker and Mickelson had all telegraphed there win with good form over the first few weeks of the new year as had Spieth and Berger. Equally though 2020 champion Nick Taylor had managed nothing better than 32nd in his first four starts of the year missing the cut in two of them while Potter Jnr and Vaughn Taylor had done absolutely nothing over the previous few weeks prior to their victories to warrant consideration! Finally Hoge had finished second at the Amex pro-am event just a fortnight before so despite missing the cut at the Farmers the previous week he was clearly in good nick. Finally Rose had started 2023 in positive fashion with finishes of 26th & 18th over the previous two weeks.

The other factor to look at is form on correlating courses on events played on short coastal tracks such as the Sony Open, The RBC Heritage and the RSM Classic being obvious points of reference.

The winning score is very much dictated by the weather. Over the last 10yrs we have seen winning scores ranging from -22 [Snedeker in 2015] to – 11, [Jimmy Walker in 2014].

WEATHER FORECAST

Temperatures don’t look like they will top 60 degrees this week while Thursday and Friday have showers in the forecast before things brighten up over the weekend.

The wind, which is obviously the key factor here looks like it could play it’s part, particularly on Friday with 30mph gusts forecast. From that point of view the draw over the first two days could be key.

As I always say though this could all change!

PICKS

I have gone with four players this week as follows;

JORDAN SPIETH – 18/1 – 2pts E/W – 1/5 odds 1st 7. - FINISHED 39th

First cab off the rank this week is Jordan Spieth.

Looking at the big names near the top of the market this week and you can split them in to two camps, those who have been regulars at Pebble Beach over the recent years as well as at some of the other shorter stops on tour such as Hilton Head, and those who tend to swerve this type of track but are now here as it is a Signature Event with a guaranteed payday. Spieth is someone who definitely falls in to the former camp and who has relished this type of test over the years.

Jordan has been an ever present in this event over the years and a look back at his record shows us that over the last 11 editions he has posted a victory and five further top tens here, with only last years 63rd place and a 45th in 2019 blotting the copybook.

The three time Major Champion was hit by injury after last years Ryder Cup, however he returned at Tiger’s Hero event in December playing nicely to finish sixth and having put in some good work over the winter break he built on that performance to produce an excellent year opening third place at the Sentry, where he ranked first for the week on the greens.

On to this week then and if the wind does blow as predicted the Texan’s prowess in blustery conditions should come to the fore. A former Open Champion and US Open Champion at Chambers Bay Jordan’s most recent win came at Hilton Head, which of course ties nicely here and if you add that to his record in this event his credentials by the coast are second to none.

The 2023 RBC Heritage was elevated to a ‘designated status’ and as a result the field saw several of the games big names tee it up who weren’t regulars in the event in previous years, ultimately though what we got was a leaderboard dominated by the big names who had shown their liking for the event previously. This week then we have a similar set of circumstances and I except a pretty similar scenario to play out and it is Spieth who appeals to me the most.

MAX HOMA – 20/1 – 2pts E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 7 - FINISHED 66th

Next up for me this week is Max Homa.

Homa is we all know is a bona fide California specialist with four of his six wins coming in his home state and with two Fortinet’s a Farmers and a Genesis to his name it is only a Pebble Beach and an Amex trophy that he lacks from his cabinet to complete the ‘California full house’.

The fact that Max doesn’t have a Pebble Beach Pro-Am trophy is probably more to do with his scheduling than his lack of suitability to the track. Ultimately you can’t play them all and with Riviera and Torrey high on his priorities something has had to give. In addition Max has been open in saying that he feels the tougher courses suit him better and with this event [and the Amex] historically set up easier with the amateurs in town he may have felt he wouldn’t thrive as much here.

This year though of course things are different with the amateurs only playing the first two days and if you add in the cooler blustery conditions expected I anticipate things will be tougher this year, thus playing in to Max’s hands hopefully.

With all that said though Homa’s last three visits here in 2019, 20 & 21, have seen him post finishes of 10, 14 & 7 so it is not as though he has struggled in the event.

This week then Max arrives here on the back of a title defence at Torrey, which saw him struggle pretty much throughout the week, however even though he barely got out of third gear he still managed a finish of 13th, which is a testament to just how resilient as a player he is these days.

With the likes of the in form Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler teeing it up this week Max’s odds have all but doubled from what we were looking at last week, however we still have a player who never seems to fail to produce the goods these days in a regular tour event in his home state. I’m happy to chance then that without the pressure he had of defending last week Max will once more step up and reward us on home turf.

KURT KITAYAMA – 125/1 – 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 7 - FINISHED 39th

Next up I am drawn to the credentials of Kurt Kitayama.

Kitayama was right in the hunt here las year before a final round 76 derailed him. Still though add that to his solid 18th place here back in 2020 and we can see that Kurt who was brought up four hours north of Pebble Beach in California is more than comfortable in this area.

A winner in windy conditions in Oman on the DP World Tour Kitayama has also posted a third place finish at the Honda, a runner up finish at the Scottish Open and a second place finish in Mexico so he is clearly something of a coastal specialist.

Furthermore with his win on the PGA Tour last year coming at Bay Hill with a 9- under total, if you add this to the fact that he posted a fourth place at the PGA Championship with a 4- under total and that his big finishes at the Honda and the Scottish Open were both at single digit numbers as well, and it is clear Kurt relishes it when it gets tough, which it could just do this week.

It must be said of course that consistency hasn’t to date been the 31yr old’s strong point on the PGA Tour, however he has started 2024 in eye catching fashion with rounds of 64 and 66 at the Sentry and then a 62 at the Sony on his way to 29th place.

Furthermore at the Sentry he ranked seventh for the week in Approach Play, with the putter unfortunately letting him down, not uncommon of course for someone making their debut at Kapalua, while at the Sony his long game again produced strong numbers in all areas.

To sum up Kitayama is a player who knows how to win and is not afraid to do so in big company so at three figure odds and in eye catching form he makes plenty of appeal returning to the coast again this week.

MAVERICK MCNEALY – 140/1 – 1pt E/W - 1/5 odds 1st 10 - FINISHED 39th

I am going to wrap things up this week by taking a chance on Maverick McNealy.

After a stellar amateur career Maverick arrived on the PGA Tour to great fanfare in the 19/20 season and while not setting the world alight he immediately looked comfortable on tour finishing 68th in the Fedex Cup in his debut season.

20/21 then saw McNealy improve to 58th in the Fedex and after finishing 38th the following season all that was really lacking was the maiden win.

Unfortunately though in 22/23 things went awry as after battling through a torn ligament shoulder injury, which he coincidentally suffered here with one swing on the seventh, the Californian finally admitted defeat stepping away in June before returning in Mexico in November.

After making a couple of starts then at the back end of 2023 McNealy headed in to 2024 on a Major Medical Extension and the good news is that despite a wobble on day four he took care of things on that front at Torrey Pines as needing a top 40 finish he came in 37th.

As a result McNealy will now be exempt for the remainder of the 2024 season.

With business taken care of on that front then Maverick now returns to Pebble Beach a course he knows well having been brought up not far away in Stanford and with his family having owned a home there while he grew up.
With some players a ‘home game’ like this can carry extra burden, however to McNealy this does not appear to be the case and when in the hunt in 2021 he said “I tend to play well closer to home, I’m just really excited to be on a golf course I’m comfortable at, with conditions I’m familiar with. It would be really, really fun to win here.”

Sadly it wasn’t to be that year as Maverick eventually came second to Daniel Berger, however with that finish coming on the back of a fifth the year before his comments regarding being comfortable here are clearly true.

Furthermore Maverick has clearly shown us in his time to date on tour that he is comfortable on shortish coastal tracks in general as in addition to his big performances here he has top ten’s at Mayakoba and Waialae CC to his name along with a fourth at Hilton Head.

In addition Maverick has shown a great affinity to playing in his home state in general having racked up top tens at The Genesis Invitational and The Barracuda to go with a runner up finish at the Fortinet.

Having struggled for form of late McNealy is perhaps somewhat fortunate to be here at all this week as he tee’s it up on a sponsors exemption, something which has raised one or two eyebrows due to his position on the PGA Tour players advisory council. Now here though there is clearly in incentive for him to perform.

Granted McNealy is yet to produce anything of real note since his return from injury, however there was some eye catching stuff over the first three days at Torrey Pines, which saw him in a strong position on the leaderboard before the final day struggles.

McNealy is clearly a class act destined for big things and if it does all click he could easily make a mockery of these odds and I am happy to take a chance on him bouncing right back to form at arguably his favourite course.