RADIO
Hello, folks and welcome back to Horse For The Course! Max Homa continues to be dominant in his home state of California and picked up his sixth career victory on the PGA Tour with an impressive win at the Farmers Insurance Open over the weekend.
After the proper golf that was played at Torrey Pines, we now head to another legendary golf course in Pebble Beach for this week's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Unfortunately, as the event's title indicates, we'll be dealing with the often-frustrating Pro-Am format, as well as a three-course rotation and a 54-hole cut. Patience golf fans...this is the last of these "hit and giggle" events on the 2023 schedule.
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2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Listen, I'm gonna play DFS this week, you're gonna play DFS this week...so I'm not gonna try to sugarcoat this event. The field is the weakest that we've seen so far in 2023 and features just one player ranked inside the OWGR Top-10 (Matt Fitzpatrick).
The combination of big money for international events, huge tournaments looming ahead on the schedule at Phoenix and Riviera, as well as a Pro-Am format that many pro golfers simply don't have the stomach for, have led to a gradual, but definitely noticeable decline for this event over the last five years. It's a shame, as Pebble Beach is one of our country's most storied and legendary golf courses. The bigger shame is that this field will only play Pebble for a maximum of two rounds, mixing in rounds at Monterey Peninsula and Spyglass Hill with one at Pebble, before a 54-hole cut will leave the top-60 golfers and ties to chase victory at Pebble Beach in the final round.
Tom Hoge is your defending AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am champion and he'll be back in pursuit of back-to-back wins against a field that includes the aforementioned Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, and Jordan Spieth. That's about it as far as legit stars, as the rest of the field is composed of veterans such as Justin Rose, Webb Simpson, and Matt Kuchar with a small mix of solid, if unspectacular, Tour pros such as Maverick McNealy, Seamus Power, and Denny McCarthy.
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The Course: Pebble Beach Golf Links
Par 72 - 6,816 Yards, Greens: Poa Annua, Designed By: Jack Neville and Douglas Grant
Monterey Peninsula: Par 71 - 6,958 Yards, Greens: Poa Annua; Spyglass Hill: Par 72 - 7,035 Yards, Greens: Poa Annua
As mentioned in the intro, we are dealing with three different courses this week. In addition to Pebble, which players will play once in the first three rounds and again in the final round, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula's Shore Course will also be in the rotation. All three are ruggedly beautiful, with the famous Pebble Beach being the crown jewel.
All three courses measure less than 7,000 yards, so distance isn't a necessity this week. What you will probably hear the most about in the lead-up to this event is the tiny greens that golfers will be firing at, as they are some of the smallest greens we'll see on the PGA Tour schedule this year. Players will need to find fairways and greens, but that can be more difficult than it sounds in often unpredictable conditions and the aforementioned tiny size of the landing spots. All three of these courses are smack-dab on the Monterrey Peninsula coast and huge changes in weather can, and often do, influence the outcome of this tournament.
So...we are forced to deal with a lot of unpredictable variables this week. The course a player draws for each different day and the amount of wind during their rounds on those different courses is something that is unfortunately out of our hands. This event is famously tough on first-timers, so I'm targeting players with plenty of AT&T experience that are sharp on approach shots.
Recent AT&T Pebble Beach Winners & Scoring Info
- 2022: Tom Hoge (-19)
- 2021: Daniel Berger (-18)
- 2020: Nick Taylor (-19)
- 2019: Phil Mickelson (-19)
- 2018: Ted Potter Jr. (-17)
- Average Winning Score Last Five Years: -18.4
- Average Cut Line Score Last Five Years: -2.6
The Horse
Jordan Spieth
- Event Scoring Average: 69.00 (10 career starts)
- Notable Course History: 2nd (2022), T3 ('21), T9 ('20), Win ('17)
- DraftKings Price: FanDuel Price:
While this event's field is wholly underwhelming, one of the bright spots is Jordan Spieth. Though it's highly likely that the reason Spieth is teeing it up this week is due to his long-running partnership with AT&T, I prefer to tell myself that it's because of his undying love for Pebble Beach, a layout on which he won in 2017 and has been close to wins on numerous other occasions.
Giving a player like Spieth a backdrop such as Pebble is sort of like handing a prodigious artist his or her favorite materials and turning them loose in a comfortable space. The Texan is a legendary feel player and Pebble's unique combination of terrain and unpredictable elements allows him to capitalize on his creativity and pure shotmaking ability.
His career scoring average of 69.00 is the best in this week's field among those with two or more starts, as is Spieth's massive SG: Total mark of 42.35 in this event since 2018. With the rust sufficiently knocked off thanks to a pair of starts in Hawaii earlier this month - one in which he was in weekend contention and one in which he led after the first round only to miss the cut - Spieth's real 2023 schedule starts this week. Hopefully...there will be no near-death experiences in this year's edition.
The Ponies
Tom Hoge
- Event Scoring Average: 70.48 (Eight career starts)
- Notable Course History: Win ('22), 12th ('21), T39 ('17)
- DraftKings Price: FanDuel Price:
Defending champions are pretty low-hanging fruit for this article and I usually try to avoid them as a result. That said, last year's AT&T Pebble Beach champion, Tom Hoge, does warrant discussion on this slate thanks to the overall weakness of this year's field.
Before last year's breakthrough win, Hoge had been solid, if unspectacular at the legendary California complex, making the cut in four of his seven career AT&T starts with his best finish standing as a 12th-place result in 2021. However, as we often see with this event, experience does matter, and Hoge's two best finishes happen to be his two most recent Pebble starts.
In addition to his growing confidence level with this event, Hoge comes in with white-hot iron play across his most recent starts. The veteran has gained strokes on Approach in his last nine measured starts and is averaging +4.8 SG: Approach over his last five tournaments, including recent outings at the Sentry (+10.2), Sony (+4.9), and AmEx (+2.5).
Maverick McNealy
- Event Scoring Average: 69.60 (Four career starts)
- Notable Course History: T33 ('22), 2nd ('21), T5 ('20)
- DraftKings Price: FanDuel Price:
Great course history is one thing, but Maverick McNealy's connection with Pebble Beach is a little different than most. McNealy, the son of Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, used to live right off Pebble's 15th hole. Yeah...he's pretty familiar with the place.
That comfortability has shown through in the younger McNealy's AT&T results. He narrowly missed a win two years ago, ultimately settling for a solo second-place finish behind Daniel Berger in 2021, a result that followed a T5 in the 2020 edition.
The former Stanford star comes into this year's AT&T Pro-Am on the heels of his strongest professional season and playing the best golf of his young career. McNealy logged four top-10s last season and finished 38th on the FedEx Cup Points list. He's picked up right where he left off in the new season by making five of six cuts in the fall with a pair of top-10s and two additional top-20s. In two 2023 outings, the 27-year-old posted a T7 at the Sony and a T31 last week at the Farmers. McNealy has now gained strokes total in seven consecutive starts.
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Joel Dahmen
- Event Scoring Average: 70.75 (Five career starts)
- Notable Course History: T6 ('22), T14 ('20)
- DraftKings Price: FanDuel Price:
We find some solid Pebble Beach results for the bucket-hat-donning Joel Dahmen, who is a perfect 5/5 in made cuts in the AT&T Pro-Am and most recently logged a T6 in last year's edition.
Due to the birth of his first child, the Washington native has yet to tee it up in 2023, which is, admittedly, a bit concerning, yet also intriguing thanks to the well-known "baby bump" that often comes with new fathers. However, he did close 2022 on a heater, making the cut in his last six starts of the year with a pair of top-fives and a top-10 across those outings. He grades out first in this week's field in SG: Total over his last 24 rounds.
Dahmen isn't the type of player we want to deploy on just any venue. He relies on accuracy both off the tee and on approach rather than distance, which leads to more success on the schedule's shorter layouts. The 35-year-old grades out second in this week's field in both Fairways and GIRs Gained over his last 24 rounds.
Nick Taylor
- Event Scoring Average: 70.03 (Eight career starts)
- Notable Course History: T14 ('22), T39 ('21), Win ('20), T28 ('19), T10 ('17)
- DraftKings Price: FanDuel Price:
The Canadian has made himself right at home on the Monterey Peninsula over the years. Although Pebble Beach is a long way from Winnipeg, Nick Taylor has thrived on the rugged coastal layout, notching a victory at the 2017 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and making the cut in six of eight career appearances.
Whether it's because Canadians are notoriously friendly and Taylor actually likes the Pro-Am format or if it's due to his track record of thriving in windy conditions, the 34-year-old has shown an unquestioned affinity for this event, amassing an impressive 70.03 scoring average in the AT&T.
Taylor has been characteristically inconsistent as of late, though he's flashed the upside that we're looking for. He made the cut in four of six Swing Season appearances, posting a T6 at the Fortinet Championship as well as two more top-25s. It's been the same story in 2023, as he opened with a sterling T7 at the Sony Open, only to follow it with a missed cut at AmEx. Despite his chronic volatility, Taylor has a history of repeatedly playing well on a handful of courses and Pebble is at the top of his favorite layouts.
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