.png)
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Golf Tips
Mav McNealy 2pts Win 22/1
Joel Dahmen 1pt Win 50/1
Will Gordon 1pt E/W 8 places 80/1
SH Kim 1pt E/W 8 Places 90/1
Russell Knox 0.5pts E/W 10 Places 100/1
Max the killer at the Farmers…
Well well well, another week and another continuation of fairly short-price winners. Max Homa is fully becoming another killer when it matters. Max has never finished 2nd and everytime he has been in contention on a Sunday, he’s gone on to win, and something I said very similar with Tony Finau at the back end of last year, once you win once they seem to get easier. Both those golfers are now surely in the major picture going into spring.
It was a shame not to be on Max because he is a really likeable guy, as we saw with his ‘earpiece’ segment live on CBS this weekend. Sometimes though for me when 75% of the golfing world seems to be on a guy at around 20/1 it all feels too obvious and I’m ok with missing Max and getting him later on in the season when it’s less obvious. All in all a fairly decent week with the putting dominator Keegan Bradley, something I’ve never said before haha. Keegan picked up a nice 2nd place for us and I’m looking forward to continuing this trajectory upwards.
Of course, we have to quickly mention that Final round from Jon Rahm. The complete opposite of moving day and it was quite refreshing to see the inevitable Jon Rahm ‘charge win’ not happen. He is human after all.
Back to the dreary 3 courses…
We move onto Pebble Beach, not the best four days to view a tournament from both On Course and on TV, like we had with two weeks ago, the AT&T Pro Am is played over three courses, with a cut after 54 holes much like we had two weeks ago at the Amex. Note, you are bound to see a Gareth Bale and a Colston from Fresh prince on the coverage this weekend.
They play one round on each of Spyglass Hill and Monterey point, and the other two rounds on the iconic Pebble Beach course. Again, a pre-warning, we will have the same problem as two weeks ago, where we’ve only got shot data for the Pebble Beach course and there will also be no shot link for the two other courses.
All courses are around 7,000 yards in length, so they are short, with the Monterey Course playing as a Par 71 with three par-5s. Pebble Beach as we know from many US opens will, of course, be playing the hardest of the three, but in effect they only play as tough as the winds off the coast dictate, so it’s important we look out for that before placing any of our bets. For example, so say; playing a bomber with no control in the wind. Spyglass Hill is also a fairly tough course, Par: 72; and the longest of the three, so don’t expect really low scores across all 3 days.
Fairways are Bentgrass and the rough is Ryegrass, certainly won’t be as thick as last week or any of the US Opens we’ve seen at Pebble Beach before, and for the greens we stay on this POA Annua surface which has really become a big struggle for many players. The amount of 5 footers missed last week, we are only going to see that continue this week.
We are likely to see around -1, -2 average for Pebble beach and more like -5 for the other two courses, so I expect the winning score this week to be around -18 which is what we’ve seen in previous renditions, so no surprises there.
Previous Winners: Tom Hoge (-19); 2021: Daniel Berger (-18); 2020: Nick Taylor (-19); 2019: Phil Mickelson (-19); 2018: Ted Potter Jnr (-17); 2017: Jordan Spieth (-19); 2016: Vaughn Taylor (-17); 2015: Brandt Snedeker (-22); 2014: Jimmy Walker (-11); 2013: Brandt Snedeker (-19); 2012: Phil Mickelson (-17); 2011: D.A. Points (-15); 2010: Dustin Johnson (-16).
My focus for picks this week…
The first thing that stands out for me this week is the field. A lot of big names missing and the three big ones in Spieth, Fitzy and Hovland don’t offer much value for me to have a look at. Spieth has good form at this event, but coming off a missed cut, 9/1 is just not worth it for me. Hovland and Fitzpatrick have barely been playing any golf and taking that risk on either of those at 10/1, again, is just not worth putting up.
A big focus for me this week is the greens, firstly as I said earlier, these POA greens, are really tough to read and I’d like most of my picks to have a really good putting stroke and be gaining strokes putting the last few weeks. Linked in with this is also the size of the greens. Especially with Pebble Beach, the greens here are one of the smallest on tour and I want to factor in golfers who are close with their proximity to the hole and are hitting greens in regulation, especially with wedges in hand.
Away from the greens, you do need an element of scrambling data here to survive, bunkers are notoriously quite hard and because of the size of the greens it means your ball is likely to find the rough out the back of greens quite often so getting up and down is vital. I’d like to mention that the greens at Monterey course are much much bigger, so some guys that are not in my model will still manage to shoot something low, so don’t come at me on that, maybe the type of player you want for First Round Leader though.
I’m not putting a huge emphasis on Driving the ball this week as fairways are fairly wide, but I’d like to see some good off the tee data as a whole from my picks and some general Tee to Green gaining strokes trends regularly over the last few weeks, that will in turn integrate a bit of form into my model. I also love in my model I’m running, the approach stats for between 125-150, this will really pull out the best wedge players, something we are going to see a lot of this week in my eyes.
So all in all, lots of data this week but here is what is making up my model;
SG Tee to green
Approach 125-150 yards
SG Putting
Prox. To hole
Greens in Regulation
Scrambling
Driving Distance
POA Form
Top 20 players based on that model;
1 William Gordon 75/1
2 Tom Hoge 18/1
3 Matthew Fitzpatrick 9/1
4 Keith Mitchell 28/1
5 Matthias Schmid 150/1
6 Justin Rose 25/1
7 Maverick McNealy 18/1
8 Kurt Kitayama 80/1
9 Taylor Pendrith 45/1
10 Thomas Detry 45/1
11 Marcel Siem 175/1
12 Benjamin Taylor 125/1
13 Kevin Yu 125/1
14 Joel Dahmen 30/1
15 David Lipsky 60/1
16 Viktor Hovland 11/1
17 Trevor Cone 1000/1
18 Kyle Westmoreland 1000/1
19 Beau Hossler 80/1
20 Russell Knox 80/1
21 Andrew Putnam 28/1
22 Austin Eckroat 225/1
23 Sean O'Hair 350/1
24 Dean Burmester 60/1
25 Matt Kuchar 33/1
Some big prices in that model this week, what a great opportunity we have to land something big, my eyes are lighting up as we speak. I will be this week for sure doing some live adds and some more props and Top 20 plays, especially on guys that like it here on the west coast, some golfers like Harry Higgs and Zac Blair will definitely get a mention on my card so look out for those on twitter as I’m keeping the plays below of just my outright picks.
If you want to play my new weekly fantasy competition, look out for my updates on my twitter @tomford9931 and my site www.drawshankgolf.com .
Mav McNealy – 2pts win (22/1)
First guy I get to this week is Mav. Mav is excellent on the west coast and he is going to get close in one of these less talented fields sooner or later, I hope this is the week. McNealy is playing really good golf and has 7 top 20’s in each of his last 8 starts. He also came close to winning with a second place at the Fortinet 18 months ago, and most importantly that was on POA greens. He gains strokes on short courses like these three we have this week and is surely going close here.
Joel Dahmen – 1pts win 50/1
Dahmen has finished 6th and 14th in this event in the past, so has some great form and he is another nearly man, who will thrive is field like this. A bit of form with Dahmen having 3 top 10’s in his recent events and he is just something who I cannot ignore. Gains strokes off the tee and is fantastic with his wedges, something before I mentioned to look at for, an easy click at the price.
Will Gordon – 1 pt ew 80/1 (8 Places)
In a very short time, PGA Tour rookie, Will Gordon, one of the best up and coming rookie’s is making a name for himself, with big finishes recently which included a third-place finish at the Mayakoba and a 15th-place finish at the RSM Classic. He loves these shorter tracks, not that he’s short with the driver but he tends to put the ball in his favoured range inside 120 more often and not and he can take a big advantage here. He’s gaining strokes in both ball-striking categories and he’s coming back to this event after a T21st last year.
SH Kim – 1pts ew 90/1 (8 Places)
SH Kim is someone who we are not that familiar with yet, maybe because his namesake Tom Kim is lighting up the tour. But SH Kim quietly after a great season on the Korn Ferry is putting up some great finishes. A few unlucky signs two weeks ago at the Amex where he missed the cut but at a place where the fairways are much bigger I have no problem playing him here. A T20 last week and a T12 at the Sony, I think 90/1 is an absolute steal on a golfer getting closer and closer in these events.
Russell Knox – 0.5pts each way at 100/1 (10 Places)
Once again another golfer that thrives in these weakened fields. Knox ranks 4th in SG Approach over the past 15 weeks, and as you can see from my model he stands out tee to green and he is just great value at this price. strong wedges and short iron play his forte and he is bound to make the cut here unless something drastic happens. Knox finished 7th here two years ago and his game is in a very similar place.
Комментарии