Strategy
f684b2f3d4218ee06dad551b3bb2074bFor DFS purposes, there is a clear upper-tier of three players in Jordan Spieth, Matt Fitzpatrick and Viktor Hovland. They are followed by a second tier of Tom Hoge, Seamus Power, and Maverick McNealy. With news breaking in the past couple of hours of Matt Fitzpatrick nursing a sore neck, I will most likely be limiting my exposure to him in lineups. When golfers are question marks due to injury I like to place them in lineups with only my best other plays. Since I am playing 150 lineups I would estimate including Fitzpatrick in around 15 of them.
With so much depth in the $7K range this week, my preferred strategy will be to play two of the upper-tier golfers listed above with four players coming from the $7-8K range. For a second consecutive week, the $6K range is hot garbage and other than a few dart throws, I won’t have ownership over 5% on anyone down there.
When a full-field of 156 golfers is winnowed to just 60 for the final round, it becomes extremely tough to get 6-of-6 golfers through the cut line. On the flip side, every single golfer is guaranteed three full rounds. Pebble Beach is an event with much higher variance due to the multiple courses, the pro-am setup, the weak field and the potential impacts of the wind. For me, I am strongly focusing on players who fit the winning trends for the course combined with strong course history here at Pebble Beach.
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Narratives and Important Metrics
Unique Model Weights
- SG: Short Courses
- SG: West Coast
- SG: Coastal Courses
With each of the three courses in this week’s rotation being so short, distance off the tee will not be an advantage this week. Many players will lay up to specific target zones with long irons and 3-woods. Because fairways are so wide and the rough is cut short, accuracy off the tee means little as well. Add in the fact that players are clubbing down, and the result is driving accuracy above 72%. There are fairway bunkers that litter the course along with the impending ocean beyond the cliffs, but thanks to all of the forced layups these danger areas are mostly avoided. I am strongly downgrading Off the Tee (OTT) performance in my model for this event.
This makes Good Drive % and Strokes Gained Approach even more important. In fact, this week will be one of the highest weights I place all year on SG: Approach. Also, with the greens smaller than average on two of the courses, and downright tiny at Pebble Beach, golfers good at scrambling and saving par will also be vital to success. Finally, don’t forget to target players good at putting on Poa greens, and who outperform their non-Poa baseline when putting on Poa grass.
The above trends section for this week tells you that experience in this event really matters. Golfers who have played at Pebble multiple times and who have had success here usually follow that up with positive performances. Since 2010, players with 7, 4, 16, 6, 6, 7, 8, 4, 3, 21, and 5 previous appearances in this event have been victorious. Also, players who have past win equity and who are Tour veterans have also had higher finishes here.
To narrow it down even further, my “Core 4” most important metrics for the week include submodels for SG: Approach, SG: Putting, Scoring, and a combination of Pebble Beach course history along with my unique splits for the week – namely performance on short, coastal and western courses.
Weather Forecast – Pebble Beach, California
Most Important Stats For Success at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
*In order of importance
- SG: APP
- SG: Putting (Poa)
- Par 4 350-450 yds
- Proximity 75-150 yds
- SG: ARG/Scrambling
- Good Drive %
- Event Course History
- Par 5 Scoring
- BoB%
- Bogey Avoidance
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – DraftKings Picks
Each week along with presenting my top choices for each of the categories below, I will include each of the pertinent stats for the specific event that comes directly from my model. Except for the “Core Plays,” which most weeks will typically be somewhat on the chalky side, I will include at least one player I am positive on who is forecast to be lower-owned and who will present a good pivot from some of the higher-owned options. In essence, the players you see below make up the majority of my player pool for this event.
Core Plays
Upper-Tier Plays
Mid-Range Plays
Value Plays
Photo by Harry How/Getty Images