2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am - DraftKings Picks

Each tournament, the Betsperts Golf strategy show with Byron Lindeque and myself will be posted here and will cover strategy and our best plays of the week.

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With both in this week’s event 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 also means little. Add 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 %, SG: Approach and SG: Putting even more important. In fact, this week will be one of the highest weights I have placed all year on SG: Approach. With the greens smaller than average on both courses and downright tiny at Pebble Beach, golfers skilled at scrambling and saving par will also be vital to success. Pebble Beach has the most bunkers on Tour at 116. Along with Spyglass Hill, they combine for a Sand Save rate of 43.8%, which is much tougher than average. The Rabbit Hole is the only place you will find filters for “High Bunker #” and “Difficult Sand Save” courses.

This is also a week where targeting players good at putting on Poa greens is vital. Taking Jordan Spieth’s quote on Pebble Beach being “a dart-throwing contest to see who can make the most putts” a step further. Here are the top players in the field when combining SG: APP on small greens with SG: Poa putting over the last four years.

Homa 1.53
Hovland 1.26
Thomas 1.06
Henley 1.04
McCarthy 1.04
Scheffler 0.92
Rose 0.84
Schauffele 0.83
Hoge 0.82
Burns 0.79
Malnati 0.78
Taylor 0.75
Im 0.73
Bezuidenhout 0.73
Schenk 0.72
Spieth 0.71

The trends for this week show that experience in this event matters. Golfers who have played at Pebble multiple times and had success here usually follow that up with positive performances. Since 2010, players with 7, 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 veterans have had higher finishes here.

For DraftKings purposes, two players stand out for me this week in Viktor Hovland and Max Homa. I will be heavily overweight on both players, even at higher ownership. There is also a large tier of players with past win equity, who can definitely win here. Many of these players are good course fits and have salaries that are way too low considering we have seen four straight longshots win this year.

Also, with this also being such an odd and unpredictable event thanks to multiple courses, wet and windy conditions, and a Pro-Am format, I will play multiple golfers who are either low-owned or have high upside. Among that group, I will be overweight on Jason Day ($8.4K), Eric Cole ($7.3K), Hideki Matsuyama ($8.3K), Brian Harman ($7.6K), Wyndham Clark ($7.4K), Nick Taylor ($7.2K), Tom Hoge ($6.7K) and Rickie Fowler ($7.4K).

To narrow it down even further, my “Core 4” most important metrics for the week include submodels for SG: Approach, SG: Putting, and a combination of Pebble Beach course history along with my unique splits for the week – namely performance on short, coastal and western courses.

Most Important Stats For Success at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

*In order of importance

SG: APP
SG: Putting (Poa)
SG: Coastal Courses
Proximity 75-150 yds
SG: ARG/Scrambling
Good Drive %
SG: Short Courses
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.