ThriveFantasy Golf: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

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Updated on February 5, 2020 4:01PM EST

Today we're tackling the three-course layout of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is consistently one of the Tour's favorite stops.

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COURSE OVERVIEW

Monterrey Peninsula GC (Shore Course) - 6,958 yards, Par 71 Slope: 133

Pebble Beach Golf Links - 6,816 yards, Par 72 Slope: 145

Spyglass Hill Golf Course - 6,953 yards, Par 72 Slope: 145

Once again, we're faced with a tournament where the players will tee off from three different courses. Most of our selected players will play Spyglass on Thursday, and Jason Day will draw a tee time at the Shore Course, which is the easiest course by far. Matt Kuchar will tee off at Pebble Beach, where he has a great course record. I actually think that Spyglass is a more challenging track than PBGL in a lot of ways, but it lacks the historic and majestic signature holes, and has slightly more forgiving rough. Both Spyglass and PBGL have small greens that can be tough to hold, which is why I chose SG: Approach in my metrics.

While I picked these specific categories for Pebble, I think all of them still apply for the other courses. While neither Spyglass nor the Shore course has the kind of legendary vistas of Pebble, they all require accuracy on approach as well as off the tee. The stat I would discount the most is Scrambling from the Rough, as that stat is more specific to the challenges of Pebble.

	2019/USOpen Finish	2018 Finish	Round One Scoring Average	SG: Approach	Scrambling: Rough	Driving Accuracy	Course
Dustin Johnson	T45, T35	T2	10	47	109	174	Spyglass
Jason Day	T4, T21	T2	131	213	211	203	MP:Shore
Jordan Spieth	T56, T65	T20	192	175	140	237	Spyglass
Matt Kuchar	T22, T16	T62	44	51	157	7	Pebble
Jason Dufner	DNP, T35	DNP	118	62	94	54	Spyglass
Phil Mickelson	1, T52	T2	131	91	33	200	Spyglass
Patrick Cantlay	DNP, T21	T36	5	6	224	12	Spyglass
Kevin Kisner	T28, T49	MC	212	56	90	43	Spyglass
Paul Casey	2, T21	T8	189	24	1	75	Spyglass
Kevin Na	DNP, MC	T20	84	90	6	92	Spyglass

(Due to lack of applicable stats, Dustin Johnson's numbers are from 2019)

Dustin Johnson - STROKES: 66.5

Johnson is tough to call here, because we don't have a lot of information on his current game. Fortunately for him, he isn't playing Pebble, because he can be very erratic off the tee and that can get him in trouble. I have to play this one safe, though.

PICK: OVER

Jason Day - EAGLES: 0.5

Day is playing the easiest of the three courses, and he may very well snag his eagle on the 1st, which is an incredibly reachable 502-yard Par 5 (NOTE: This hole may be re-tooled to be a Par 4). His other three chances are 40-60 yards longer, but are still very reachable with Day's length.

PICK: OVER

Jordan Spieth - BIRDIES: 3.5

Spieth is once again one of the slower guys out of the gate, so I don't have a lot of confidence in how he'll fare Thursday. We have to keep in mind that these courses are shorter than most of the tracks they play on, and his favorable finishes imply that the courses play to his strengths. Although he'll throw some bogeys into the mix, I'm going to give Spieth the go-ahead here.

PICK: OVER

Matt Kuchar - PARS: 11.5

Pebble and Kuchar have a good relationship and the metrics bear that out. His deadly accuracy off the tee is a necessity here, and the challenge with this pick is measuring how many birdies he'll get - which would offset the par total. It's rumored that they've tinkered with the layout to make it even more difficult than usual.

PICK: OVER

Jason Dufner - BOGEYS: 2.5

Dufner played well in the U.S. Open, but all that tells us is how well he played Pebble. Spyglass is a comparable challenge and a little bit more forgiving for a less accurate driver. Unless a player offsets with some birdies, three bogeys will take you out of the running pretty quickly.

PICK: UNDER

Phil Mickelson - EAGLES + BIRDIES: 3.5

Mickelson loves playing these courses, as he as a bit of a hometown advantage and is very familiar with all three layouts. It would be very difficult to play against him with this metric, and if it were any other tournament, I'd have no issue going the other way.

PICK: OVER

Patrick Cantlay - PARS + BOGEYS: 12.5

I think Cantlay is poised to have a great year, and I don't think we'll see many bogeys from the quick starter. These multi-category picks are difficult, as you're actually measuring birdies, eagles and double-bogeys against this number. Let's assume two Par 5 birdies, a bogey or two on a Par 4 and perhaps one more birdie. Based on those guesses, its an easy pick.

PICK: OVER

Kevin Kisner - STROKES: 67.5

If I'm playing by the numbers, I think this is just too low of a number for Kisner to hit.

PICK: OVER

Paul Casey - BIRDIES: 4.5

Like Day and Mickelson, Casey has a great history here. Five birdies is a tall order - it basically requires Casey to do well on all the Par 5s and find a couple of birdies elsewhere. I'm going to go with course history and his positive metric numbers.

PICK: OVER

Kevin Na - STROKES: 66.5

Na is a streaky player and it's entirely possible that he could pop with a low number. Rather than play with variance, I'll go with the safe pick.

PICK: OVER

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