Underdog PGA Draft Strategy: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Purse: $20M
Winner's Share: $3.6M
FedEx Cup Points: 700 to the Winner
Location: Pebble Beach, California
Course: Pebble Beach Golf Links (three rounds), Spyglass Hill Golf Course (one round)
Yardage: Pebble: 6,989, Spyglass: 7,071
Par: 72 (both)

Previous Winners

2025 – Rory McIlroy
2024 – Wyndham Clark
2023 – Justin Rose
2022 – Tom Hoge
2021 – Daniel Berger
2020 – Nick Taylor
2019 – Phil Mickelson
2018 – Ted Potter Jr.
2017 – Jordan Spieth
2016 – Vaughn Taylor

Tournament Preview

The first signature event of the year is finally upon us as we see the 2026 PGA Tour debuts of McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood. One of the most iconic golf courses in the world set alongside the Pacific Ocean, one of the challenges of Pebble Beach is often the weather as the venue is susceptible to high winds and the forecast is calling for rain Sunday. We saw that come into play two years ago, when Clark won a weather shortened 54-hole event. 

Last week brought us an exciting finish that saw Hideki Matsuyama bogey the 72nd hole, and Chris Gotterup took advantage to win in a playoff for his second victory already this year. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler nearly came back from a two-over opening round, finishing T3 alongside Si Woo Kim's third consecutive top-10 and up-and-coming Nicolai Hojgaard and Akshay Bhatia. If last week's leaderboard is a signal for what's to come this weekend, golf fans will be in for another treat.

In analyzing the venue and identifying key stats for the week, Pebble is one of the rare courses the Tour visits that's under 7,000 yards and only one of the par-4s plays over 450 yards. It's simply a course that you cannot overpower, and there are a lot of forced layups off the tee that will negate the typical advantage of the longer hitters. Pebble is also known for having the smallest greens on Tour, so scrambling is going to come into play more than usual due to how difficult it will be to hit greens in regulation consistently. This is a great time to target accurate drivers, good scramblers and players that approach it well from inside 125 yards.

Underdog Contest Overview

Underdog has gone all-in on full tournament PGA contests this year and are currently featuring five contests with buy-ins ranging from $3 to $100, with the featured $10 contest having a $10,000 top prize. Every draft has six managers drafting six-player teams. Now, let's dive into my rankings. 

Rankings

ADP Differences

Ben Griffin - My Rank: 4, ADP: 16.9

Griffin has had a modest start to the year with results of T19, T24 and T28. Not great, but he's also not missing cuts, either. The main culprit is that he hasn't been hitting it as far off the tee early on, but that's not going to hurt him much around here. And let's not forget he won three times last year with two runner-ups as well, one of which came in a signature event. Considering his ADP, we can start targeting him as early as the 2/3 turn.

Cameron Young - My Rank: 5, ADP 18.1

Young's past results here will have a lot of people fading him, but he's turned into a completely different player over the last six months and it's not like McIlroy had much success before winning here last year. Not a dream start to the year for him but it's early, and he made both cuts. A nice course to have an elite putter at, too. A great target for the third round.

Jake Knapp - My Rank: 6, ADP: 15.3

I guess with all the big names in the field, Knapp is getting bypassed for the likes of Schauffele and Cantlay. I'd advise against doing that. The third-year Tour pro has started the year with results of T11-T5-8 and was a solid 22nd in SG: Tee-to-green in his debut at the event last year. His strengths of wedge play and putting should help him continue the momentum. If you get the first pick, I'd be thrilled to have a Scheffler-Griffin-Knapp start. 

Leverage Plays

Taylor Pendrith ADP 35.2 (likely around 10 percent rostered)

I talked about Pendrith in my betting article, who took last week off after missing the cut the prior two weeks. The appeal to him in contests like these is that when he's in form, he often finds his way near the top of the leaderboard. He had a T6 in Hawaii and has back-to-back top-10s at this event. You can snag him with the last pick in your draft and gain leverage on 90 percent of the field if he has a big showing.

Rickie Fowler ADP 33.7 (likely around 50 percent rostered)

I suppose it's easy to get overlooked in these signature event fields, but it's crazy to me that Fowler is going undrafted roughly half of the time. He's started the year with back-to-back top-20s after posting top-10s in both of the playoff events he played in last summer. Fowler is getting back to his 2023 form and has been dialed in with his irons.

Min Woo Lee ADP 34.2 (likely around 40 percent rostered)

Lee was in contention before a disappointing final round in Phoenix, but he's been playing quality golf. He posted a top-15 in all four DP World Tour events after the playoffs, and it's hard not to like him at a place where scrambling is so important. 

Dart Throw

Sam Stevens ADP 35.7

Looking for someone that is rarely ever getting drafted? Stevens finished T17 here last year and was third in SG: Off-the-Tee. He's finished no worse than T31 through four events this year, highlighted by a T6 at the AMEX. Stevens is really good around the green, too.

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