AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Predictions & Picks: Conservative/Aggressive Plays for Every Type of Bettor

There’s an old saying in golf (and elsewhere): Form is temporary, class is permanent.

It means, of course, that recent performance is fleeting, but talent will endure. And it makes sense, especially at the highest level of professional golf. The cyclical nature of the beast will always show certain players riding heaters, though the best will continually contend for titles on a more regular basis.

That’s all true.

Let’s not pretend, though, that form isn’t extremely important, especially when trying to select players to fare well in a golf tournament.

I don’t know if there’s any specific way to quantify this, but it’s felt like form has been a greater indicator of success over the first month of this PGA Tour season than in most other years.

Did the first few rounds of this past week’s WM Phoenix Open feel a little too familiar? That’s because seven of the players in the top-10 on the leaderboard through 36 holes had also finished inside the top-10 at the previous week’s Farmers Insurance Open.

Meanwhile, the final leaderboard barely included a player who hadn’t shown strong form already in this young season.

The winner, Chris Gotterup, already had a victory at the Sony Open and T-18 under his belt. The runner-up, Hideki Matsuyama, entered on the heels of a pair of top-15 finishes after winning the Hero World Challenge in December.

Among those tied for third, Scottie Scheffler had already won this year, Si Woo Kim had three results of 11th or better, Nicolai Hojgaard had a top-five and Michael Thorbjornsen had a top-20.

Just below them on the board, Jake Knapp, Pierceson Coody and Ryo Hisatsune were each inside the top-five at Torrey Pines, while Viktor Hovland was T-14 in Dubai.

Of the dozen players who comprised the top-10 in Phoenix, only Akshay Bhatia and Matt Fitzpatrick had failed to show any previous form in the year’s opening month, which is a fairly surprising statistic, considering there had only been a few opportunities to show that form prior to the week.

All of which should lead to one very relevant question: Why?

I’m not sure there’s a perfect answer here, other than to speculate that some players found their A-games while prepping for this campaign and others are still easing their way into it. Perhaps Torrey Pines and TPC Scottsdale requiring similar tee-to-green skillsets can account for some of the overlap, but it’s hardly like we’ve seen this every other year.

Whatever the case, recent performance has been the greatest determining factor of results so far this season. With the PGA Tour’s best convening for the year’s first signature event at this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, it’s difficult to believe those up near the top this coming Sunday won’t already have seen their names on a few leaderboards in the early part of this season. Let’s start the selections with a few who certainly have.

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Outright Winner Prediction

Conservative Picks: Maverick McNealy (+3300) and Patrick Cantlay (+4000)

In the prognostication industry, everyone does things a bit differently. As you see in these weekly previews, I’ll offer up a conservative and aggressive play in each category, which I believe helps cater to disparate types of bettors. As you’ve also seen, I only list two outright plays each week.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think a player I slot into the top-five or top-10 categories doesn’t have some win equity; it just means there’s someone else I believe either has a better chance or better odds. Others in the industry might list more outright selections and that’s totally fine – like I wrote, everyone does things differently.

If I go 0-for-2 on my outrights and they go 1-for-10, it’s easy to argue that they’ve had a better week. With all of that in mind, I’m breaking my usual rule and listing an extra player here.

The truth is, I’ve had McNealy slotted for this tournament for a while now – to the point that when he got into contention in Phoenix last week, I played him live to essentially hedge my bets for this upcoming week.

On the heels of a top-10 at the Farmers, he wound up finishing T-13 thanks to a lackluster final-round 72, but I still believe bigger things are coming in the very near future. He’s not doing anything overly exceptional so far this season, but the consistency is sublime, as he ranks 54th off the tee, 52nd on approach, 54th around the greens and 52nd in putting.

None of that sounds too special, but add ‘em all together and you have a player who’s just outside the top-20 in total strokes gained. A NorCal native, McNealy already owns two top-fives at Pebble. I think the jury’s still out on whether his high floor can turn into even a moderately high ceiling, but I’m willing to pay to find an answer at this one.

The reason he’s not the lone selection here is that I just couldn’t look away from Cantlay at a couple of points longer in this market. Like McNealy, he owns a pair of top-fives at this tourney to go along with three other top-11s in eight career starts. And while he MC’d at Torrey a few weeks ago, Cantlay does fit the profile of players who have shown form this year, as he finished T-13 at The AmEx with four sub-70 rounds in his first start of the season. 

Aggressive Pick: Shane Lowry (+5000)

In professional golf — and most other competitive pursuits, I suppose — there’s a difference between performance and results. The latter gets all the attention, as winners rightly reap the benefits, but the former requires a more investigative eye, as those who continually show consistency without victories rarely capture the headlines.

Which is funny in a way. I remember covering the season-opener at Kapalua years ago and I asked players to list their biggest goal for the upcoming campaign. An overwhelming majority replied that they wanted to become more consistent, even though long periods of consistency aren’t rewarded nearly as well as brief moments of brilliance. It does make sense, though, because a player can’t say something to the effect of, “I want to win twice and don’t care if I trunk-slam it on the other weeks.”

It’s that consistency which gives them more opportunities for the brief moments of brilliance. Over the last half-decade, I’ve often singled out Russell Henley as the prime example of a player whose performances have outweighed his results. He probably doesn’t win as much as he should for a player of his ability, but he does give himself a ton of opportunities. In baseball terms, he’s like a pitcher with a 6-11 win-loss record, but a 2.57 ERA.

Perhaps, though, he’s quashed that label a bit over the past year, especially after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Same goes for Tommy Fleetwood and a few others, which could leave Lowry as maybe the best current example of recent performance outweighing results.

This summer will mark seven years since his breakthrough win at The Open and since then, he’s won the 2022 BMW Championship (which is obviously a big one) and the 2024 Zurich Classic alongside his buddy Rory McIlroy. This alone might suggest that Lowry is playing well below his standard of that major championship, but the truth is that he’s played some very high-level golf and simply doesn’t have the hardware to show for it.

Just a few weeks ago, he had a chance to win the Dubai Invitational, but inexplicably rinsed a greenside bunker shot into an awaiting hazard on the final hole. Last year, he posted three top-three finishes around the globe – including at Pebble Beach – without a win.

The year before that, he had three inside the top-four in non-team events and concluded with results of 13th or better in each of his last eight starts. And therein lies the irony of elite-level golfers contesting that they only want to become more consistent, because Lowry would undoubtedly give up a bunch of those strong finishes for a couple more wins.

I do think it’s coming, though, in the bang-on-the-door-enough-times-and-it’ll-finally-open sort of way. For a guy who’s seemed frustrated with the close-calls and near-misses, it might not hurt Lowry to lean on Fleetwood for a little advice on staying patient and letting it happen. 

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Top-5 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Daniel Berger (+650)

I’m guessing the oddsmakers might’ve had this number a bit longer until Berger shot up the WM Phoenix Open leaderboard to T-16, thanks to a final-round 65. That should bode well moving forward, though, as he’s always been a momentum-based player. When it’s good, it can be really good, but when it starts going in the wrong direction, it often takes him a little while to turn it around.

Last year was a perfect example of this. In his first 12 starts, he posted nine top-25 results and had people discussing him as a candidate for the Ryder Cup team. In his last 10, though, he failed to claim even a single top-25. This year, he’s got a T-6 at the Sony to go along with last week’s finish, which suggests he’s back on that upswing.

Even with a stacked field, I like him to contend, as his approach play has been terrific so far, ranking 13th on the PGA Tour overall and first last week, and his record at Pebble is just as good, with a win in 2021 to go along with a T-5 and T-10 in three career starts.

If that steers you in the direction of his 50/1 price in the outright market, well, I wouldn’t talk you out of it. 

Aggressive Pick: Sepp Straka (+800)

Upon first blush, Straka’s missed cut in his title defense at The AmEx was a bit shocking, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. He opened 72-74 in just his second start since last season’s Tour Championship back in August, then shot 68 on the toughest of the three courses with the best ball-striking numbers of anyone throughout that week.

Last week’s T-18 was more like it and there was strong evidence that he’s starting to trend in the right direction, as his Saturday/Sunday iron play was a marked improvement over that of Thursday/Friday. Like others on this list, he’s got some history at Pebble, as well, finishing T-7 last year after opening with a pair of 65s. 

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Top-10 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Justin Rose (+220)

In football terms, they’re referred to as “trap games.” You know, the ones against a middling opponent in between two rivals, when everything suggests a favorite should roll, but it just turns out to be tougher than it should.

I’m officially putting out a very small red flag for both Rose and Si Woo Kim, each of whom have been great so far this season and own a ton of strong history at Pebble. That doesn’t mean they can’t play well or won’t play well; it just means that when everyone expects a certain result, that result often doesn’t happen.

Anyway, I’m less red-flaggy on Rose than Kim, just because his track record here is so good. He won this event three years ago and has finishes of T-11 and T-3 since then. I think he’ll be a popular outright pick, especially after bettors just witnessed Gotterup winning for a second time this season so quickly, but I’d much prefer to play him in the top-10/top-20 markets instead. 

Aggressive Pick: Jason Day (+250)

Hey, speaking of trap games, Day just demonstrated the concept a few weeks ago. Fresh off a share of runner-up honors at The AmEx, he went directly to Torrey Pines the next week, where he’s twice won and owns a bevy of other strong finishes.

It felt like a no-brainer, that intersection of recent form and course history we so often seek, and yet he only managed to finish T-38 for the week, which didn’t cash anything but a top-40 ticket. Recency bias is a very real thing, and I’d expect that result will leave a bad taste in the mouths of many bettors, but I love the idea of going right back to him at Pebble, where he’s finished inside the top-20 in 12 of 15 career starts, including nine of the last 10 years.

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Top-20 Prediction

Conservative Pick: Ryan Gerard (+160)

I love the top-20 market in shortened-field events, because a player only needs to finish in the top-25th percentile, but the odds often don’t reflect that. Granted, a guy like Gerard is playing against a much tougher field than in his previous starts, but good golf is good golf, and he’s been playing something better than good for a while now.

After traveling to Mauritius and finishing runner-up toward the end of last year, he opened with two more second-place results this season, before a lowly T-11 at the Farmers two weeks ago.

The man is running hot and he’s super-confident right now, which means he’s likely relishing the chance to strut his stuff against the game’s best players. Not sure I’d expect another runner-up in his first start here, but beating three-quarters of the field certainly seems possible. 

Aggressive Pick: Tom Hoge (+275)

If you know anything about Hoge’s game, then these numbers won’t make sense: He currently ranks 128th on the PGA Tour in approach play this season, but 31st in putting.

Maybe it’s the small sample size that’s skewing things, but that’s a wild differentiation from what we normally see out of him. It also might leave most bettors fading him upon first glance, but he does tend to be a course horse, playing well on the same tracks throughout his career, and this is one of his faves, having won here in 2022 and with four top-17 finishes in the last five years.

You’re not going to find a ton of value on this board, especially in the top-20 market, but I do think Hoge makes for a strong plus-money play here.