The Three Best Friends That Anyone Could Have
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am | Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
Three Courses:
Pebble Beach (Host) | 71.197 (-0.803) 29th hardest course in 2021 out of 51.
Monterey Peninsula | 69.69 (-1.31) 30th hardest course in 2020 out of 41.
Spyglass Hill | 72.788 (+0.788) 11th hardest course in 2021 out of 51.
63 Days Away
That’s how far away we will be from The Masters when the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am kicks off on Thursday. This two month stretch for Jordan Spieth will be critical and this week will be a true litmus test.
Unfortunately for Spieth, he is mired in a slump right now, losing 30.3 strokes to the field over his last seven starts. We are now, officially, in the worst seven-event stretch of Spieth’s career.
Pad Your Pockets With Props
Golf Props are becoming more wide available and are currently one of the most exploitable ways to wager… especially this week. With the three-course rotation, each course plays differently and prop-makers are going to struggle setting lines. For example, the last time these courses were played:
Monterey Peninsula: 72.1% Fairways Hit (38th), 75.0% Greens Hit (41st)
Pebble Beach: 70.34% Fairways Hit (45th), 68.13% Greens Hit (33rd)
Spyglass Hill: 61.0% Fairways Hit (27th), 58.62% Greens Hit (8th)
Spyglass Hill was the 8th hardest green to hit and 27th hardest fairway to hit in 2020. When you’re considering “Greens In Regulation” props this week, consider the course!
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Raise The Floor
Sometimes safety is exciting. Safety in golf generally comes from style of play and each golfer’s skill-set. The more well-rounded the golfer, the more “safe” they tend to be. Here’s an example… of the 29 golfers who finished T25 or better last week only 6 (!) gained strokes in all four major categories.
For Daniel Berger, that’s not unusual. He’s accomplished the feat in 28% (9/32) of his starts since the beginning of 2020. For reference:
Si Woo Kim has done it 19.2% of the time (10/52)
Luke List has done it 12.7% of the time (6/47)
Cantlay … Berger … Field
Weighted Strokes Gained are the best way that we can evaluate golfers against one another in different fields, tours and events. The last 50 rounds for everyone in this field show only TWO golfers gaining at least a stroke on the field per round.
Daniel Berger is gaining a staggering 1.69 wSG per round, 0.72 strokes per round more than the third best golfer (Seamus Power).
Patrick Cantlay, however, is another 0.57 strokes per round better than Berger! He’s gaining 2.26 wStrokes to the field in the same timeframe. The gap between Cantlay (1st) and Power (3rd) is the same gap from Power (3rd) to Tyler McCumber (96th).
Speaking of the Field
There will be lots of conversation this week about how “weak” the field is, with many top players going to compete in Saudi Arabia. That’s true, but it’s not like this event is significantly weaker than what we see on the PGA TOUR.
The current projected Strength of Field is 212, similar to the Fortinet Championship (216) and the 3M Open (222). It’s actually significantly better than last year’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am (141). Here are the best players when the SOF is between 175 and 250.
Short Kings
All three courses this week are listed under 7,100 yards on the scorecard, making them short by TOUR standard. Over the last three years, some golfers have prospered on “short courses”. Here are the best:
Patrick Cantlay +2.00
Daniel Berger +1.58
Austin Eckroat +1.40 (12 rounds)
Maverick McNealy +1.33
Seamus Power +1.23
Let’s Geaux!
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Good luck
Rick