A thrilling show in the desert last week will be hard to top, but we get the No. 1 player in the world back in action, fresh off his win in Saudi Arabia. The sporting world turns the attention away from football, and what better time for Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka to get another win, just as the eyes are starting to turn back to the golfing world? Let’s dive right into the AT&T Pebble Beach DraftKings and FanDuel PGA DFS picks.
This week we typically we get a three-course rotation at this tournament with a bunch of fun celebrities mixed in, but COVID will prevent that for this year. So we get no amateurs and just two courses, Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach. Much like The Famers two weeks ago, the field will be split, 88 on each of the courses Thursday and Friday with the top 65 and ties making the weekend.
Here is what you can expect to find in this article, with some new additions:
- The Tournament and Format
- Course Commentary
- Course Facts and Figures
- PGA DFS Course Summary and Statistical Comparison
- PGA DFS Preview, including sweat sheet and now featuring optimal lineups from last year’s event
- Player Preview
AT&T Pebble Beach PGA DFS Picks and Preview
The Tournament and Format
There are two courses this week, with half the field playing on each of them Thursday and Friday and a cut after 36 holes. The top 65 and ties make the weekend. The tournament itself has been around for a long time. In fact, the only time the tournament hasn’t made its way up to Pebble Beach was 1943-1946 for World War II. Other than that, the PGA Tour played these beautiful parts each year since 1941.
The Course(s)
Pebble Beach Golf Course and Spyglass Hill
Weather always plays a factor here, especially during this time of the year, when wind, rain and cold temperatures can wreak havoc on the tournament. There is no better tale of that than last year, when Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach both ranked inside the top 10 hardest courses played last year.
Neither course is long by PGA Tour standards (both under 7,100 yards), so the difficulty shows how much weather can play into it.
As a reminder, the second hole at Pebble Beach — a shorter par 5 measuring just over 500 yards — will play as a par 5 this week. For Majors, specifically the U.S. Open, it has played as a long par 4 and goes from the easiest hole to the toughest. We don’t have to worry about that this week.
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Course Facts and Figures Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill
- Spyglass Hill- Par 72, 7,000 yards
- Pebble Beach- Par 72, 6,810 yards
Course Difficulty
- Pebble Beach: 8/49
- Spyglass Hill 5/49
Hole Dispersion
- Par 3’s : 188, 106, 202, 178
- Par 4’s: 390, 331, 418, 466, 446, 380, 399, 397, 403
- Par 5’s: 502, 513, 573, 543
Grass Types and Hazards
- Grass Type: Poa/Bent greens with ryegrass fairways.
- Average Green: 3,500 square feet
- Water Hazards: Pacific Ocean
- Bunkers: 118
- Rough Length: 2 inches
Designer
- Robert Trent Jones (Spyglass Hill) and William Moore (Pebble Beach)
Facts and Figures
- Off the Tee: After a week in which fairways were abnormally hard to hit and tons of drivers were hit off the tee, this will be almost the exact opposite. Players will hit fewer drivers and nearly two-thirds of fairways. That ranked it 12th last year in terms of driving accuracy and among the lowest in terms of average driving distance.
- Approach to the Green: Above-average fairways should mean above-average greens hit, and by in large it does equate to that, with 67.89% of the greens being hit in regulation. But the greens are also incredibly small, the smallest on tour, in fact. Not only are they small, but they are undulating as well, making them very difficult to putt on.
- Around the Green: Greens that are difficult to putt on will bring down both scrambling and overall putting rank. For scrambling only 58% of the time will a golfer get up and down.
- On the Green: For putting the average was 1.663, the sixth-toughest last year.
PGA DFS Course Summary and Statistical Comparison
This tournament brings a different style of golf from the last two weeks, where one could bomb it and hope to get a good lie. This week is target golf, hitting to the correct spots and missing in the right ones. Based on previous winners here, I think a wide range of golfers has a chance to win, not just the bombers here this week.
PGA DFS Slate Preview
There are additions to this section. I will highlight the upcoming week and what contests are offered, and then I will go over the winning GPP lineups from last year’s three price points. Finally, we’ll look to the DFS sweat sheet to see where the golfers will be scoring the most DFS points this week.
Let’s first start off with what contests are going to be offered, and without NFL getting in the way this week, it’s a great offering:
Previous Year PGA DFS DraftKings Results
I’ll cover three buy-in levels: The large-field GPP, the high-dollar GPP, and the single-entry mid-level buy-in. I’ll also provide a couple of notes on the overall scoring of the event.
Notes
- The tournament’s average score (among golfers that made the cut) was 73 points, with the highest at 139.5 and the lowest at 55.5.
- Only four golfers scored over 100 points.
- $5 Buy-In $500,000 Guaranteed:
- Total ownership of under 50%.
- It was not the optimal lineup.
- The lineup wasn’t duplicated.
- The cash line for the contest was 410.
- The lineup had five of six golfers make the cut, but it was a three-day cut rather than a two-day cut, making it much easier to do so.
- $444 Buy-In, $300,000 Guaranteed:
- Total ownership of 68%.
- The lineup was not duplicated.
- The cash line for the contest was 449.5.
- The lineup had four of six golfers make it to Sunday and was still able to win.
PGA DFS Sweat Sheet
Three holes on the course (third, 13th, 17th) each yield over 10% of the total DFS scoring on any given day. The 16th hole comes close as well, but the water looming around the green creates enough bogeys that the fantasy points remain slightly lower and the golf scores slightly higher.
Previous Winners of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
- 2020: Nick Taylor (-19)
- 2019: Phil Mickelson (-19)
- 2018: Ted Potter Jr. (-17)
- 2017: Jordan Spieth (-19)
- 2016: Vaughn Taylor (-17)
Player Preview
This will be one of the weakest fields of the year, but at least the No. 1 player in the world is set to tee it up, which should always make things interesting. Other names like Patrick Cantlay, Paul Casey and Daniel Berger also add a bit of strength to the top end of the field. One of the most interesting names of the week will be Jordan Spieth, coming off his first top-five in forever and coming to a course he plays well, even when he’s playing his worst.
*Dustin Johnson has now withdrawn from the tournament.
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