PGA DFS Picks:The First Cut Picks & Preview for the AT&T Pebble Beach

The PGA Tour is headed back West, northwest this time, for two weeks before heading down south to Los Angeles and Mexico for a week. After a week of having just one course to break down, we get the last three-course rotation of the year. Set up identically to the American Express that we just had a few weeks ago, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am brings a full field of 156 golfers, and each will be paired up with a celebrity. It makes for long rounds and quite another tilting week. Let’s get into some course description and some PGA DFS Picks for you DraftKings and FanDuel lineups.

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Here’s what you can expect to see in the article:

Tournament intro
Course commentary
Sweatsheet and scorecard
DFS preview
Player and statistical preview
Summary

PGA DFS Tournament Intro

This Week’s Course(s): Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula, Spyglass Hill

Tournament Format: 156 players, 54-hole cut on Saturday after the conclusion of play. Top 65 and ties.

Courses and Tournament Commentary

Some of the most beautiful golf in the world is on these three courses alone, which tries to negate the terrible format this tournament has. We obviously know quite a bit about Pebble Beach, having hosted the U.S. Open last year. Its famed 18th hole provides one of the best finishing holes in all of golf, as the course winds alongside the rocky Gold Coast.

Pebble Beach is the oldest of the three courses, designed sometime in the late 1920s. The other two were both designed in the 1960s. Robert Trent Jones designed Spyglass Hill, Samuel Morse designed Pebble Beach, and Bruce Harris has the most recent redesign at Monterey Peninsula.

The course rotation for the tournament is as follows: two rounds at Pebble and one each at the other ones. Also note everyone that makes the cut will play Pebble Beach on Sunday. Here is the rotation that has been used the last few years:

R1) Monterey ; R2) Spyglass; R3) Pebble

R1) Spyglass; R2) Pebble; R3) Monterey

R1) Pebble; R2) Monterey ; R3) Spyglass

The Three Courses

Par and Yardage

Pebble Beach- Par 72, 6,810 yards
Monterey Peninsula – Par 71, 6,950 yards
Spyglass Hill- Par 72, 7,000 yards

Course Difficulty 2019

Pebble Beach: 12/49
Monterey Peninsula: 22/49
Spyglass Hill 20/49

Hole Dispersion: (Pebble Only)

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

Poa/Bent greens with ryegrass fairways.

Designer

Listed above.

PGA DFS Sweatsheet

For the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the second hole plays as a par 5. The last time we were here — the U.S. Open — it played as a par 4, drastically changing the landscape of the contest. This week though, It’ll play as the easy hole on the course, accounting for some 15% or more of DraftKings scoring. The other Par 5 is 27%, making the four par 5’s equal to about 45% of the total DraftKings scoring.

PGA DFS Preview

Fantasy Golf Player and Statistical Preview

PGA DFS Commentary

After two weeks of solid fields, the run has ended. Just two golfers inside the top 10 and only three inside the top 20 will play here. This rather weak field struggles to draw the top players due to the format. I can’t imagine Brooks Koepka playing in a Pro-Am without wanting to beat someone up by the end of the round. Only about 25 inside the world’s top 100 will play, making it one of the worst fields of the year so far.

Dustin Johnson for the second year in a row at this course will provide the only real class. We cross our fingers that Patrick Cantlay plays this year, rather than dropping out like he did last year. That was mostly due to the weather that was expected all week, which came to fruition: cold, windy and rainy, not ideal for someone with back problems like Cantlay has. This week, however, it looks early on that it will be good weather, but on the chillier side, somewhere in the low 60s.

After those two, it’s Paul Casey followed by Matt Kuchar, Matt Fitzpatrick, Kevin Na and Kevin Kisner rounding out the top 40 golfers participating. Jordan Spieth and Jason Day continue to search for their games, as the former No. 1’s in the world have slipped all the way outside the top 40, and for Spieth the top 50.

A couple of Euro Tour regulars also make the trip over, most notably Kurt Kitayama, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Alex Noren and winner of the Saudi International Graeme McDowell. Phil Mickelson also returns from Saudi Arabia, where he had his best finish in months, coming in second.

PGA DFS Statistical Preview: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Previous Winners:

2019: Phil Mickelson: – 19
2018: Ted Potter Jr. : -17
2017: Jordan Spieth: -19
2016: Vaughn Taylor: -17
2015: Brandt Snedeker: -22

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PGA DFS Statistical Preview

Driving Accuracy vs. Driving Distance: Mickelson, winner of last year’s event, has notoriously been bad over the last few years hitting fairways. In fact, he hit only 60% of his fairways out of 55 tries last year and ranked 48th out of 60 golfers that made the cut. Potter won the year prior and ranked 13th, hitting 75% of his fairways. Spieth in 2017 ranked 14th, hitting almost 80% of his fairways, Taylor about 70% in 2016 and Snedeker hit about 70% in 2015. So all in all, it seems hitting the fairways isn’t necessarily imperative, nor is having tremendous distance off the tee, with none of those winners ranking anywhere near the top in driving distance.
Strokes Gained Tee to Green Analysis: All three of these courses are short, meaning they should all have an emphasis on second shots. Shots gained on approach (SG: APP) will be the most important stat this week for the golfers competing. In fact, all of the winners above ranked inside the top 15 in SG: APP just in their two rounds played at Pebble Beach.
Putting, How good do you need to be here?: With golfers likeSpieth and Snedeker winning, obviously being a really good putter helps out significantly here.

Join Ben Rasa and me Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. EST on the Awesemo YouTube channel for some more great info on this week’s tournament.

Cheers!

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Author

Jason Rouslin

Jason established his roots in the littlest state that could...Rhode Island. But after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year, upended those roots and moved to Florida. Now four years later, Jason is a husband to Sarah and father of two boys, James & Myles. A dog and more specifically Lab lover (Bella), he dedicates his time to serve as the lead of PGA content at Awesemo.com. In the time he is not diving into the PGA stats and covering this week's current tournament, you can find him researching and trading stocks, on the golf course, at Disney World, on a hike, or somewhere in between. Want to chat? Have a question about Golf/Stocks or anything else? Hop on twitter and give him a message @dfsgolfer23. You can also contact Jason by emailing [email protected].