The PGA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each week’s slate, using the FantasyLabs Tools and metrics to highlight notable golfers.
The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is a full field event in which each of the 154 players will be paired with an amateur partner for the first three rounds held at three different courses. Everybody gets three rounds of action, but only the top 60 players and ties will be allowed to return to Pebble Beach for Sunday’s finale.
The Course
Pebble Beach Golf Links — a 6,816-yard Par 72 course — will host two of the four rounds, including the important fourth and final round of this tournament. All golfers will also get a round at Spyglass Hill and Monterrey Penninsula before the cut is made after the third round.
As always, I backtested all metrics within our PGA Models to find which ones have been valuable here at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Per the Trends tool, here is how the top 20 percent of golfers in various metrics have done (in Plus/Minus valuation) at the three courses in the Pebble Beach rotation. Historically, the tournament has yielded averages of 54.96 DraftKings points and a +4.70 Plus/Minus with 52.4 percent Consistency to the field.
- Long-Term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score): +6.76 with 56.3 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Greens In Regulation (GIR): +8.06 with 64.4 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Driving Distance (DD): +10.76 with 61.8 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Driving Accuracy (DA): +2.29 with 48.9 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Adjusted Putts per Round (Adj PPR): +6.18 with 52.2 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Scrambling (SC): +7.03 with 56.4 percent Consistency
- Long-Term Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg): +9.25 with 61.3 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Rd Score: +7.92 with 58.9 percent Consistency
- Recent GIR: +7.54 with 58.9 percent Consistency
- Recent DD: +7.63 with 54.6 percent Consistency
- Recent DA: +0.91 with 42.5 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj PPR: +5.22 with 54.8 percent Consistency
- Recent SC: +5.39 with 54.3 percent Consistency
- Recent Adj Bird Avg: +5.90 with 55.3 percent Consistency
Maybe it’s just Hump, but I wouldn’t waste much time looking at DA statistics this week.
The Studs
Dustin Johnson ($11,700) has won this event twice and has finished inside the top five in three of his last four trips to Pebble Beach. Thanks to his win at the Tournament of Champions and top 10 at the Abu Dhabi Championship this year, his 66.8 Recent Adj Rd Score and very impressive 67.8 LT Adj Rd Score both lead this crowded field, as do his massive 15.4 percent odds to win.
You can find out if the FantasyLabs golf guys are surprised DJ is such a huge favorite on The Daily Fantasy Flex podcast. Last year — with a salary $100 higher — Johnson checked in with 24.8 percent average ownership. The way things are trending, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him approach 30 percent this week. You can check out player exposure and much more with our PGA Contests Dashboard. And be sure to utilize our new Entries Manager tool in Player Models.
Jon Rahm ($11,400) could be an extremely sneaky and low-owned play in guaranteed prize pools this week because of all the big-name players (like Rory McIlroy and the two players listed below) with lower salaries. Rahm is tied for second in the field with his 9.1 percent odds to win, ranks fourth with his 68.3 LT Adj Rd Score and his 16.3 LT Adj Bird Avg is second overall. Players with comparable salaries and LT metrics have previously produced an average of 76.46 DraftKings points per tournament (PPT) with a +0.99 Plus/Minus and 54.0 percent Consistency Rating.
Jason Day ($10,900) has two top five finishes here in his last three trips and is coming off his epic playoff win two weeks ago at the Farmers Insurance Open. Day is tied for sixth in the field with his 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score, tied for eighth with his 15.2 LT Adj Bird Avg, and his 68.6 Course Adj Rd Score is the second best number among players with more than one start at this tournament. Hump picks Day to win — it’s what Hump does — so why not make it two in a row for J-Day?
Jordan Spieth ($10,700) is the defending champion of this event, ranks third with his 68.0 LT Adj Rd Score, and has the best LT Adj Bird Avg (16.5) in the field. Spieth has never finished worse than 22nd in five trips to Pebble Beach and his 68.2 Course Adj Rd Score is the best in the field among players with more than one start here.
The Value Plays
One way to use FantasyLabs to find potential value golfers in our Models is to leverage our LT Adj Rd Score metric. If you sort the field by LT Adj Rd Score, you are looking at a list of players who have been the best golfers over the past 75 weeks. Among these golfers, those who have high Adj Rd Scores and low salaries make great value plays.
Steve Stricker ($7,100): Stricker is tied for 13th in the field with his 69.1 LT Adj Rd Score but his salary is $1,600 less than the man he is tied with: Adam Scott. Scott by the way, has missed two of his last four cuts and seemingly hasn’t made a putt since the late 1990s. As for Stricker, he finished 23rd here last year and was 31st at last week’s Phoenix Open thanks to three rounds under 70.
Rafael Cabrera-Bello ($6,900): RCB is currently ranked No. 21 in the Official World Golf Rankings, is tied for 22nd in the field with his 69.5 LT Adj Rd Score, and he finished sixth in his most recent start on the European Tour (Dubai Desert Classic). He is tied for 13th with his 14.3 LT Adj Bird Avg and has a top-30 LT GIR percentage (68.8 percent) in this field. His price is extremely low in comparison to his talent.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Patrick Reed ($7,900): Reed is tied for 17th in the field with his 69.3 LT Adj Rd Score and is tied for 18th with his 14.1 LT Adj Bird Avg. Importantly, Reed is trending in the right direction with two straight top-25 finishes and he has made five straight cuts at Pebble Beach, never finishing worse than 29th: His 68.8 Course Adj Rd Score ranks fifth among golfers with more than two starts at this tournament.
Andrew Putnam ($7,600): Putnam has the lowest salary among players who rank inside the top-20 percent for three key statistics. He ranks eighth in the field with his 77.0 LT GIR percentage, is tied for 15th with his 14.2 LT Adj Bird Avg, and tied for 42nd with his 300 yard LT DD. Putnam has made three straight cuts at less than 0.5 percent ownership.
