The PGA TOUR continues its California swing this week with the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill will be the two host courses, with the former being played in three of the four rounds. It measures as a 6,972-yard par 72 with Poa greens. Since this is a Signature Event, there will not be a cut this week, while the field will consist of only 80 golfers.
The field will be headlined by World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who is returning from a hand injury that he suffered on Christmas. Rory McIlroy will also be making his season debut this week.
Below I have outlined my two favorite bets for the week.
Ludvig Aberg to win (+1800)
Aberg came out like a man possessed last week at Torrey Pines North, firing a nine-under 63 to take a two-stroke lead after the first round. It looked like he was going to coast to victory until he got sick over the weekend and began throwing up. When you combine that with the extremely tough conditions the players had to face over the final two rounds, he quickly fell out of contention and had to settle for a T49 finish.
With the illness now behind him, I expect Aberg to get right back on the horse this week and contend at a course that he finished runner-up at last year. The weather forced the PGA TOUR to cancel the final round of this tournament last year, so Wyndham Clark ended up besting Aberg by one stroke to take home the trophy. Had we played a fourth round last year, it’s quite reasonable to believe that Aberg could have won, as he had the full arsenal working. The Swede gained strokes in all four facets of the game at Pebble Beach last year
Despite Aberg’s elite driving ability, he still can be lethal at shorter courses where you’re forced to club down. His only career win on the PGA TOUR came at the RSM Classic at Sea Island, which measures just over 7,000 yards. His short game was electric at Pebble last year, and he gained 2.73 strokes putting on these slow Poa greens in only two rounds. This man is an otherworldly talent who literally would have won the Masters by three strokes in 2024 if Scottie Scheffler didn’t exist.
With a pair of top-six finishes under his belt already this season, Aberg enters play this week with some of the best form of any of the elites at the top, and this 18/1 number is quite fair.
Denny McCarthy to win (+10000)
It’s usually a fool’s errand betting a long shot to win a Signature Event, but it certainly feels like Pebble Beach is the exception to that rule with the incredibly short dimensions, wide fairways and tiny greens. This is a number play more than anything, because McCarthy remains arguably the best putter in the world, and this is an event that frequently turns into a putting contest.
When you put McCarthy on a course where he does not have to hit driver or worry about keeping the ball in the fairway, everyone should be interested. His history at Pebble Beach is also quite strong, having finished T12, T4 and T26 over the past three years.
With top-10 finishes at the Memorial, Wells Fargo Championship and U.S. Open in his career, McCarthy has shown plenty of times that he can hang with the big boys, and this 100/1 number is way too long for someone who could catch absolute fire with the flat stick in any given round. In addition, he gained 4.5 strokes on approach at the Sony Open in his last start, so everything is coming together at the right time for the 31-year-old.