The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am marks the unofficial start of marquee golf season, as it’s the first of the PGA TOUR’s eight Signature Events. Pebble Beach Golf Links, a six-time major championship venue in Monterey County, Calif., will host the PGA TOUR’s best for three of the four rounds this weekend, with nearby Spyglass Hill hosting half the field on each of Thursday and Friday.
With a small field consisting of many of the world’s best golfers and no 36-hole cut, the tournament should be a highly competitive one, as should the featured DraftKings DFS contest. Below, I’ll dive into three of my favorite DFS picks.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $1M Sand Trap Special [$200K to 1st]
Jason Day ($8,500)
Pebble Beach has the smallest greens on the PGA TOUR, so pinpoint iron play and short game is critical. Those are areas in which Day has always thrived — so far this season, he ranks sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, 31st in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, and 15th in Strokes Gained: Putting. While he hasn’t yet won this season in part because he’s struggled with his driver, off-the-tee play is comparatively less important at Pebble Beach.
These signature events — which carry the vibe and field strength of major championships — tend to be won by big-name players, and there are fewer bigger-name players than Day, a former World No. 1 and 13-time TOUR winner. Though he’s never won at Pebble Beach, he’s finished inside the top 10 nine times in 15 starts, including six times in his last eight appearances. He’s also won twice at Torrey Pines, another coastal California course that values approach play and short game. He also finished second at the American Express Championship in late January.
Robert MacIntyre ($8,200)
MacIntyre isn’t quite as natural of a fit for the course as Day is, since his profile is mostly boosted by strong driving, which isn’t exactly paramount at Pebble Beach, a relatively short course. He hasn’t been incredible with his irons or around the green this season. However, that could be a matter of a small sample size, as he finished in the PGA TOUR’s top quartile in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green last season. His main draw is the fact that he’s a top-quartile putter, and putting is more important at Pebble Beach than at the average PGA TOUR course.
Plus, he’s in pretty hot form. Though he’s only played twice on the PGA TOUR this season, one was a fourth-place finish at the Sony Open, and he ended it hot with a final-round 63. He also hasn’t played on the DP World Tour this season either, but he had top-10 finishes in each of his final three events on that circuit in the fall, including a win at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in October. As a Scot, he should be well-equipped to handle wet and windy coastal conditions. Given that he’s the World No. 8, his DFS salary is very under-valued.
Jake Knapp ($7,900)
Knapp is coming off of two consecutive top-10 finishes, as he finished in a tie for fifth two weeks ago at Torrey Pines and a tie for eighth last weekend at the WM Phoenix Open. His only other start this season was a T-11 at the Sony Open, so he’s getting used to being near the tops of leaderboards. In his lone start at Pebble Beach, he shot a 7-under 65 in the first round to put himself in a tie for second, though he only ended up finishing T-33.
The 31-year-old is good at all of the things that matter at Pebble Beach. So far this season, he ranks well above the median in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green and Stroked Gained: Around-the-Green and in the top quartile in Strokes Gained: Putting. For good measure, he’s also one of the game’s best drivers, which never hurts even though it’s not the most important factor for success at the course.
