Pebble Beach Pro-Am Value Picks & Analysis

Event: Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Where: Pebble Beach
Watch: Golf Channel, CBS
When: Feb. 2-5

The PGA Tour makes its third stop on its Southern California swing this week with a visit to the Monterey Peninsula for the annual Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

A rather lackluster field that includes only three of the World Golf Rankings’ top 20 players competes this weekend for shares of a $9 million purse.

However, that lackluster field also creates a fairly wide-open betting board.

This Pebble Beach tournament is played over three courses; Spyglass Hill, Pebble Beach, and the Monterey Peninsula Country Club. It’s also often played in tough conditions, cold, windy, and wet. The average winning score over the last five Pebble Beach Pro-Ams is 18-under par.

Last year Tom Hoge birdied three of the last five holes on Sunday to overtake Justin Spieth and win the Pebble Beach Pro-Am at -19. Spieth placed second at -17; Beau Hossler showed third at -16; Troy Merrit and Patrick Cantlay tied for fourth; Matt Fitzpatrick, Joel Dahmen, and Andrew Putnam tied for sixth; and Jonathan Byrd, Pat Perez, and Seamus Power tied for ninth.

Last week Max Homa shot 66 on Sunday, with seven birdies, to win the Farmers Insurnace Open down the coast at Torrey Pines. Keegan Bradley took second; Collin Morikowa third; Sahith Theegala, Sungjae Im, and Sam Ryder tied for fourth; Jason Day and Jon Rahm tied for seventh; and Hideki Matsuyama and Tony Finau tied for ninth.

Each week we take a look at the online betting sites and highlight what we believe to be some of the best values on the board. We offer three or four picks to click on the weekend. Odds to win and pairings for this week can be found at Bovada. Here’s our take on some of the field for this week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Spieth owns the best recent track record at this tournament, with a win in 2017 and three top-10 finishes over the last three years, including that runner-up last year. That’s probably why Bovada lists him as the +1100 co-favorite along with Matt Fitzpatrick on its Pebble Beach Pro-Am betting board.

But that’s too obvious a choice. Let’s look elsewhere.

Maverick McNealy (18/1 to win)

This former Stanford Cardinal finished T-5 in this event in 2020 and second in 2021. He also owns three top-10s over his last seven tournaments, including a T-7 at the Sony Open at Waialae three weeks ago. Last week at Torrey Pines, he shot two rounds of 74 and finished T-31. We like his chances of a bounce-back effort this week.

Kevin Streelman (+1600 to finish top 5)

Sticking with our “horses for courses” theme, this former Duke Blue Devil finished sixth here in 2018, T-7 in 2019, second in 2020, and 13th in 2021. Streelman has not been playing well as of late, missing three of his last five cuts. But he survived the cut last week and now returns to a venue he nearly won on three years ago.

Troy Merritt (+700 to finish top 10)

Finally, this former Boise State Bronco tied for eighth here in 2018, T-16 in 2021, and T-4 here last year, with a pair of 67’s. Two weeks ago at Torrey Pines, he shot an opening-round 69, then missed the cut. He then took last week off. Considering that’s two top-10s here over the last three years, 7/1 looks like a nice price.

Elsewhere among Bovada’s Pebble Beach Pro-AM offerings Justin Rose, who finished T-3 in the US Open at Pebble Beach four years ago, is paired with Seamus Power, who took a T-9 here last year, at +1200 on the “2 chances” board. And Rose, defending Pebble Beach champion Hoge and Viktor Hovland are teamed at +525 on the “3 chances” board.

The first groups for this Pebble Beach Pro-AM go off Thursday morning at 11 am ET, 8 am local time.