2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Picks and Predictions for Pebble

For the third consecutive week, the PGA Tour will be in action in the state of California. This time, along the Monterey Peninsula for the 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

The stunning Pebble Beach will host the last of this season’s events which implement a multi-course rotation. This week all of, Pebble Beach Golf Links, Monterey Peninsula Country Club (Shore Course), and Spyglass Hill GC will be in use.

The 156-man field will play each course in the rotation Thursday-Saturday before a cut of Top 60 and ties is made following Saturday’s third-round action. Those who make Sunday’s final round will play Pebble Beach once again.

Both Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill are Par 72s and Monterey Peninsula (Shore) is a Par 71. Spyglass Hill plays to around 7,000 yards, while both Pebble Beach and Monterey play to around 6,800 and 6,900 yards respectively.

The 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am field will assuredly be the weakest on Tour over the next couple of weeks with both next week’s WM Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational the week after presenting ‘elevated’ purses this season.

Just three of the world’s top 20 players have made the journey to the iconic venue this week.

Jordan Spieth, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Viktor Hovland are the three clear favorites in the betting markets heading into this year’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Here is how the rest of this week’s top betting favorites shake out over on WynnBet.

2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Favorites

(All odds courtesy of Wynnbet. **Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.**)

• Matt Fitzpatrick (+1000)
• Viktor Hovland (+1100)
• Jordan Spieth (+1100)
• Maverick McNealy (+1750)
• Tom Hoge (+2000)
• Seamus Power (+2000)
• Andrew Putnam (+2250)
• Matt Kuchar (+3000)
• Keith Mitchell (+3000)
• Justin Rose (+3000)

Sensational Max Homa came through for us at last week’s Farmers Insurance Open racking up an incredible 4th win in his home state. Let’s see if we can find another winner in The Golden State this week.

2023 record to date: (1 of 2 on outright winners, +19 units) (2-2 on Top 20s)

Pick to Top 20:  Ben Griffin (+250)

Ben Griffin continues to impress during his rookie season on the PGA Tour. After missing the cut at the season-opening Fortinet Championship last September, Griffin has put together a run of nine consecutive made cuts on Tour.

The 26-year-old, who earned his PGA card via the Korn Ferry Tour points list last season (15th), has finished 30th or better on five different occasions since the Fortinet.

He has also shown an ability to excel at short coastal tracks throughout the early portion of the season with finishes of 3rd (Butterfield Bermuda Championship), 29th (RSM Classic), and 12th (Sony Open) of particular interest.

The ability to hit plenty of greens and convert birdie opportunities on a frequent basis is crucial in order to excel this week. Those are two things Ben does particularly well, over the last 24 rounds he ranks 7th in SG: Approach and 12th in Birdie or better percentage amongst this week’s field.

Griffin could very well contend for the win this week but I like him to finish inside the top 20 instead.

Pick to Top 20:  Alex Smalley (+210)

Alex Smalley was unable to finish top 20 for us at last week’s Farmers, but that won’t keep me from going right back to him again this week.

The Duke University product put together another solid week at Torrey Pines en route to a 37th-place finish. It was a result that could have been better for Alex, but unfortunately for Smalley, his worst round of the week came on Saturday when he posted a final round 74.

Much like Griffin before him, Smalley excels with irons, in fact, he has gained strokes with approach shots in five consecutive starts. Alex, over the last 24 rounds ranks 12th in the field in SG: Approach.

The 26-year-old put together a nice showing at last year’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship where he finished 11th on a track that shares some similarities with Pebble per Data Golf. Smalley’s game is trending in the right direction at the moment and I like his chances of keeping that going this week.

Pick to Win:  Seamus Power (+2000)

It took five attempts, but Seamus finally had his best performance in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am last year when he recorded his first top-ten finish in this event.

That doesn’t entirely tell the whole story, however, as the Irishman actually held the lead at the halfway point following consecutive rounds of 64. A Saturday 74 essentially ended any hopes of contending for the win though and Power had to settle for his best finish of 9th in this event instead.

The 35-year-old would go on to win last fall at the aforementioned Butterfield Bermuda Championship to capture his second-career win and it really capped a nice end to the ‘fall swing’ for Power who added a T3 at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba and a T5 at the RSM Classic to close out 2022.

Seamus has made two starts so far in 2023 and finished 25th or better in both of them, one on the PGA Tour (Sentry) and one on the DP World Tour (Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship). He lost strokes with his irons in Hawaii to kick off 2023 but rebounded nicely in the UAB gaining over a stroke with his irons in four rounds.

The Irishman leads this week’s field in strokes gained on short courses over his last 50 rounds and this week’s venue is seemingly perfect for Power’s game.

Seamus is certainly more than capable of adding a third career win come Sunday at this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, especially if he was able to shake off the rust during his first two starts of 2023. I suspect he has and will take a chance on Power going one step further at Pebble this time around.