AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am One and Done Rankings & Strategy

Mixed results for me last week.  I used Mav for one and done, and really thought he left some shots out there, could have been higher.  Same with betting, as Hojgaard was right there for most of the week and couldn’t quite sneak his way into the playoff.  Either way, we’ve moved on and have finally hit the start of signature events.

The AT&T is the first of 15 BIG PURSES.  There is $20 milllion up for grabs, and the winner will take home $3.6 million of it.  It’s a no-cut event, so I suppose it’s damn near impossible to not get SOME of the purse.  That’s not to say it can’t be done.  I managed to last year….

Cutmakers

Everyone here is pretty damn good, and there is no cut.  We’re big game hunting here.  So I’ve looked at the past year of the top five percentage.  Penge is a small sample guy here, but for those who don’t follow the Euros, he did win three times on the DPWT last year and had another eight top tens.  There are also a couple of real “hot or cold” names here in Cam, Higgo, and Bridgeman.  All in the top ten for high finishes, but with fairly high rates of also crashing out.

Good Drive %

Short, but not easy, is how I describe this place.  You can overpower it at times if you’re among the uber elite drivers, but for most, you’ll need to set yourself up with forgiving second shots into the small greens.  Good drive percentage is a combo stat of hitting fairways + hitting greens when you miss the fairway.  It’s a little better contextually than simple “fairways hit” as it helps sort out shots that land off the fairway but still leave golfers in a good position.  Plenty of the usual suspects (Scottie was 11th and just missed the screenshot).

GIR %

As mentioned before, the greens are very small here, and despite the lack of length, there will be plenty of tough lies and balls that need to be hit off slopes.  I pulled the past year’s data of GIR% on courses where the greens are classified as “small.” Some golfers here will have smallish samples, but I don’t think there’s anyone here where you’d doubt their iron play.  I will say that I likely won’t use Steven Fisk this week.

Around the Green

Building off the small green problem, Around the Green has shown to be important here, as some of the bombers of the world are able to just fire away and keep themselves from losing strokes with great hands in the short game. Penge showing up again.  That would be a ballsy move to throw him out there this week, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it a bit.

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am One and Done Suggestions

You wanna use Scottie?  You wanna use Rory?  Go ahead!  If you have a good feeling about someone’s form, fit, and future here… fire away.  In fact, I think  you need to be using one of your top 12 golfers here.  With the likelihood of using Rahm/Bryson/Reed at some majors, most of the rest of your top 10-15 golfers should be penciled in for the signature events/playoffs.  I don’t know who the right one is (I’m agonizing this choice more than usual), there are certainly ways to shrink the pool you’re looking at by starting to nitpick.

• Rory is getting his first action over after playing a bit in the Middle East and is switching irons again.
• Si Woo Kim has never really sun run like this. Are you sure you can trust him to keep it up?
• Hideki is coming off a crushing playoff loss. Where’s his head at?
• Xander has zero good results here in the small sample of playing this event

…and on and on… perfectly good golfers, but all with small strikes against them.  Scottie’s negative?  You can only use him once, and he’s likely to lose 65-70% of the time he’s out there this year. You really need to time that trump card properly and make sure you’re getting a full 3.6M (or more) out of him.

If it were easy, we’d all tie for first, I guess.  I don’t know what to do with the guy, so I’m going to abstain from telling you where to use Scheffler and simply list him 15 times this year as a cop out.  I will say that I bet Rory this week, but that’s more of a play on his price, which I think is too long.  Price plays not part in O&D, so I think it’s more than fair to save him for another time.

Short List:

Scottie Scheffler
Tommy Fleetwood
Daniel Berger

Good Drive %

Short, but not easy, is how I describe this place.  You can overpower it at times if you’re among the uber elite drivers, but for most, you’ll need to set yourself up with forgiving second shots into the small greens.  Good drive percentage is a combo stat of hitting fairways + hitting greens when you miss the fairway.  It’s a little better contextually than simple “fairways hit” as it helps sort out shots that land off the fairway but still leave golfers in a good position.  Plenty of the usual suspects (Scottie was 11th and just missed the screenshot).

Good Drive %

Short, but not easy, is how I describe this place.  You can overpower it at times if you’re among the uber elite drivers, but for most, you’ll need to set yourself up with forgiving second shots into the small greens.  Good drive percentage is a combo stat of hitting fairways + hitting greens when you miss the fairway.  It’s a little better contextually than simple “fairways hit” as it helps sort out shots that land off the fairway but still leave golfers in a good position.  Plenty of the usual suspects (Scottie was 11th and just missed the screenshot).

Good Drive %

Short, but not easy, is how I describe this place.  You can overpower it at times if you’re among the uber elite drivers, but for most, you’ll need to set yourself up with forgiving second shots into the small greens.  Good drive percentage is a combo stat of hitting fairways + hitting greens when you miss the fairway.  It’s a little better contextually than simple “fairways hit” as it helps sort out shots that land off the fairway but still leave golfers in a good position.  Plenty of the usual suspects (Scottie was 11th and just missed the screenshot).