2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Predictions

The PGA Tour continues on this week as it visits the beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea for the 2025 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The second of eight Signature Events on the schedule, 80 PGA Tour players will tee it up with 80 celebrity amateurs over the first two rounds to determine the Pro-Am winner, while the 80 tour pros will play the final two rounds on their own to determine the Signature Event winner. Two courses will play host to the event once again this year; Pebble Beach Golf Links, which will play as a Par 72, 6,972 yard layout, and Spyglass Hill Golf Course, which will play as a Par 72, 7,041 yard layout. Players will play each course during the first two rounds, while the final 36 holes will be contested exclusively at Pebble Beach.

To find success this week, I like an elite iron player. With Pebble Beach boasting the smallest greens on tour, at a minuscule 3,500 square feet on average, being sharp on your approach will go a long way towards finding success. Another edge goes to the players who can best avoid trouble. With water in play on half of the holes, paired with both thick, gnarly rough and over 100+ strategically placed bunkers, a big number can sneak up in a hurry. Being a great scrambler and minimizing any self-inflicted wounds will go a long way towards being in the mix for the win come Sunday. Neither course plays particularly long by tour standards, but there is a lot of trouble spots to suck up errant shots. Knowing where to hit it is one thing, but the player who knows where not to miss it will thrive as the event goes on. With many holes being on the water, the pos annua greens can present all sorts of challenges to players, especially if the winds pick up. Certain players have an edge on coastal courses, so expect some surprises on the leaderboard if the studs struggle with the putter. Lastly, despite the challenge’s of Mother Nature, I want a player who isn’t afraid to get hot with the putter. 19 of the last 21 winners of this event have finished at -15 or better for the week, so there are birdies to be had for sure.

The field for this year’s edition of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is the strongest field of the season, with eight of the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking teeing it up, including Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Åberg and defending champion Wyndham Clark, as well as several players with recent success on tour, including Sepp Straka, Nick Taylor, Harris English, Sungjae Im, Justin Thomas and Nico Echavarria, just to name a few.

The ol’ Crosby Clambake dates back to 1937 and has produced a heralded list of winners over the last 80+ seasons, with legends of the game, career journeymen and everybody in between finding victory on the Pacific Ocean. Phil Mickelson and Mark O’Meara share the record for most wins in this event, with each of them finding victory five times. Sam Snead won this event four times, including both of the first two editions, while Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus each have a trio of victories in this event. Other multiple-time winners of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am include Billy Casper, Dutch Harrison, Dustin Johnson, Davis Love III, Lloyd Mangrum, Cary Middlecoff, Brandt Snedeker and Tom Watson.

Last year’s edition was won by Wyndham Clark, who came from deep during the third round, firing a round of 60 (-12) to take the weather-shortened victory over Ludvig Åberg by one stroke. Matthieu Pavon finished in third place, two strokes back, while Thomas Detry and Mark Hubbard finished T-4, three strokes behind Clark.

Player to Fade:

No, you are reading this correctly. We are indeed fading Rory McIlroy. This one is just a gut feeling. McIlroy played well last season, picking up two wins, seven top 10’s and 15 top 25’s in 19 starts on his way to a 9th place finish in the FedEx Cup Standings. McIlroy is making his 2025 PGA Tour debut this week after a strong T-4 finish at the Dubai Desert Classic two weeks ago on the DP World Tour. However, I’m not feeling too strongly on McIlroy this week, mostly due to his iron play. McIlroy is a solid ball striker, but ranked 134th last season in Greens in Regulation Percentage, which will be put to the test this week when facing the smallest greens on tour at Pebble Beach. McIlroy did rank 17th in Scrambling last season, but you can only bail your way out of so many self-inflicted jams. Plus, McIlroy has no momentum in this event, missing the cut here in 2018 and finishing T-66 last season. Rory and I have a hate-hate relationship. Usually when I pick McIlroy to do well, he plays poorly, and vice versa. By no means am I picking him to finish dead last. That would be asinine. In a field of 80 of the tour’s best players, I predict that McIlroy will struggle and finish outside the top 25 this week.

Dark Horse:

Tom Hoge has been chugging along to start off the 2025 season, kicking things off with a T-8 finish at The Sentry and making the cut in all three events he’s teed it up in. Hoge’s early season successes can be contributed to a 1-2 punch from his irons and his putter, ranking 9th in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green and 35th in Strokes Gained: Putting. Hoge’s biggest struggle is his driver, ranking 103rd in Driving Accuracy Percentage, 150th in Driving Distance and an abysmal 175th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. With Pebble Beach being one of the shortest courses on tour, it is a great equalizer, placing the importance on tee shot placement and strong iron play rather than brute strength. Perhaps most importantly, this event serves as arguably Hoge’s favorite stop on tour, as he picked up his lone career victory here in 2022, not to mention a T-6 finish here last season and a 12th place finish in 2021. Listed at an absolute steal at a value of $7,300 on DraftKings this week, it is absolutely Hoge Time for this former winner. Give me the Hoge-Meister for another top 20 finish in this event!

Top 10:

Patrick Cantlay is off to a solid start in 2025, with finishes of T-15 at The Sentry and T-5 at The American Express. Cantlay’s early success can be contributed to his short game prowess, ranking 9th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and 22nd in Strokes Gained: Putting. For me, Cantlay is a coin flip this week because of his iron play. He ranks a horrendous 156th in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, but he also ranks 15th in Greens in Regulation Percentage. Hitting these small greens will be imperative to success, which leads me back to expecting big things from Cantlay this week. Not to mention, Cantlay has played well in this event of late, logging four straight top 12 finishes over his last four starts at Pebble Beach, including top five showings in both 2021 and 2022. Cantlay is coming up on three years winless this season, seemingly improbable for a player of his caliber. If he keeps hitting the greens and keeps that putter rolling, I have no doubt that Cantlay will pick up another top 10 finish and be in the hunt for a victory this week.

Winner:

Really going balls deep with this pick this week. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Scottie Scheffler is a pretty good golfer. In 19 starts on tour last season, Scheffler earned seven wins, 16 top 10’s and 17 top 25’s. Oh, and he also won a Gold Medal at The Olympics, the FedEx Cup and the Hero World Challenge. Factoring in official, unofficial and bonus earnings, Scheffler earned over $63,000,000. How can Scheffler top that this season? We shall soon see. The stats speak for themselves. Scheffler ranked 1st in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Strokes Gained: Approach the Green, 2nd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, 3rd in Greens in Regulation Percentage and Birdie or Better Conversion Percentage, 4th in Scrambling and towards the top in damn near eve other category too. Hell, he even finished 77th in Strokes Gained: Putting thanks to a putter switch in the middle of the year, statistically his second best season on the greens in his career. When Scheffler holes putts and gets out of his own head, he is truly unstoppable. Now, for some unfinished business. Before Scheffler went on his heater last season, he had a chance to find victory in this very event, as he sat in a three-way tie for the lead after 36 holes. However, the final round was cancelled due to weather and Scheffler finished T-6 after shooting a 70 on day three. A respectable finish, but a big what if lingers. Would Scheffler have stormed back from four strokes behind on the final day to win? We’ll never know. Scottie doesn’t need any more incentive to win, but some losses stick with a player well after the fact. After a delayed start to 2025 thanks to a wild, Christmas carving incident, I predict that Scheffler will pick right back up where he left off and close the deal this year with a victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am!