The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is a tournament held each year, usually in February, in California on the PGA Tour. As a pro-am, the tournament is open to both professional golfers and amateurs, with 156 of each entered at the start.
Three courses are normally used throughout the tournament, all located within a two-mile radius on the same Californian Peninsula. They are Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill Golf Course and Monterey Peninsula Country Club, with only Pebble Beach Golf Links used on the final day’s play.
Essentially the event is two tournaments running at the same time. The pros are measured in the usual 72-hole stroke play fashion. However, for the first three rounds at least they are paired with an amateur, with a best ball team format running concurrently. The cut is made after the third day’s play.
The 2021 tournament will take place without any amateurs and playing only on the Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill courses.
First played in 1937, hosted by Bing Crosby, the tournament is not everybody’s cup of tea. Some find the slower pace of play a challenge whilst others enjoy more of an intense atmosphere. Those who do enjoy this tournament tend to return year on year, generally playing well. Thus, we’ve seen a number of multiple winners over the years including Phil Mickelson, who has won this even an amazing five times.
Next Played: TBD
Next years tournament dates have not been scheduled yet. We'll update this page with more information as we have it.
Last Played: February 2021
- Winner: Daniel Berger
- To Par / Margin: -18 / 2 Strokes
Course Info
| Course | Location | Length | Prize Money |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pebble Beach Golf Links | Carmel Bay, California | 7,051 Yards | $7,800,000 |
| Spyglass Hill Golf Course | 7,041 Yards |
PGA Tour golf continues to be played inside a bubble to keep players, caddies and associated support staff safe. That has had a whole number of impacts on the tour including the cancellation of the traditional pro-am part of this week’s tournament. Moreover, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will take place at just two courses instead of the usual three.
Not everything about the changes is bad though. As ever, Pebble Beach will hold the final round of play but those who make the cut will now have to play three rounds at the historic and truly world class venue. Spyglass Hill will hold just one round with the field split between the two courses on Thursday and Friday. For many golf fans the absence of celebrities and business people is only good news for the tournament. It allows the PGA Tour players and these two stunning golf courses to play the starring role.
Pebble Beach is arguably the most iconic golf course in the USA. The coastal links has hosted the U.S. Open six times and as such is capable of being set up to be an incredibly demanding test of golf. It is always some way from its most difficult for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am but the absence of amateur golfers this year means the PGA Tour can be a little more devious with the pin positions on the famously small greens and perhaps let the rough grow out a little more than usual too.
Spyglass Hill doesn’t have the same world class golfing pedigree as Pebble Beach but it regularly features in lists of top level golfers’ favourite courses. Like its sister course, Spyglass Hill can yield some pretty low scores when the coastal winds lay down. Those winds are only likely to be a problem on Sunday this year. Moreover, wet weather in the area will make the greens more receptive and the fairways effectively play wider, which should boost scoring.
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Betting Tips
Note: The following tips are from 2021. Tips for next year will be added the week of the tournament.
The greens at Pebble Beach are the smallest on the PGA Tour. Hitting a high percentage of them in regulation requires real skill. That hands an advantage to the best ball strikers in the field but you will often see players with the best short game come to the fore at this tournament as getting up and down for par having missed the hard-to-hold-greens is such a key skill.
The other key skill to focus on this week is putting. Specifically, players who have proven form putting well on Poa Annua grass should be favoured. There isn’t a course on the PGA Tour where it is more difficult to putt from inside 10 feet than Pebble Beach, whilst the greens at Spyglass Hill are also Poa Annua, a tricky surface which grows at uneven speeds throughout the day.
Jordan Speith - 22/1
Golfing Twitter went into overdrive on Saturday as Jordan Spieth made a charge at the Phoenix Open. The three-time major champion has been in the golfing doldrums for way too long now and went into last week’s tournament just about holding onto a spot inside the top 100. He remains one of the most popular golfers in the world though, as evidenced by the excitement levels about his round of 61 on Saturday. Although he was unable to maintain his challenge on Sunday he will take a lot of positivity with him to Pebble Beach and at big odds looks like real value.
Spieth’s spectacular Saturday round was powered by gaining strokes on the field approaching the green, around the green and with his putter. He fared much worse off the tee where he actually lost strokes to the field but that is a far less important metric at Pebble Beach where the fairways make it a typical second shot golf course.
What really got the limited number of fans allowed into TPC Scottsdale going was the sight of Spieth holing putts from all over the green. Putting is, more than any other element of golf, a game of confidence and he will take that confidence with him to the Poa Annua greens where he won the 2017 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. In total, Spieth has won three events at tournaments which use Poa Annua grass for the putting surfaces, more than all but three players in this week’s field.
Pebble Beach would be a great place for Spieth to return to the winner’s circle. It matches up to his skill set very well and he has winning form here, so a hugely popular win could well be on the cards at 22/1. Cracking each way value.
Phil Mickelson - 45/1
Phil Mickelson is one of those players in the field who has more wins on Poa Annua greens than Jordan Speith. Given his age, how much he loves playing in California and the fact that he has 44 wins on the PGA Tour that is not surprising. Indeed, Mickelson is a five-time winner of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with his most recent win coming just two years ago.
Mickelson’s formidable record on the Champions Tour shows that he has not forgotten how to get over the line when he finds himself in contention. Moreover, he is by no means done winning yet on the PGA Tour and feels as though he has years left of being able to compete with the very best when things are set up to suit him.
We all know that Mickelson is going to find it tough on courses which demand accuracy of the tee. Fortunately, Pebble Beach is not one of those courses. Like Spieth, Mickelson will be able to get away with some fairly wild drives at time as he has both tremendous skill with his irons and one of the best short games the world has ever seen to not only get him out of trouble but to keep the scoring chances coming. For a player who loves this tournament so much and is so well suited to its challenge, 45/1 is a more than fair price about Mickelson’s chances.
Jim Furyk - 100/1
In addition to Jordan Spieth’s tilt at the title, the other hugely popular contender at the Phoenix Open was Steve Stricker. The American Ryder Cup captain showed that older players can still compete on courses that suit them with an excellent fourth place finish. This week the last American Ryder Cup captain, Jim Furyk, can do something similar at a golf course that sets up very nicely for his excellent shot making.
Despite a wonderful career built upon consistency and doing things his own way, Furyk will have to carefully pick and choose his outings on the PGA Tour while also competing on the Champions Tour. The 50-year-old has a lot more winning to do in the senior ranks but still has the game to compete with the very best on courses where power is not the be all and end all. He’ll need to have his best week with his putter for some time but his approach play should mitigate at least some of the trouble he’s had on the greens, so 100/1 is a very good price for an each way bet on Jim Furyk.
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Recent Winners
| Year | Winner | To Par | Winning Margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Daniel Berger | -18 | 2 Strokes |
| 2020 | Nick Taylor | -19 | 4 Strokes |
| 2019 | Phil Mickelson | -19 | 3 Strokes |
| 2018 | Ted Potter Jr. | -17 | 3 Strokes |
| 2017 | Jordan Spieth | -19 | 4 Strokes |
| 2016 | Vaughn Taylor | -17 | 1 Stroke |
| 2015 | Brandt Snedeker | -22 | 3 Strokes |
| 2014 | Jimmy Walker | -11 | 1 Stroke |
| 2013 | Brandt Snedeker | -19 | 2 Strokes |
| 2012 | Phil Mickelson | -17 | 2 Strokes |
About the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Pebble Beach Golf Links, on the Monterey Peninsula in California, is one of the most iconic golf courses in the world. It’s up there with Augusta National and St Andrews as the sort of golf course that even people who don’t watch much golf have heard about and rightly so.
Pebble Beach actually shares numerous similarities with St Andrews. Both are on the rotation for their national championship (the U.S. Open and the Open Championship, respectively), both are coastal links courses and both host well regarded pro-am tournaments every year.
Just like St Andrews, Pebble Beach shares hosting duties for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am (sponsored by AT & T since 1986) with two other courses. It is the historic links which takes the host duties for the final round on Sunday for this incredibly long running and popular pro-am tournament.
Bing Leads the Stars
The first few editions of the tournament we now call the Pebble Beach Pro-Am didn’t actually take place at Pebble Beach. The tournament began life in 1937 as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am and was an immediate hit thanks to the star pulling power of its host, Bing Crosby.
There were very few people more famous or celebrated in the whole world than Bing Crosby back then. Such was his pulling power that he was able to attract several of the best players in the world and many other big stars to the inaugural edition which was known as the Crosby Clambake and was won by Sam Snead, the man who still holds the record for the highest number of wins on the PGA Tour.
That first edition was held over just 18 holes thanks to heavy rain making the first day a washout. It was played over 36 holes for the next five editions until a short hiatus for the Second World War, coming back as a 54-hole event in 1947. The format has been tweaked a number of times over the years and was eventually extended to four rounds with a cut falling after three days, when each pairing has played a round on the three host courses.
The legendary Snead dominated the early years of the event and would win the tournament three times before its suspension due to World War II before then adding a fourth crown in 1950. Snead’s tally of four wins is better than other multiple winners including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Dustin Johnson. However, it is Mark O’Meara and Phil Mickelson who have the best tournament record with five wins apiece ahead of the 2021 tournament. In the below table you can see all the great players with three or more wins.
Comedian and White Christmas crooner Crosby loved hosting the tournament as much as the professionals loved playing it. Many big names from the worlds of sport, entertainment and business were also delighted to get the call to compete. Bill Murray, who played in 2020, is a regular, with both Eli and Peyton Manning also taking part that year. In the past NFL legends Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have teed it up for this one, as well as the likes of Kevin Costner and Justin Timberlake.
Bing (and his family after his death) remained the tournament hosts until 1986 whereby AT&T began their sponsorship and the name was changed to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Two-time major champion Fuzzy Zoeller won that year, by which time the prize money had ballooned from £500 in the inaugural edition to a very handsome £108,000.
Players With The Most Wins
| Player | Number of Wins |
|---|---|
| Mark O’Meara | 5 (1985, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1997) |
| Phil Mickelson | 5 (1998, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2019) |
| Sam Snead | 4 (1937, 1938, 1941, 1950) |
| Jack Nicklaus | 3 (1967, 1972, 1973) |
| Johnny Miller | 3 (1974, 1987, 1994) |
Littler’s Unique Double
Many of the amateurs competing in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am fancy themselves as very good golfers. The likes of Murray, Timberlake and Tony Romo (the former Cowboys quarterback had a handicap of +3.3!) have impressed the galleries and those watching at home with the quality of their golf but nobody has managed to live up to the feat of Gene Littler.
Before embarking on a professional career which would see him win 54 times including the 1961 U.S. Open, Littler was one of the best amateur golfers in the world. He won the U.S. Amateur in 1953 and one year later won the Pebble Beach Pro-Am as a 23-year-old.
Following the end of three years’ service with the United States Navy, Littler turned pro and returned to Pebble Beach multiple times including in 1975 when he became the first player to win the tournament as both a professional and an amateur.
Low Score Needed
Due to the fact that amateurs are competing alongside the pros the courses are set up a little easier than they are for a regular tournament. That means that scoring is typically very low and although that can change if the weather plays up, generally speaking you want a player who is capable of firing in a lot of birdies.
Johnny Miller’s 1994 win was the last time a score single-digits under par was enough for glory. In 2015 Brandt Snedeker shot -22 to win, with the average score since then (including 2015) being a very, very low -18.83!