Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa should both be spying a big opportunity at Pebble Beach this week according to golf expert Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: Pebble Beach Pro-Am
4pts win Collin Morikawa at 14/1 (General; 18.5 Betfair Exchange)
3pts e.w. Patrick Cantlay at 16/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Adam Scott at 66/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Denny McCarthy at 70/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Aaron Rai at 80/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
It would be fair to say that the PGA Tour season hasn't quite made it out of second gear as yet. Hideki Matsuyama is so far the only superstar to have delivered in 2025, his dazzling victory in Hawaii followed by wins for Nick Taylor, Sepp Straka, and Harris English. Yes, there's been drama, enough to sustain the likes of you and I, but barely a ripple made outside of the sport's own bubble. Not that we should've expected any.
Whether that changes because of the return of Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy's first appearance of the year in the US I'm not quite sure. On the one hand they are at Pebble Beach, one of the game's most iconic venues. On the other, they are at Pebble Beach. Neither man has all that much experience here and neither was a factor in a curtailed 2024 edition: Scheffler because he'd fallen from first to sixth before the final round was cancelled; McIlroy because he simply didn't play very well.
One of the themes which has coloured the last couple of years of these Elevated, Designated, much-debated Signature Events has been how often they've been won by someone who would've played with or without the bigger purse. Often, that has been Scheffler, a regular at Bay Hill, Muirfield Village and in the Travelers. At Quail Hollow last year it was McIlroy, at Riviera it was Matsuyama, and elsewhere we've had Matt Fitzpatrick at Harbour Town and Keegan Bradley at River Highlands.
Scheffler had never played the Pebble Beach Pro-Am before last year and McIlroy only did it once so he could add another bucket-list experience alongside his dad. They're a fearsome duo, for my money the number one and two in the world, but this is one occasion where it feels a no-brainer to take them on and that would be true even if Scheffler was not reappearing following an accident while making pasta over Christmas which, by the way, makes him a candidate for a second arrest warrant in less than 12 months if you ask me.
Maybe McIlroy will prove the answer at a very fair 12/1 after a good start to the year in Dubai, but Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach are not natural fits. His prowess off the tee is probably more beneficial at the former but there are only 18 holes played there, though it should be noted that last year's 71 looked like being a lot lower for a time. He was six-under with four to play before playing those holes in five-over. Ouch.
One thing I will say is that McIlroy is currently 10/1 for the Masters, 8/1 for the PGA, 10/1 for the US Open, and 10/1 for the Open. Those will all be harder to win than this is, given that we've a smaller field and all of the LIV Golf players absent, not to mention no weight of history to overcome. He is, straightforwardly, a bigger price than I had anticipated – just not quite big enough to force a bet I don't really want to recommend.
By contrast I am keen to side with PATRICK CANTLAY again.
Cantlay was recommended at almost identical odds last year, when there were no fitness doubts surrounding Scheffler, when Xander Schauffele was in the field and when his own form was not as good as it is now. He'd started the season 12-52-56 but, as expected, improved for these perfect events down in California, finishing 11th here and then fourth at Riviera.
Subsequently third in The Heritage and the US Open and fifth in the Travelers before performing a starring role in the USA's latest Presidents Cup romp, Cantlay did everything but win in 2024 and it has admittedly been too long since he lifted any kind of silverware, a comment which also applies to both Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas.
But Cantlay seems just as close as those two, driving the ball well in both starts to begin the new year, finishing 15th in The Sentry then fifth in the American Express. In fact on both occasions he did everything to a good standard with the exception of his approach work, which you'd think would need to improve if he's to go ahead and returning to winning ways.
His familiarity with both Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill will help and he's one of those players for whom this has been a staple of the schedule. He was even ninth when playing here as an amateur and then, significantly, chose this home game for his long-awaited return from injury four years later. He's never missed a cut, including in the US Open, and since then has form figures of 11-3-4-11.
Along the way he has produced a field-leading tee-to-green performance over 36 holes at Pebble Beach and the move to 54 (touch wood following last year's abandoned final round) is no bad thing despite a lacklustre effort back then, when he'd laid down an early marker with an opening 64 at Spyglass.
Driver was largely to blame but that club has been much more consistent lately, ranking inside the top 25 on his last seven US starts and certainly part of his excellent Presidents Cup display. And, with doubts surrounding Ludvig Aberg's health also thrown in, course-loving Viktor Hovland under a big cloud and Max Homa hopeless at Torrey Pines last week, there really are some big question marks among the bigger names.
Not so Cantlay and while he does have a bit of a point to prove when it comes to getting over the line again, I'll be most disappointed if he isn't in contention come the weekend. It's a great time for him to be playing in his home state in events he knows and loves and with Riviera now off the schedule, this may prove his best chance.
I also find it hard to get away from MORIKAWA and with my mission for 2025 to get the big events right – which starts with acknowledging that the better players tend to win them – I feel compelled to include him given those reasons for taking on Scheffler and McIlroy, and the fact that I'd rate him clear best of the rest.
Morikawa finished 35th in the US Open here just a week after turning professional, then returned last year to finish 14th. Eight-under for his two rounds at Pebble Beach, he managed to score despite his ordinarily top-class approach play failing him following a missed cut at Torrey Pines a week earlier, and on both starts here has putted well.
California born and raised and a winner here in the PGA Championship, poa annua greens have been a positive for the most part, with two noted exceptions at Torrey Pines and Riviera. Despite those three abysmal rounds, his lifetime putting stats in his home state are above-average and in general it's a club that has been firing lately regardless of the surface.
Morikawa began the year with second place to Hideki Matsuyama in The Sentry, where he ranked second in strokes-gained tee-to-green, and while winless in almost 18 months did card the best 72-hole score in the TOUR Championship, along with six other top-five finishes last year and very few missteps.
He's the third-best player in this field by DataGolf's rankings and I'd have to agree with that assessment. If anything, his edge over Thomas surely is enhanced by the fact we're on the west coast, notwithstanding the latter's performance here last year, and this looks like a golden opportunity for Morikawa to win again in the Golden State.
Of course, Scheffler isn't the only player returning from injury this week and I'm fascinated to see what 2025 brings for Jordan Spieth. He's been out for much longer, since August in fact, and that explains three-figure prices about a course winner with his class. I hope, and a small part of me believes, that surgery to fix his troublesome wrist could set Spieth up for a dramatic return to form, something the whole sport would benefit from.
Along with Matt Fitzpatrick he goes down as a bit of a sleeping giant with strong Pebble Beach credentials, but as with so many big names at the moment, there are serious underlying issues they have to answer. The same goes, more dramatically so, for Hovland, winner of the 2018 US Amateur here and top amateur at the following year's US Open. It's incredible to think that he could turn up here an unconsidered 50/1 shot.
In fact there's something of a theme on the PGA Tour at the moment, one which feeds into the ongoing debate around the quality of the product. Partly because of injuries and illness, partly because of the simple fact that the last big event on the PGA Tour was in August, it feels a little flat. It's up to the stars to change that and no doubt they will in time, though the absence of Riviera from the schedule, while inconsequential versus the real-world disaster in California, hardly helps.
Great Scott ready to win again
We'll see which ones step up this week and beyond but for now it certainly feels like further big-priced winners are plausible even at Signature level, perhaps more so in this event than those which follow over the coming weeks, and I have three options from a shortlist of six or seven.
First is ADAM SCOTT, who began the new year with an encouraging performance in Hawaii before a poor final round saw him fall into the middle of the pack in the Dubai Desert Classic.
All in all it's been a decent start after a longer-than-usual break having skipped the events back home in Australia, supposedly to help ensure that he's fresh and ready for a big 2025. Scott has been saying the same thing for a while now but he's certainly intent on targeting big events and adding significant achievements to his CV while he still can.
Last year saw him come very close to landing the Scottish Open, bag his first major top-10 in five years and contend to the death in the BMW Championship so he remains very competitive at the highest level under the right circumstances, and my view is that he has them here.
Adam Scott, never a doubt.
— TGL (@TGL) January 28, 2025
📺: @espn pic.twitter.com/pTJMRJyXOs
Twice a winner at Riviera, he's always been comfortable in California and that does extend to Pebble Beach, where his previous major top-10 came before he ended the long wait for another in the Open Championship.
As you'd expect, that came courtesy of a strong tee-to-green display and he produced something similar on his return to the venue last year, ranking fifth off the tee and 12th with his approaches only to struggle with the putter. That meant 20th in an event cut short but based on the way he played the host course, perhaps we could've expected him to climb the leaderboard had the final round taken place.
Scott's long-game was excellent in previous rounds at Pebble Beach when he played this event in 2018 and 2019 and with his putter having been decent to begin the new year, and stacks of experience on poa annua, I'm hopeful he can build on that season-opening performance in Hawaii, where he was inside the top 10 entering the final round.
That was his first PGA Tour start since he went 18-2-5 in the Playoffs and he signed off 2024 with third place behind McIlroy in Dubai, so with all those unknowns concerning some of the star names, I'm happy taking a consistent operator who might just have one more big win in the locker. Whether or not playing the TGL on Monday proves a negative only time will tell, but I doubt it.
Wins are still absent from DENNY MCCARTHY's CV but he was desperately close to changing that when losing a play-off to Akshay Bhatia in Texas last year.
Bhatia is a Californian with a round of 64 at Pebble Beach to his name and did come under consideration, but McCarthy caught the eye in Hawaii when leading at halfway and producing some excellent approach play numbers on his second start of the year.
Sensibly choosing to skip Torrey Pines, he's back now for an event where his last three results read 12-4-26 and along with a closing 64 at Pebble Beach when placed behind Justin Rose, he has three sub-70s from five tries at Spyglass to his name, including a best of 66.
What really appeals is the fact that his ball-striking stats at Pebble Beach (prior to this year, the only ones measured) have been positive, both off the tee and on approach, for each of his last two appearances and if that remains true this week, we could be in business given that he's arguably the number one putter on the PGA Tour.
Certainly, tidy golfers like McCarthy have historically gone well at Pebble Beach, a placement course off the tee, and that spike to rank ninth in approaches last time out could prove a big clue. At upwards of 66/1, he can at least battle for places.
Rai smiling?
Beau Hossler and Maverick McNealy are both locals with course form but that's reflected somewhat in the odds. The latter though would've been selected had he not shortened on Monday as he continues to pound greens, an asset which would leave backers hoping for one of his best putting weeks, the like of which is seldom far away.
Both he and Hossler can be up and down with their irons though and the more I look at this market, the more I wonder why AARON RAI is being dangled at prices around the 80/1 mark.
Approach play is Rai's bread-and-butter along with arrow-straight driving, and for my money he looks the ideal type to plot his way around both courses and find these small targets in the required number.
He didn't manage it back in 2022 but that was during an up-and-down start to his rookie PGA Tour season and he still finished off with a good round at Pebble Beach, where he was five-under through 12 and eventually signed for a four-under 68. Rai putted well that day and has done several times on similar greens at Torrey Pines, too.
Last week's missed cut there isn't necessarily ideal but Thursday was brutal for scoring and he was far from alone in struggling badly. While the Farmers often helps provide clues for this one (such as the runner-up, third, fourth and fifth last year), the second round especially was so miserable for so many players that I imagine it won't prove much of a form guide going forward.
ANOTHER ACE ON 17!!!!!
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 11, 2023
Aaron Rai makes his first career ace to send the crowd into a frenzy! pic.twitter.com/48vVElNQr7
Rai had played nicely in his opening round and before that went from finishing 15th on his debut in The Sentry (10th tee-to-green) to playing well in the Team Cup, all this after taking a fair bit of time off towards the end of a breakthrough 2024 season which included victory in the Wyndham Championship, fourth place in Scotland before that, and fourth again at Wentworth afterwards.
Now the world number 23 and a winner in Africa, Asia, Europe and the USA, Rai split Shane Lowry and Robert MacIntyre in the Wentworth betting but finds himself almost twice the price here. To my eye that reads too much into his one previous visit and while, yes, I'd generally like to be siding with players who know these two courses better, my belief is that he will really enjoy them both.
Other options include Russell Henley, overpriced on a strict view of his form but with just one top-10 finish in 35 starts in California, Sam Burns despite the fact he's away from his comfort zone to some extent, and the bang in-form Lee Hodges. The latter seems to have solved his putting problems and while four top-10s in seven have all come in weaker fields, he showed he can compete with the best when 12th in the PGA Championship last May.
That was the event Schauffele won, the one where Bryson DeChambeau and Hovland pushed him all the way, the one where Scheffler was arrested and then released just in time to get to the course. The PGA Tour could do with something half as memorable this week and, at Pebble Beach, where Spieth hit that shot from the cliff-edge, it's always possible.
The road to the Masters begins on the Monterey Peninsula.
Posted at 1300 GMT on 28/01/25
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