AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am betting guide: 5 picks our expert loves this week

Welcome to our weekly PGA Tour gambling-tips column, featuring picks from GOLF.com’s expert prognosticator, Brady Kannon. A seasoned golf bettor and commentator, Kannon is a host and regular guest on SportsGrid, a syndicated audio network devoted to sports and sports betting, and is a golf betting analyst for CBS Sportsline. You can follow Brady on Twitter at @LasVegasGolfer, and you can read his picks below for the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which gets underway Thursday in Pebble Beach, Calif.

Last season we had J.J. Spaun (100-1) lose in a playoff at the Players and Justin Rose (100-1) fall in a playoff at the Masters. We’re 0-for-1 in playoffs now in 2026 after our guy, Hideki Matsuyama (26-1) bogeyed the final hole in regulation and then lost to the suddenly red-hot Chris Gotterup in a playoff Sunday in Scottsdale. Sometimes you have it played correctly and it just doesn’t happen. On to Pebble Beach. Let’s see if we can play it correctly again.

The West Coast Swing resumes on the incredible Monterey Peninsula. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is the first Signature Event on the PGA Tour in the new season. The field is limited to 80 players, there is no cut, and the amateurs will play with the professionals on just Thursday and Friday. Similar to what we saw two weeks ago at Torrey Pines, it is a two-course rotation this week on Thursday and Friday between Pebble and Spyglass Hill. Each player will play one round on each course for the first two days and then over the weekend, it is all Pebble Beach.

The two golf courses are similar obviously, in location and the coastal influence, and both tracks feature Poa Annua grass greens. Spyglass Hill, however, is primarily tree-lined and wooded with only a handful of holes featuring views of Carmel Bay. The fairways are narrower and the greens are of average size. Neighboring Pebble Beach is almost entirely exposed to the coastline, has wide fairways, and some of the smallest greens on Tour.

With three of the four rounds being played at Pebble Beach, this is where most of my focus lies. Hitting greens in regulation is a big part of the puzzle here and because the greens are so small, so too is Scrambling. Greens will be missed and getting up and down successfully will go a long way toward contending for a victory. So will putting. Again, like we saw two weeks ago at Torrey Pines, Poa Annua is the putting surface turf and it can be very tricky. I tend to lean toward players that are more familiar with this type of surface and have had success on it in the past.

Both golf courses are of the shorter variety. Pebble measures just under 7,000 yards and Spyglass is just over 7,000 yards. What it adds up to is par 4s measuring between 350-450 yards and an emphasis on approach play from 75-150 yards.

For comparison purposes, I used Sea Island where they play the RSM Classic in the fall. I also used Torrey Pines, which in many ways is very different but does share the California coastal location and the Poa Annua greens. I also used Hamilton and St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Canada. These courses have hosted three recent Canadian Opens and we see many of the same names pop up at the top of these leaderboards. For example, Rory McIlroy is your defending champion here at Pebble Beach with Shane Lowry finishing runner-up. It was exactly that same combination finishing 1-2 at Hamilton at the Canadian Open in 2019. McIlroy also went on to win at St. George’s in Canada in 2022.

Viktor Hovland (35-1)

Pebble Beach holds a special place in Hovland’s career. He won the U.S. Amateur here in 2018 and then became the low amateur the following year at the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, finishing 12th. Even when he was really struggling in 2025, he managed to finish top 25 at Pebble. This year, he comes in off a 10th-place finish at TPC Scottsdale, where he ranked fifth in the field for SG: Approach and 16th for SG: Putting. I like the momentum to carry over here at a place where he really flourishes. Also, Hovland finished runner-up at Torrey Pines in 2021.

Cameron Young (38-1)

Young is two-for-two with cuts made this season and last week in Phoenix, he was especially good with the putter and in Scrambling. He’s never been spectacular here at Pebble Beach but in two trips to Torrey Pines, he’s finished 20th and 22nd, so I like that he seems to be able to handle the Poa Annua greens. Going back to last summer, Young played in 11 events. He finished top 5 five times, including a win at the Wyndham Championship. He finished top 11 an additional three times. Over the last 24 rounds, he ranks top 25 in this field for Greens in Regulation Gained, Scrambling, on the 350-450 yard Par 4s, and in Hole Proximity from 100-125 yards.

Maverick McNealy (40-1)

We tried McNealy to open the season in Hawaii and he ended up finishing 24th at the Sony Open. Since then, he’s been 10th at Torrey Pines and was 13th last week in Scottsdale, where he ranked sixth in the field for Greens in Regulation. McNealy grew up on the Monterey Peninsula and knows this course as well, if not better, than anyone else in the field. Let’s not forget that his first PGA Tour win came in the fall of 2024 at Sea Island at the RSM Classic. He is very solid across the board in all the stats I looked at this week and ranks sixth in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua) and in Hole Proximity from 125-150 yards over the last 24 rounds.

Taylor Pendrith (95-1)

We are going to go a little deeper down the odds board to round out the card and I’m going with the “Canadian Taylor double-dip” beginning with Pendrith, who has finished ninth and seventh in his last two visits to Pebble Beach and has also been as high as ninth and seventh at Torrey Pines. He finished 21st at Hamilton at the Canadian Open in 2024 and has been as high as 15th at the RSM Classic. Over the last 24 rounds, Pendrith ranks 24th in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua). He has missed his last two cuts but began the year with a sixth-place finish at the Sony Open.

Nick Taylor (125-1)

The second half of the Canadian Taylors is Nick, a former champion here at Pebble Beach when he went gate-to-wire in 2020. He is maybe one of the sneaky, best players in the world it seems, that never quite gets that elite billing. A five-time winner on Tour, he’s been especially good on the West Coast Swing, winning last year at the Sony Open and taking the WM Phoenix Open in 2024. His best traits are accuracy off the tee, Greens in Regulation, and Scrambling. No surprise that has served him well here in the past. He also ranks 35th in this field for SG: Putting (Poa Annua) over the last 24 rounds.