Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AM Fantasy Preview

The early season is always interesting for PGA TOUR followers in seeing which of the Web.com Tour graduates are going to stick their head up above the parapet and show their hand: Xander Schauffele, after winning early on in his debut campaign, would go on to take the spoils at the TOUR Championship and confirm his status as one of the best young players on the planet.

And yet, there’s something equally as satisfying in seeing two old veterans go at it toe-to-toe on a rip-roaring Sunday.

Okay, so Gary Woodland and Chez Reavie are two guys in their thirties – it’s not exactly Tom Watson creaking around Augusta, but even so it’s been so long since either got into the winner’s circle that they both must have wondered if their best days were behind them.

But both Woodland and Reavie produced ball-striking performances to savor at Scottsdale, and while more celebrated names such as Fowler and Rahm fell by the wayside, it was left to Woodland to best his diminutive rival to claim a first PGA TOUR title in five years.

Gary Woodland celebrates after making a par to beat Chez Reavie in a…

Gary Woodland celebrates after making a par to beat Chez Reavie in a playoff during the final round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale on February 4, 2018 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

After that brief sojourn to Arizona, it’s back to California to resume the West Coast Swing and yet another Cali Pro-Am event: this time it’s the AT&T Pebble Beach that will be played a trio of courses right on the coastline: the stunning Pebble Beach, the ‘best course never to host a major’ in Spyglass Hill, and the rather more gentle assignment that is Monterey Shore.

This is a trio of coastal, Links-style set-ups that all lay out on Poa Annua putting surfaces, and it appears as though once again the wind will be a factor; particularly across the weekend.

The players will get stuck into each of the courses on rotation across the opening three days, before a cut is made and the remaining combatants take to Pebble Beach once again on Sunday to battle it out for the trophy.

Both Pebble Beach, which has hosted five US Open renewals and a PGA Championship, and Spyglass Hill are tough tests of ball-striking, so don’t assume that this is the usual Pro-Am celebrity style jolly; far from it.

Indeed, the likes of Spieth, Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Day, Snedeker and Woodland all finished inside the top-10 here 12 months ago; a sure sign that the difficulty of the test suits the better player.

Even so, we can chance our arm on a few sleepers: luminaries such as Vaughn Taylor, D.A. Points and Steve Lowery have all won this tournament in the past decade, which proves that every dog can have his day at Pebble Beach!

Here are five to consider backing with your hard-earned salary cap:

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2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Fantasy Sleeper Report

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The 2018 Pebble Beach Pro-Am Fantasy Sleeper Report

Mix and match these players with your usual rosters (or play them separately) to get the most out of your picks this week.

Patrick Cantlay – Vegas Odds 50/1 – When Patrick Cantlay first started to make his return from injury early in 2017 we sensed this was a player to watch, and we see no reason to deviate from that logic.

The 25-year-old was born in Long Beach and studied at UCLA, so we’re looking forward to seeing how he performs on ‘home soil’. Hopefully, the temptations of being home won’t prove too intoxicating!

Although finishing a lowly T51 at the Farmers Insurance Open in California, Cantlay has a top-10 at Pebble Beach back in 2013, so we’ve no concerns on that front.

He recorded his first PGA TOUR win at Shriners just three starts ago, and that follows four top-10s in his comeback season in 2017.

This young guy is a class act, and if you are looking for a sleeper with a genuine chance of lifting this title then Cantlay is your man.

Branden Grace – Vegas Odds 50/1 – Most of Branden Grace’s finest achievements in golf have come outside of the US, and as such you suspect the South African doesn’t quite get the respect he deserves from those in the game on these shores.

Grace is a record-breaker – becoming the first man to shoot a round of sub-63 in a major at the British Open in the summer, and he also has 12 wins to his name worldwide. This guy is far more than just somebody to make up the numbers.

His sole PGA TOUR triumph came at the RBC Heritage in 2016 – which is a coastal contest played out in windy conditions, and there’s no secret that Grace’s low-bore ball-striking is a huge advantage in the wind.

Within his last five starts worldwide, Grace has a win (the Nedbank Challenge in November) and a second (BMW SA Open in January) to his name.

Kevin Kisner – Vegas Odds 50/1 – Kisner broke his PGA TOUR title duck at another correlating event, the RSM Classic played at Sea Island, and he has since followed up at the Dean & Deluca Invitational, where he held off the likes of Jordan Spieth and Jon Rahm no less in second.

What is pleasing about Kiz is that he doesn’t seem to mind playing at tough courses either: he lost in a play-off at the 2015 PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass, and has top-20s to his name in the US Open and PGA Championship.

A lack of length off the tee around this trio of courses is no obvious impediment, and indeed there are few in the game better at peppering greens in regulation than this 33-year-old; essential in finding the small Poa Annua surfaces at Pebble Beach in particular.

Chesson Hadley – Vegas Odds 66/1 – Hadley struck the ball very nicely at the Farmers Insurance Open for minimal reward (T23), and so it was nice to see him continue his rich vein of form from tee-to-green and this time cash in with T5 at Scottsdale last week.

This is the best, and most consistently, that the 30-year-old has played as a PGA TOUR member, and so that’s a pleasing omen ahead of a return to a track at which he recorded back-to-back top-10 finishes in 2014-15.

The idea at the trio of host venues this week is to get your ball as close to the hole as possible – it always is, of course, but you get what we’re saying, and with Hadley’s irons red hot right now he should give his backers an excellent run for their money.

Beau Hossler – Vegas Odds 100/1 – Here’s a remarkable statistic: Beau Hossler ranked 18th for Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green at Pebble Beach last season….and somehow still managed to miss the cut.

The answer, as is usually the case, was that the 22-year-old had a bit of a nightmare week with the putter: -1.38 strokes ‘gained’, to be precise.

But the good news is that he is in fine touch with the flat stick right now, ranking ninth for SG: Putting at Scottsdale last week, and that follows a rank of first for Putting Average at the CareerBuilder Challenge, so there aren’t any Poa Annua demons here – unsurprising for a guy who was born and raised in California.

Hossler was T20 at the CareerBuilder Challenge after opening up with a round of 64, and his neat chipping-and-putting game should be well suited to these Pebble Beach resort tests.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the 2018 Pebble Beach Pro-Am here.

Sleeper Report Predictions This Season (2017-2018)

[skill_bar heading=”Total Top 3s” percent=”3.33%” bar_text=”2 out of 60 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 10s” percent=”13.33%” bar_text=”8 out of 60 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Top 25s” percent=”36.67%” bar_text=”22 out of 60 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Winners Picked” percent=”8.33%” bar_text=”1 out of 12 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Runners-Up Picked” percent=”8.33%” bar_text=”1 out of 12 events” style=”background-color: #5fb341″][skill_bar heading=”Total Made Cuts (Includes Sleepers)” percent=”61.67″ bar_text=”37 out of 60 picks” style=”background-color: #5fb341″]

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