Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – 2025 WM Phoenix Open

2025 WM Phoenix Open Fantasy Sleeper Report

Make that 27.

Rory McIlroy landed the 27th PGA TOUR title of his remarkable career at the AT&T Pebble Beach on Sunday, and the way he played on the Californian coast there might just be more to come for the Irishman in 2025 – two more wins would draw him level with the great Lee Trevino.

As the Irishman takes the week off, attention turns to another prolific winner. Scottie Scheffler made his return from hand surgery at Pebble Beach, and he played very nicely – ranking 1st for SG: Approach and 6th for SG: Tee-to-Green.

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All of which is very ominous ahead of a return to an event that Scheffler could have won in each of the last three years! The Phoenix Open champion in 2022 and 2023, the world number one could have also taken down the event last year – at one point, he went odds on with the sportsbooks, but a catalogue of missed short-range putts saw him miss out on the three-peat.

The winner, instead, was Nick Taylor, who had finished second the year before. He beat Charley Hoffman – who has now finished second twice at TPC Scottsdale – on the second hole of a playoff. 

Hopefully you’ve picked up a key theme this week: course history is so important at TPC Scottsdale that it should actually form the basis of any bets placed.

Why do the same players do so well in this event year after year? Perhaps it’s the unique challenge presented by TPC Scottsdale, Tom Weiskopf’s fun Par 71 layout in the Arizona desert.

This is a layout that really does reward the best tee-to-green operators; those whose long game, and chipping and scrambling, is precise, accurate, and reliable. A sure hand with the flatstick helps, as always, but the real value is in getting your ball to the right portion of these tiered greens as efficiently as possible.

Another unique challenge is the raucous crowd, with around 700,000 patrons pacing the layout. Around 20,000 of those will be found in the stadium around the 16th hole, which is undoubtedly the rowdiest hole in all of golf.

With a lively atmosphere guaranteed, the players will have to embrace that unusual challenge, too.

So who will win this week? Well, we’re pinning our hopes on a quintet of players with previous at TPC Scottsdale: here’s our 2025 Phoenix Open sleeper shortlist.

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Maverick McNealy – 60/1 – Having finished literally halfway down the Pebble Beach field in T40 last week, there’s a chance that Maverick McNealy is overlooked in Arizona.

But we’re sticking with him, because once again in California his ball-striking was outstanding. McNealy gained strokes on the field off the tee, plus a full +1.33 on approach – third in the field, and better than Rory, no less.

The curiosity is that his short game is in the mire, having lost strokes to the field putting at Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines. An anomaly? For a guy that ranked 1st on TOUR for SG: Putting in 2023, and 29th in 2024, you’d certainly like to think so.

McNealy finished T6 here 12 months ago in his second Phoenix Open appearance.

Kurt Kitayama – 60/1 – It was very on-brand of Kurt Kitayama to gain strokes on the field in every department in his single round at Torrey Pines South… and still miss the cut.

This is a player who continues to get in his own way, but make no mistake Kitayama is a supreme ball-striker who has to come under consideration at technical tracks like TPC Scottsdale.

The plot thickens when we reveal that his best putting performance in 2024, an area of obvious weakness, came at this very venue (+1.17), and that he also gained strokes on the field here with the flatstick in 2023, too.

With positive putting numbers in his last four starts, Kitayama is slowly gearing up for a substantial run towards the summit of a leaderboard.

Nick Taylor – 60/1 – Of Nick Taylor’s last ten rounds at TPC Scottsdale (he missed the cut here in 2022), four have been 66 or lower.

The Canadian even threw a 60 into the mix on his way to the title 12 months ago, so this is a guy who can’t wait to return to Arizona for his title defense – his course form of 1-2 is on a par with Scheffler himself.

Taylor’s approach play was once again right on the money at Pebble Beach, gaining +0.84 on a stellar field of players, and that continues a fine start to 2025 in which he’s won the Sony Open and produced another excellent display for T12 at the correlating American Express.

Andrew Novak – 80/1 – The tough conditions at Pebble Beach on Saturday found Andrew Novak out, with his round of 75 extinguishing hopes of a second successive top-ten finish on the PGA TOUR.

In his defense, Novak did close out with a sublime round of 67 on Sunday, so confidence is in plentiful supply for a player who showed up nicely at TPC Scottsdale 12 months ago.

He was one shot off the lead with 18 holes to play at the 2024 edition, before falling away to finish T8. Another year older and more mature, Novak – a classy tee-to-green sort – can get into contention once more.

Sam Stevens – 80/1 – Although we wouldn’t describe him as a class act from tee-to-green yet, there’s no doubt that Sam Stevens has made tremendous strides forward so far in 2025.

It’s not just the nature of his finishes – solo second at the Farmers, T17 at Pebble Beach – that’s impressive, but the way Stevens is achieving them. He gained strokes on the field in every single major SG department at Torrey Pines, before driving the ball magnificently at PB.

A gain of +1.36 on approach at the Sony Open confirms that Stevens has found a touch of real quality so far this year, so all is well as he makes his return to TPC Scottsdale. The 28-year-old finished T28 here on debut last year, with a round of 66 on Friday hinting at what he could be capable of at the venue.

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Want more of this week’s fantasy predictions? Check out our full fantasy preview for the WM Phoenix Open here.

Fantasy Golf Predictions This Season (2024-2025)

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