Pool party: Numbers you need to know about WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

The PGA TOUR stays in California and travels north to Carmel Bay for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Stars from all over will descend on the Monterey Peninsula and join the 156-man field across three courses for the second time this season. The rotation will feature Spyglass Hill Golf Course (SH), Monterey Peninsula Country Club (MP) and Pebble Beach Golf Links (PB). Both SH and PB will play as a par 72, with Pebble Beach measuring 6,972 yards and Spyglass Hill coming in at 7,041 yards. Monterey Peninsula will play as a par 71 and measure 6,957. All courses will feature poa annua greens. The top 60 and ties will make the cut. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $800K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] STRATEGY An equal number of amateurs as professionals are teeing it up in Northern California this week, making for another tournament where golfers will be subject to six-hour rounds. The field will play three rounds before a cut is made on Saturday, with the final round taking place on the historic Pebble Beach Golf Links. While the three courses are similar in length and layout, some differences set them apart. Monterey Peninsula sports five par 3s and four par 5s as a par 71, with Spyglass and Pebble Beach carding a total of eight par 4s under 400 yards between the two of them. Weather plays a massive role in scoring, which is true of any coastal course. With nine holes set along Carmel Bay, the tournament’s difficulty can shift year to year or at a moment’s notice. In 2014, Pebble Beach played as the seventh-most difficult course in scoring thanks to extremely windy conditions, with the following year playing as the eighth easiest with virtually no wind at all. Consider golfers who perform well with their wedges, especially in proximity from 100 to 125 yards, and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green with Pebble Beach having some of the smallest greens on TOUR. Par-4 efficiency between 350 to 400 yards will also be important, with 11 measuring under 400 yards. Even though we only get shot tracker data from Pebble Beach, the priority metric to focus on every year at this tournament is Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green. A golfer’s current form will usually trump course experience, but when previous winners (dating back to 2010) have an average of 7.45 appearances before their victory, we should take notice. Also, focus on golfers who play well during the West Coast Swing. GOLFERS TO CONSIDER Maverick McNealy (+2500 to Win, $9,800 on DraftKings) A final round debacle kept him out of contention at the Famers Insurance Open, but McNealy still managed to leave with some positives on Saturday, finishing birdie-eagle. A runner-up finish here last season, two rounds of 67 last week and success on the West Coast should give McNealy a boost of confidence heading into an event at a course where he’s finished no worse than top five in his two previous starts. McNealy will be chalk, and if you’re looking to pivot in DFS, consider Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+5000, $8,700), who may be overlooked with no course experience. Most golfers don’t play well here on debut, but we’ve seen other golfers coming in with good form serve as the exception to that rule. Bezuidenhout has two top 20s in his previous five starts and ranks 13th in approach and 11th in proximity from 100 to 125 yards. His poa annua putting wasn’t great at Torrey Pines; hopefully, he’s able to learn from it and get the flatstick right this week. Lanto Griffin (+5500 to Win, $8,800 on DraftKings) Griffin plays well on the West Coast, as evidenced by his third-place finish at The American Express a couple of weeks ago. A seventh at the Sony Open in Hawaii in 2020 and another seventh at last year’s Farmers Insurance Open, and you quickly start to realize Griffin enjoys when the schedule hits this part of the country. No one is better on par 4s measuring 350 to 400 yards than Lanto, ranking first over the last dozen rounds, and he’s also hitting it pure, ranking 20th in approach and 26th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee over that same timeframe. The proverbial cherry on top of a “Lanto Sunday?” A top-10 finish here in 2020. Matt Kuchar (+6000 to Win, $7,600 on DraftKings) This week will be Kuchar’s 10th appearance and potentially his 10th career victory, a significant milestone. There’s a handful of tournaments where he has a legitimate opportunity to win, and this is one of them. Over the previous 50 rounds, only two golfers are better than him in Strokes Gained Tee-to-Green on par 72s less than 7,200 yards, and just three golfers are ahead of him in Strokes Gained: Putting on fast poa annua greens. Kuchar’s made five-straight cuts and just finished with a top seven at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $800K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game. Place your golf bets at DraftKings Sportsbook or by downloading the DraftKings Sportsbook app. All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests. The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for full terms and conditions.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – His father gave him the golf part. Cameron Smith would go out with dad, Des, on weekends at Wantima Golf Club, first beating the old man when he was 12. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Smith’s bag? How he came by the toughness part, though, is harder to pinpoint. “I think both sides of my family, my mum and my dad’s side,” Smith said after making 10 birdies and staving off disaster on 18 to shoot 66 and win THE PLAYERS Championship on Monday. “Both have – just both mentally strong. They’re working-class people who have had to work their whole life to live basically, and yeah, I guess that’s just kind of what I grew up in.” Which means? Sharon Smith, Cameron’s mother, smiled from under her beige broad brim hat. “My father rode bulls,” she said as she walked the soggy back nine at the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. “My mum made him choose, and he was smart. He picked her.” Strict constructionists will tell you it was Smith who grabbed this PLAYERS by the collar with five birdies in his first six holes and limited the damage of a wayward driver late on the back nine. But he brought a lot of people, those who came before him, along for the ride en route to his fifth PGA TOUR win. And it’s only when you get to know one of them, his maternal grandfather, that his seemingly preternatural toughness starts to make sense. Working class? John Hilliar, who will turn 83 next month, was the second-to-last of 13 kids growing up in Kempsey, New South Wales. The area is known for its national parks and farmland, and the Hilliar family made their living off the latter, milking cows and running cattle. “It was not a big house,” Sharon said. “They would fight for a bed after dinner.” Although Hilliar picked up golf recreationally, and Sharon expected her dad was almost certainly watching Smith from Brisbane on Monday, glued to the TV set, the sport that would make his grandson famous would have meant nothing to him then. The prospect of whether you used an interlocking or overlapping grip was immaterial next to whether you’d fixed the fence. “He has hard-working hands,” his daughter said. “They’ve done just about everything.” Sharon Smith stepped carefully around the soft areas on the course, careful to take the high ground. She said more than once that Cameron was a product of his father’s side, too. Cameron has settled in Ponte Vedra Beach, and he hadn’t seen Sharon or his little sister, Mel, in over two years. Late last month they made the long journey from Brisbane to Jacksonville. They were to meet him in baggage claim, but Cameron came as far toward the gate as security would allow. “Mel started crying first,” Sharon said. “Then I started crying.” And Cameron? “He had a bit of a giggle. He’s like me. He likes to keep things light.” It wasn’t until after Smith had salted away the tournament, the result becoming official only when Lahiri failed to birdie the 18th hole, that Smith blinked back tears, his voice breaking. “It’s just really nice to have them here,” he said. “It’s nice to give Mom a hug, and – yeah.” The three have been palling around, making up for lost time. Along with Smith’s agent, Bud Martin, they flew to Tampa last week to catch a hockey game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins. They sailed around on Smith’s boat, ordering takeout from a popular restaurant just up the Intracoastal. They ventured as far south as St. Augustine. Cameron gets a kick out of the stories about his grandfather, but his toughness is a product of more than that. Generations he never even knew. The ethos of being a Queenslander. Also, he’s not always so tough. It’s not an accident that his first two individual victories on TOUR, at the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Sentry Tournament Champions, both came in Hawaii, Sharon said. “He likes Hawaii because it’s closest to home,” she said. “It’s only 10 hours.” At the start of his TOUR career, Smith suffered from acute homesickness. He tried to base himself in Australia, then, upon moving to Northeast Florida, kept flying home. He finally had to accept that it was just too far, and set about making a life for himself here, leaning on friends like Aron Price, himself an Aussie touring professional before turning to real estate. But Smith held fast to his working-class roots. He’s so tough, in part, because it’s his connection to home. “I think it’s probably just never give up,” he said. “I grew up watching rugby league and watching the Queenslanders come from behind, and even when it got gritty they’d somehow manage to win. I think that’s kind of instilled in all of us.” Said his pal Price, “He thinks head-to-head he’s got the wood on everyone.” That could mean world No. 1 Jon Rahm, whom Smith held off with a record-breaking performance at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January. Or it could mean Justin Thomas, whom Smith beat in singles at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne. “He thinks back to a time when he beat them,” Price said. “His self-belief is everything. I play a lot of golf with him. Even if he’s playing s— he’ll birdie the last three holes and take all your money. I don’t know where he gets it. His dad? Queenslanders are tough.” Sharon and Mel Smith will head back home on Friday. They wiped away tears, indulged the TV cameras. Cameron held them close, along with his girlfriend, Shanel Naoum. Cameron was bear-hugged by his friend and right-hand man, Jack Wilkosz, who was in tears. They shared the moment with Jack’s mom, also named Sharon, and her fiancé, and Cameron’s agent. It was Tuesday morning in Brisbane, where, one might imagine, an old man with working hands pointed the remote and clicked off the TV. His golfing grandson, rawhide-tough, had fought hard and prevailed. Cameron Smith would sleep well Monday night, in a bed of his own.

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