Rocket Mortgage: Niemann in Prime Position

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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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – For the last two days at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, you can’t miss a Norwegian. RELATED: Final leaderboard | The clubs Hovland used to win And that’s not, specifically, Viktor Hovland – although we’ll get to him soon – instead a throng of about 15 Norwegian fans who planned a trip around the event at Mayakoba in order to cheer on their countryman. Hovland gave the crew plenty to root for over the weekend at El Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course and on Sunday he won for the third time on TOUR. He set the 72-hole scoring record in the process and became the first every back-to-back champ of the event. The group, all members of the same golf club in Norway, make an annual trip to Mexico. Hovland said he had no idea who they are, but when he played at Mayakoba three years ago he did see them once before. Oslo, Norway, is about 5,200 miles from Playa Del Carmen, but for the last two days, anyway, Hovland felt the love. “The Norwegian people are very patriotic and it’s cool to see that I can get so much support even in Mexico, which is pretty far away from Norway. They were great,” said Hovland, the fifth consecutive international winner on the PGA TOUR. “They applauded good shots and obviously cheered a little bit extra when I made a putt. It was really nice. I want to thank them a lot.” The crew was in full voice Sunday to cheer on the 24-year-old, who overcame what seemed like the universe working against him this week to take this one across the finish line. He won by four over Carlos Ortiz, who put on a show for the Mexican faithful. This is Ortiz’s second runner-up result in three years at Mayakoba. Hovland’s week started with a broken driver, a product of Danny Lee doing some speed training exercise on the range Wednesday. He had to borrow James Hahn’s, which worked out just fine – he was T2 in Driving Accuracy for the week. Hovland had his best-career effort in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee last season, so he said it’s unlikely he’ll put the new driver specs into his bag full-time, but there’s no denying that something clicked this week. “I could see myself using maybe this setup at certain courses for sure,” said Hovland. Then Hovland opened his second round by hitting his approach no more than “four steps right of the pin.” But it landed on a sprinkler head and went into the trees. Lost ball. “When something like that happens, you just kind of go, ‘Oh, man, come on, like really, is that (going to) happen?” said Hovland. “I was able to get over that pretty quickly.” Hovland righted the ship on Saturday with a 9-under 62 (perhaps since nothing odd happened that day) and was untouchable Sunday. He became the first golfer to win the same event in back-to-back years since Brooks Koepka at the PGA Championship in 2018-19. Hovland put on as complete a performance as any through the early part of the 2021-22 PGA TOUR season – despite plenty of obstacles in his way – and is projected to move to fourth in the FedExCup standings. “I wouldn’t say the third round that I played is my best round ever. I didn’t like, tell myself, ‘Oh, man, I’m playing the best golf of my life,’ but it’s just kind of putting everything together into four rounds and making very few mistakes,” said Hovland. “I would say I’ve definitely had better ball-striking weeks, but to put a good ball-striking week with good short game and good putting is something that I haven’t done very often.” On Sunday Hovland was 3-under for his first nine holes, and despite to bogeys on the back nine, he came in with a 4-under 67 to close the door. “I was coming in with some high expectations, but obviously for it to end like this and win by four shots, it’s been a cool week,” said Hovland. “Couldn’t ask for it to go any different.” Justin Thomas, playing in the group ahead of Hovland and Talor Gooch, finished third at 18 under, while another Ryder Cupper, Scottie Scheffler, finished fourth. Scheffler, who played alongside Bryson DeChambeau and defeated Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood on Saturday at Whistling Straits, said Hovland’s game has been “proven” over the last couple of seasons. “He’s a great ball-striker and a really good putter as well and obviously a very talented guy,” said Scheffler. “I’m sure this won’t be the last time you’ll see him on top of the leaderboard.” And with every appearance on top of a PGA TOUR leaderboard, you can bet there will be even more fans from Norway cheering him on.

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Park Sung-hyun races to first-round Evian lead

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