Smith leads RBC Heritage after career-low 62

As we narrow our focus down from the full tournament view to the opening round, we find the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am brings with it a level of opportunity that other championships usually don't have. The three-course rotation used at Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula can certainly make picking a 72-hole winner tougher than other weeks based purely on variables like what weather hits what course on any of the opening three rounds. But, with three courses brings three chances, each with less players than normal, to dive into the first-round leader categories. At BetMGM, like most sportsbooks, the first-round leader market is separated by course. And interestingly, BetMGM also pays ties in full, meaning if it's one, or six, or any number of players on top after the opening round, all will pay out at full odds, rather than a split. Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill are par 72s, with Monterey Peninsula a par 71. Last year, Pebble's scoring average was 70.756 over the tournament; Spyglass Hill was 72.179, with Monterey at 70.104. Traditionally Monterey has played the easiest and Spyglass the hardest, but this is all somewhat moot as we target just the opening round. First, let's take a look at the latest weather update from PGA TOUR meteorologist Joe Halvorson. "A few spotty patches of fog may develop offshore or over portions of Monterey Bay Thursday morning but are unlikely to impact visibility across the Monterey Peninsula. Southerly winds will become sustained at 9-18 mph with gusts of 20-25 mph range Thursday afternoon - strongest across the exposed holes of Pebble Beach Golf Links after 2pm. An isolated area of drizzle may occur Thursday afternoon, with a few showers becoming possible Thursday evening before increasing to a scattered coverage overnight into Friday morning." In other words, the later the day goes, the likelihood of tougher conditions increases. As such, the lean should be towards earlier tee times, rather than later, and in the case of Pebble Beach, those finishing on the coastal holes of the front nine could be in for a rough time. Let's start our search there. PEBBLE BEACH Defending champion Tom Hoge and former U.S. Open winner Justin Rose headline those players beginning their tournament at the picturesque Pebble Beach Golf Links. Hoge is the +900 favorite to be first-round leader at this course, with Rose next in line at +1200. Given Hoge starts on the first hole in just the second group of the day and led the entire field last year with a first-round, bogey-free 9-under 63 at Pebble Beach, he deserves favoritism. He ranks 17th on TOUR this season in first-round scoring average (68.0). But there are a few names who rank higher than Hoge in opening rounds on TOUR so far this season that might be worth noting. Greyson Sigg (67.13) is fourth on TOUR and will actually go off in the first group of the morning at 8:30 a.m. albeit off the 10th tee. Sean O'Hair (67.33) ranks sixth on TOUR in round-one scoring and he follows Hoge out off the first at 8:52 a.m. local time. Denny McCarthy (67.44) and Will Gordon (67.70) also rank above Hoge in first-round scoring at eighth and 12th respectively. McCarthy starts his round at 9:25 a.m. local off the 10th tee while Gordon is a later starter off the first at 10:20 a.m. McCarthy is third on the betting lines at +1400 to lead at Pebble in the opening round with Gordon at +2200. Sigg is +2500 to be the low score on the course, with O'Hair +5000. SPYGLASS HILL Over at Spyglass Hill, traditionally the hardest of the three courses, are drawcards Matt Fitzpatrick, Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland. Spieth and Fitzpatrick are +1000 to lead at Spyglass, with Hovland +1200. Spieth is coming off the Sony Open in Hawaii where he was the first-round leader for those bettors who jumped on (only to miss the cut the following day). He currently ranks 42nd on TOUR in opening rounds (68.67). In his 10 rounds at Spyglass Hill, he averages 68.7 with a low of 65 in 2017 when he won the tournament and a high of 72 the year after. Fitzpatrick ranks 17th on TOUR with a 68.0 scoring average in the opening round. In his three previous rounds at Spyglass Hill his scoring average is 71.67; however, it's 69.5 over his last two rounds. Hovland has proven adept to low starts, ranking second on TOUR at 67.0 scoring average. His season low is a 65 at the World Wide Technology Championship. In his only round at Spyglass Hill previously, the former U.S. Amateur winner at Pebble Beach shot a 70. A player not to sleep on here is Seamus Power who was the opening-round leader at Spyglass Hill a year ago with a sublime bogey-free 8-under 64. Power is +1600 to repeat the process this season and he ranks 10th on TOUR this season in first-round scoring average (67.57). Power is paired with Thomas Detry, ranked seventh in first-round scoring (67.43) but the pair start later than most at 10:31 a.m. off the 10th tee. Detry is +2200. Former runner-up Maverick McNealy might appear an option (+1600) given his early 8:52 a.m. tee time off the 10th. He ranks 13th on TOUR in opening rounds (67.75) but caution - in his four rounds at Spyglass Hill prior he averages 71.75. MONTEREY PENINSULA Interestingly, despite Monterey usually being one of the easier tracks most years, last season the low opening-round score was a 7-under 64 from Jonas Blixt. The favorite this season with BetMGM is Andrew Putnam at +1400. He ranks 46th on TOUR in opening rounds (68.7) and opened with a 65 on Monterey a year ago. His other three rounds on the course in the past were 66-70-66. Another to keep an eye on is S.H. Kim, ranked 28th on TOUR in opening rounds at 68.36. Twice this season he's opened with rounds of 65 and sits at +2000. Responsible sports betting starts with a game plan. Set a budget. Keep it social. Play with friends. Learn the game and know the odds. Play with trusted, licensed operators. CLICK HERE to learn more at HaveAGamePlan.org

LA QUINTA, Calif. — Rookie Davis Thompson made three more eagles Friday for a total of five through 36 holes to tie the PGA TOUR record for the most in a 72-hole tournament since 1983, and he still didn’t put any more distance between himself and Jon Rahm at The American Express. Thompson also carded his first bogeys of the tournament, which were hardly enough to slow him down. One day after making consecutive eagles in shooting 10-under 62 at La Quinta to take the first-round lead, Thompson carded an 8-under 64 on the Nicklaus Tournament Course at PGA West. He had three eagles, four birdies and two bogeys. The 23-year-old who played college golf at Georgia was at 18-under 126, two strokes ahead of Rahm, who also shot 64 on the Nicklaus course. “I just had some good numbers into par-5s and was able to execute my shots,” Thompson said. “I had some putts drop. So it was nice to make some eagles.” Actually, it’s his entire game that’s going well in the Southern California desert. “I think putting the ball in the fairway, hitting a lot of greens and really seeing lines well on my putts,” Thompson said. “Just everything is kind of clicking these last two days and I’m just looking forward to trying to keep it rolling tomorrow.” Thompson will play the Stadium Course on Saturday, which will host the final round on Sunday after the 54-hole cut in this pro-am event, which uses three courses. Thompson is the second player to have five eagles through two rounds at The American Express. He matched the record set in 1995 by Scott McCarron, who missed the 72-hole cut when it was a five-round tournament. Thompson, who began his round wearing a hoodie in the early-morning chill, eagled his second hole, the par-5 11th, when he hit a 5-iron to about 15 feet. He then had two bogeys in four holes spanning the turn to briefly lose his lead, but then ran off a string of three birdies and two eagles in a span of five holes to go from 1-under to 8-under for his round. He eagled the par-5 fourth and the par-5 seventh — hitting the green with a mid-iron and draining a putt from roughly 20 feet each time — before finishing his round with consecutive pars. The other players to make five eagles in a four-round tournament since 1983 were Justin Rose in the 2022 RBC Canadian Open, Dustin Johnson in the 2020 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Championship, Austin Cook in the 2019 Barbasol Championship, Keegan Bradley and Brandt Snedeker in the 2018 RBC Canadian Open, and Davis Love III in the 1994 Sony Open in Hawaii. Only Johnson won. Rahm, the world’s fourth-ranked player who won two weeks ago at Kapalua, matched his score from a day earlier at La Quinta. “Feeling great. Lot of confidence,” Rahm said. “Having essentially the hardest course two days in a row, but I’m in a really good position. So hopefully I can keep the good game going.” Five players were five shots back of Thompson, including 20-year-old Tom Kim, who had the low round of the day, a 10-under 62 on the Nicklaus Course, and Jason Day, who shot 64 on the Stadium Course. The others were J.T. Poston, Sungjae Im and Tyler Duncan. The field includes five of the top seven players in the world and 10 of the top 20. Second-ranked Scottie Scheffler and sixth-ranked Xander Schauffele were in a group of five at 11 under that also included Rose. No. 5 Patrick Cantlay was in a group of seven at 10 under while No. 7 Will Zalatoris was at 6 under.