AT&T PEBBLE BEACH: The beautiful Monterey Peninsula gets its annual turn in the spotlight this week when the PGA Tour’s best and a whole host of celebrities and golfing dignitaries take to the region’s three most iconic courses for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

As usual, Pebble Beach will be the host venue, which means each player will see it once over the first three rounds before all the action moves there on Sunday. It’s a course that should be familiar to anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of championship golf, as it’s hosted five U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship in addition to numerous national amateur tournaments and, of course, this event on an annual basis. Measuring fewer than 7,000 yards and featuring generous fairways and small, knobby Poa annua greens, Pebble is not particularly demanding off the tee but requires precision with the short irons and, most years, the ability to play in the wind. The other two courses, Monterey Peninsula and Spyglass Hill, are both on the shorter side as well, though the tree-lined Spyglass has some trickiness to it and generally plays as the most difficult of the three.

The biggest challenge for most of the players is probably the format, as they’ll be paired with amateurs for the first three rounds and therefore will have to adjust to a slower pace of play and a more casual atmosphere. Some guys adapt well to that type of golf and others don’t, which is why we may want to place an even higher value on course/tournament history than usual this week.

Surprise 2016 champion Vaughn Taylor is back to defend and is once again sporting an outsider’s price (220.0), but his longshot win was a bit of an outlier for an event that has a track record of producing big-name winners, with guys like Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Jimmy Walker, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III, and Brandt Snedeker all taking home the trophy since 2000, some (Mickelson, Johnson, Snedeker) more than once. Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and Justin Rose currently sit atop BETDAQ’s Win Market, so if you’re looking for a blue blood there are certainly a few to choose from.

Here are my thoughts on this week’s action:

WIN MARKET

Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)

Jordan Spieth (10.0)- Spieth has yet to add this tournament to his growing lists of conquests, but he’s always played well here, finishing in the top-25 in all four of his appearances and logging a pair of top-10s, and he’s been in top form to kick off 2017, with back-to-back third-place finishes in Hawaii followed by a 9th-place showing in Phoenix last week. And lest you think it’s been too long since he’s tasted victory, might I remind you that he won the Australian Open in late November with a dramatic birdie on the first hole of a 3-man playoff, proving that he still has a knack for closing the deal. Precision iron play and great putting will be more important than length off the tee this week, which fits Spieth perfectly, and he’s always seemed to embrace the pro-am aspect of this event rather than ignoring it. The price is a little short, but in this instance I think Spieth is worth it.

Shane Lowry (48.0)- Though he’s flying under the radar this week after a quiet past few months, Lowry could be one to watch here and is a fair value at nearly 50/1. He’s only played this tournament twice but has made the cut both times and has never carded an over-par round, so he certainly knows his way around the courses, and his T21 in 2015 would have been even better had he not fallen down the leaderboard with a 71 in Sunday. He’s an expert wind player, a key attribute at the always-breezy Pebble Beach, and his affable personality is perfectly suited for the unconventional pro-am format. Most importantly, Lowry seems to be hitting it crisply to begin 2017, following up a T33 at Torrey Pines with an even more impressive performance last week, when he opened with 69-68-66 to put himself into contention before settling for a Sunday 71 and a 16th-place finish. His game is on the upswing, and if he can get a few putts to drop he could have a real chance here.

Jim Furyk (90.0)- The grizzled vet will be making his 2017 debut this week, and I guess folks don’t think he’s capable of rolling off the couch and winning a golf tournament at age 46. That’s the only way you can explain this price, and for my money that explanation simply isn’t good enough. Furyk has never won at Pebble but he has a tremendous record in this event, making 17 cuts in 19 career starts while piling up five top-10s and eight top-25s. He was up to his usual tricks in his last appearance (2015), finishing 7th after opening with a 64, and he was last seen finishing 6th in November’s RSM Classic, so we know his game was in good shape prior to the winter break. Furyk is as steady and dependable as they come, with steely nerves and a championship pedigree, and he wouldn’t be teeing it up this week if he didn’t think he could hit the ground running. He’s a steal at a price like 90.0.

TOURNAMENT MATCH BETS

Jason Day (1.8) vs. Justin Rose (2.0)

Rose has been hot in recent weeks, following a runner-up finish at the Sony Open with a T4 at the Farmers, but he had never played this event prior to last year, which means he either doesn’t like the courses or the format. There is simply no other explanation for why a guy of Rose’s stature, who has been around for as long as he has, would skip this tournament for so many years. When it comes to Day, meanwhile, there is less guesswork: with five top-15s in seven career appearances we know he likes it at Pebble, and I’m sure he’ll be looking to get his year kick-started after a disappointing end to 2016. This is your quintessential Course History vs. Current Form choice, and I’ll go with the course horse every time. Recommendation: Day at 1.8

Phil Mickelson (1.91) vs. Brandt Snedeker (1.91)

The man known as Lefty is a legend in these parts, winning this event four times and logging several other quality finishes. One of the “others” came last year, when he was runner-up, and a lot of people are expecting some more magic out of him this week after back-to-back solid performances at Torrey Pines and the Phoenix Open. I certainly wouldn’t put it past him, but I have an even better feeling about Snedeker’s prospects this week after watching him at the Farmers two weeks ago, when he stormed into contention with opening rounds of 68-69 and wound up finishing 9th. Snedeker is one of the best Poa annua putters in the world, making his performance at the Farmers not at all surprising, and he’s back on the Poa this week. And after winning this tournament twice in the past four years, I don’t think he’s lacking in confidence. Recommendation: Snedeker at 1.91