It’s no secret that Dustin Johnson is playing better golf than anybody in the world. The Masters champion took the title at the Saudi International last week, and the World No. 1 will make the across-the-world journey to Pebble Beach to play in this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (which isn’t a pro-am this year, with the amateur portion canceled due to COVID-19). DJ is understandably the favorite according to oddsmakers—but the margin by which he’s the favorite has reached historic levels.
DJ is a 4-1 favorite (even lower at some books), and to put that in perspective, we asked Golf Digest contributor Rick Gehman, who tracks historical odds at his website RickRunGood.com, to see how long it’s been since we’ve had such a heavy favorite. According to his records, over the past three or four years, DJ is the biggest outright betting favorite in any full-field event. The next lowest odds: Jordan Spieth (4 ½-1 at the 2018 Sony Open) and DJ (4 ½ at the 2018 Genesis Invitational).
Speaking of Spieth, his game showed strong glimmers of his past self over the weekend at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, as he entered the final round tied for the lead before finishing in a tie for fourth. Oddsmakers have confidence in Spieth’s game (or they’re adjusting to the fact he’ll be a popular bet this week given Spieth’s history at Pebble), assigning him 25-1 odds of winning. Context is key: Last week, you could’ve bet Spieth at 150-1 odds, so that huge shift is extremely noteworthy. Spieth won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2017.
There are a few other noteworthy names at the top of the odds board: Patrick Cantlay sits at 10-1 odds after his runner-up finish at The American Express; Paul Casey, who won the Dubai Desert Classic a few weeks ago and finished runner-up at Pebble in 2019, sits at 20-1.
Here are the complete list of odds for the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (odds courtesy of DraftKings, as of Monday afternoon):
Padraig Harrington: 200-1
Kiradech Aphibarnrat: 275-1
Sebastian Cappelen: 300-1
Kristoffer Ventura: 300-1