Pebble Beach finally got a field worthy of its golf course, and that field delivered one of the better first rounds we have seen recently at the tournament it hosts. With a reduced group split between Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill, the leaderboard at the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am looked for most of the day like a Ryder Cup lineup of stars and superstars.
Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Ludvig Åberg and Justin Rose all dotted the top of the board at one point or another, but at the end of the first day of play, it was Patrick Cantlay who stood atop the heap.
Last year's most polarizing Ryder Cup figure, dropped an 8-under 64 at Spyglass before fellow European Thomas Detry clipped him at the end.
The leaders
1. Thomas Detry (-9)
2. Patrick Cantlay (-8)
For the second consecutive week, Cantlay was awesome in the first round. He shot 65 at Torrey Pines, following with a 64 at Pebble Beach that was sublime. He didn't make a single bogey and just punished the greens at Spyglass. While that course was playing about a stroke easier than Pebble Beach, the best anyone at Pebble could do was 7 under, so no matter how you look at it, Cantlay is sitting in a great spot going into Round 2.
The big question is what he has in store over the final three days. Winning, not great play, has been his problem. He doesn't have a victory since the end of 2022, and even though he's had nice performances at Pebble (two top fives in his last two starts), he doesn't have a win there, either.
With nearly everybody at the top of the Official World Golf Rankings in attendance this week, getting a victory in a monstrous field at this golf course would set Cantlay up for the type of year I believe he's bound to have in 2024. There's a long way to go this week at Pebble, but he's once again, set himself up nicely for the rest of the tournament.
Detry caught Cantlay late as one of the last groups on the course. He closed with four straight 3s and made six total 3s on his back nine at Spyglass Hill. He was solid last week with a T20 finish at Torrey, but he'll have more horses with whom he will contend this weekend at Pebble.
Other contenders
3. Matthieu Pavon (-7)
5. Emiliano Grillo, Si Woo Kim (-6)
T6. Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa (-5)
Last week's winner, Pavon, nearly rose to that top once again by opening with the best round of the day at Pebble Beach (Cantlay and Detry both played Spyglass).
All of them are being chased by Fowler, who also had a clean card and hit 14 of 18 greens in regulation. After playing Cypress Point twice (!) in the lead up to this tournament, he said he's been trying to lock in his ball-striking following a 56-MC start to the year at The Sentry and the American Express.
"Obviously trying to put some work in the last few weeks," he said. "Wasn't a great start to the year with Kapalua and in the desert. Ball-striking just hasn't been very good. So, I've been testing working on obviously ball-striking but getting the new driver in play with Cobra as well, which I'm very happy with right now. You could see I drove it halfway decent. A lot of good ball-striking stats going into today. So, that was one of the biggest things -- getting back to hitting the ball in the middle of the face with a square clubface -- and that was something that's been a bit of a struggle the last few weeks."
So far, it's working.
Rory's up-and-down day
Rory McIlroy led by two strokes at one point in his round before closing bogey-triple-bogey-par over the last four holes. The triple was originally a bogey after he hit his tee shot into the woods on the par-5 7th at Spyglass. However, he was later assessed a two-stroke penalty for a bad drop. What did he do? Well, he went straight back on his original line and dropped a club length to the right. That is fine under the old rule. Under the new rule, McIlroy's drop can roll up to a club length of the original line, but he cannot drop it a club length from that line. Normal stuff.
"I took an unplayable on 7 and I took it back on line," said McIlroy. "Then unbeknownst to me the rule changed in January 2023 where you used to be able to come back online, take a club length either side. That was changed in 2019 to be able to do that. I wasn't aware that that rule was changed again in 2023, so I took a drop thinking of the 2019 rules when everything was sort of changed not knowing that the rule was changed again in 2023, so got a two-stroke penalty there."
Dunlap's debut
It wasn't pretty. After winning the American Express two weeks ago as an amateur, newly minted PGA Tour member Nick Dunlap opened with a 76 at Pebble Beach and sits tied for last place after the first day. The good news for him? It's still the first day, and he makes money (unlike what happened at the American Express) no matter how he plays at this no-cut tournament.
2024 Pebble Beach Pro Am updated odds and picks
Odds via SportsLine consensus
- Patrick Cantlay: 3-1
- Thomas Detry: 10-1
- Collin Morikawa: 11-1
- Scottie Scheffler: 12-1
- Matthieu Pavon: 16-1
- Justin Thomas: 16-1
- VIktor Hovland: 18-1
I love Thomas and Scheffler here. J.T. is lurking inside the top 10 after shooting a 4-under 68 in the first round, and Scheffler is 3 under, just one spot back of him. While I like Cantlay's chances of winning in general, I don't like him at 3-1, especially coming off his move from being the favorite after the first round last week to a T56 finish by the end of the week. I'm also intrigued by McIlroy at 30-1.
