Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler will headline a star-studded 2025 Pebble Beach Pro-Am field as the new golf season ramps up with the first of the PGA Tour’s signature events.
The competition is a unique event which sees golf’s top names paired with famous faces from outside the sport. The stars, alongside their professional partners, will play a round each at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill before the pros battle it out over the weekend for a share of the $20m purse on offer.
Ahead of the four days of action, the Racing Post’s golf tipster Steve Palmer offered his best bets on the latest episode of the Sweet Spot.
The real ‘JT’
Among the famous faces confirmed to be competing in the event is pop superstar Justin Timberlake, however, Palmer’s first pick is another ‘JT’ in the form of the 15-time PGA Tour winner Justin Thomas.
Currently at 14/1, Palmer believes that Thomas’ superior short-game skills will be key on a tricky course like Pebble Beach that features small greens and tough approach shots.
“The course is all about precision and putting is less important than usual because the [greens] are so small. Scrambling and chipping is more important than usual for the season reason and Thomas has always been one of the best in the business on approach, he’s got a magic touch around the greens,” explained Palmer.
After some well-documented struggles in the last two years, Thomas finally appears to be nearing his best again, recording a second-place finish in his last outing at The American Express. He also finished sixth last year at this event.
Meanwhile, Palmer’s second pick to win the tournament, Maverick McNealey (50/1) is a player who grew up playing Pebble Beach and has “always been comfortable on the terrain”.
The California Native, who turned professional in 2017, is enjoying the best run of his career, currently ranking at a career-high 26th after breaking through in November with his first PGA Tour win at the RSM Classic.
In previous editions of the tournament, McNealy recorded a fifth-place finish while ranked 349th in the world and was runner-up in 2021 while ranked a lowly 189th on the Official World Gold Rankings.
For those wanting to take more of a punt at an outsider, Palmer also offered up former Pebble Beach Pro-Am winner Tom Hoge at 70/1 and Akshay Bhatia and JT Poston, both at 80/1, as his other top picks.
McIlroy and Scheffler return to action
This week also marks the return to action on the PGA Tour of both world number one Scottie Scheffler and world number three Rory McIlroy.
Scheffler has been sidelined since December with a bizarre hand injury he sustained while preparing pasta on Christmas day while McIlroy’s only outing in 2025 was at the DP World Tour’s Dubai Desert Classic where he finished fourth.
Despite being top two in the odds market Palmer warned that there is “no value” this week for punters backing either man.
On McIlroy, he said: “The best club in Rory’s bag has always been his driver and this is not a course where you need to take driver off a lot of holes. [He] can’t press home his advantage on these golf courses like on others.”
