If it weren’t for the small matters of an 8000-mile trip from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to San Francisco, the 18 hours or so that it takes to fly it, and the 11 time zones that are flown over in the process, it would be fairly straightforward to name a favorite in this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. That’s Dustin Johnson, recent no. 1 in the world ratings and winner of the inaugural Saudi International just a few days ago.

Then you think about the wear and tear on a guy’s body in doing that kind of travel, and consider that the field on the Monterey Peninsula will be about twice as tough as the one Johnson faced in the Middle East, you think about a bit of history, and you tend to start scanning the entries list .. oh yeah, Jason Day, Patrick Cantlay, Phil Mickelson, Tony Finau. And so forth.

Both Johnson and Day, the top two picks, have seen their Hawley Ratings number start to trend downward lately. Not that Johnson hasn’t been playing well. But he hasn’t played a full-field PGA Tour event since the PGA last August. He has five top-10s in 10 appearances since then but all were against smaller and/ or weaker fields, and that’s not

how to maintain a high-ranking number. Day’s been pretty good, too. He was fifth two weeks back in the Farmers and has been in the top 20 every time in six appearances going back to the Tour Championship in September.

Johnson led the U.S. Open by three at Pebble Beach in 2010 before blowing up into the 80s on the fourth day. But this: “I really like the golf course,” Johnson told scotsman.com. “I think I play it very well. I know it very well. I would definitely like to give it (winning the U.S. Open) another go this year and hopefully if I’m in that situation again, I can perform a little better.” The Tour will be back to Pebble Beach in June for the U.S. Open again this year.

Among those whose Hawley Ratings number has been trending up is Adam Scott, who has seen some of the best and some of the not-so-good on Tour over the last five years. He has been no. 1 in the ratings within that span and was as low as 37th within the last eight months. He had two top-10s as last season’s Tour wound down, another during the fall, and was second, missing by two strokes, in the Farmers in January. Also showing signs of former glory – but coming off a missed cut in Phoenix last week – is Lucas Glover, one-time U.S. Open champion. He was five-for-five on top-20 finishes on Tour this season before last week.

Among the lesser-knowns, Talor Gooch, Dominic Bozzelli and Nate Lashley are showing improved play. It’s been way up or way down for Gooch this season; he has two top-10s, a top-20, and three missed cuts. Last week was one of the latter. Bozzelli was fifth in the Farmers and has one other top-20 in the current season. He’s missed only two of seven cuts. Lashley has made the cut in all four appearances in current season with three top-20s.

The statistics most highly correlated with success in this multi-course (Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula, Spyglass Hill) event over the past eight years are greens in regulation and driving distance. Per the Hawley course fit statistics, tops in the field in the tightness of his statistical profile with those stats is Mickelson. The 48-year-old crowd favorite is around the top 10% in GIR and the top 3% in driving. Right behind him are Cantlay, Glover, Cameron Champ, and Finau.

Forty others are within one stroke of Mickelson in course fit, including luminaries such as Day and Matt Kuchar and lesser-knowns such as DJ Trahan and Wyndham Clark.