Rickie Fowler, the current “best player without a major”, has started a buzz going with an opening round 66 in the 119th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
The former OSU Cowboy shared the first-round lead with SoCal’s Xander Schauffele, 2010 Open Championship winner Louis Oosthuizen and Aaron Wise, a PGA Tour rookie this year, at least until Englishman Justin Rose did them all one better, pouring in a 10-foot birdie putt on 18 to finish with a 6-under 65.
Fowler, a popular player with the fans and his fellow PGA Tour players alike, is perceived as something of an underperformer. Coming out on tour in 2009 after a strong amateur and college golf career, he didn’t win a PGA Tour event until 2012, when he defeated Rory McIlroy and D.A. Points in a playoff. Fowler has won four more times on tour since the win at the Wells Fargo, for a total of five professional victories.
In 2018 he carded Top 5 finishes in all four majors, adding fuel to the fire for his “Best Player Without A Major” title.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Pebble is special—in more ways than one
Pebble Beach Golf Links occupies a special place in the world of golf, a position that is based on the physical beauty of its location, the design of the course, and its historical significance in the game.
History
Nothing accords a golf course a special position in the annals of the game like the USGA choosing it as the site for their premier championships—the United States Open and the U.S. Amateur. Pebble Beach Golf Links has hosted the Open six times now, which puts it behind only two other golf courses, both venerable East Coast layouts: Oakmont Country Club, in Pennsylvania (9); and Baltusrol, in New Jersey (7).
Pebble holds the distinction of being the first public golf course (that is, open to play by the public) to host the U. S. Open, in 1972, when the course rewarded the USGA’s decision by producing a truly worthy winner—Jack Nicklaus—and an historic moment—Jack’s laser-beam 1-iron at the par-three 17th hole, a shot that rattled the stick for a kick-in birdie.
Ten years later Pebble’s second U.S. Open put up another worthy winner, Tom Watson, who finally racked up a win in the national championship after two Masters wins (1977, 1981) and three British Opens (1975, 1977, 1980); and another historic moment at the 17th hole—a chip-in birdie from lush Open rough next to the green, the shot that set up his victory over Jack Nicklaus—a shot so revered that it has been commemorated with a plaque.
In addition to the U.S. Open, the course has played host to the U.S. Amateur five times (1929, 1947, 1961, 1999, 2018), second only to six-time hosts Merion Golf Club and The Country Club (well known as the site of amateur Francis Ouimet’s thrilling 1913 U.S. Open victory over Harold Vardon and Ted Ray.)
The event that really put Pebble on the map was Bing Crosby’s “Clambake” pro-am. Originally played at San Diego’s Rancho Santa Fe Golf Course beginning in 1937, the event was halted in 1942 by the onset of American involvement in World War II. When the event resumed in 1947 it was relocated to the Monterey Peninsula, playing on a trio of golf courses centered on Pebble Beach.
Showcasing the beauty of the Monterey Peninsula, with a star-studded list of Hollywood A-listers (Phil Harris, James Garner, and Jack Lemmon, to name a few) on the amateur roster, the Clambake was a PR bonanza for the region which continues to this day, in its current incarnation as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Design
Challenging despite its relative lack of length—7,075 yards as set up for the Open; 6,958 for the AT&T Pro-Am—Pebble Beach makes up for its lack of yardage in other ways. While it has its detractors (mostly those course architecture buffs who revere the provision of options off the tee), Pebble presents its challenge to golfers largely in its second and third shots, and putting.
Sloping fairways and uneven lies put a premium on second-shot performance at Pebble. For example: holes 9 and 10 slope significantly to the right, in the direction of the “Cliffs of Doom” overlooking Carmel Beach; at the 6th hole you’re faced with a looming three-story-high cliff face that separates you from the putting green.
The greens at Pebble demand approach-shot accuracy of the highest order. At an average area of 3,500 square feet they are the smallest on the PGA Tour, with an average depth of 26 paces, so precision shooting from the fairway (hopefully) is paramount.
Precision second shots and fearless putting are the key to success at Pebble Beach; it’s a shotmaker’s course that asks a lot of a player.
Beauty
For the casual golf fan, or folks who aren’t golf fans, in particular, but who show up or tune in during the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am to see their favorite celebrities tee it up, Pebble Beach is special for its location.
Whether or not Robert Louis Stevenson ever called Carmel Bay “…the most felicitous meeting of land and sea in creation…” (hint: he didn’t), it is a famously beautiful setting—blue Pacific waters lapping up against the rugged, rocky California coastline, all backdropped by the green and gold oak-bedecked hills of the Santa Lucia Range rising up behind.
The rocky cliffs that edge much of the golf course give way, going south, to the broad sandy crescent of Carmel Beach, and further south yet, past the village of Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel River Beach, to the rocky fastness of Point Lobos State Preserve (which Australian painter Francis McComas did call the “greatest meeting of land and water in the world”), visible from the southern reaches of the golf course.
The television coverage during the AT&T is rife with beauty shots of the scenery and the local marine wildlife—seals and sea lions, whales, dolphins, orcas and the occasional squadron of pelicans flying above the blue waters in echelon-right formation—and the ubiquitous “dogs frolicking in the surf on Carmel Beach” shots.
These images are a large part of the reason that the television coverage of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is so popular: while viewers in much of the country are shivering in sub-zero temperatures and/or digging out from the latest snowstorm, the Central California coast is, more often than not, enjoying sunshine and pleasant temperatures. (And when “Crosby weather” kicks in, with wind and rain and TV shots of umbrellas being flipped inside-out, the East Coast and Midwest audiences can gloat, just a little, at those Californians getting a taste of nasty weather.)
This combination of factors: the quality of the golf course, the almost overwhelming beauty of its location, and the history of the events associated with the venue give Pebble Beach Golf Links a unique position in the game of golf.
History
Nothing accords a golf course a special position in the annals of the game like the USGA choosing it as the site for their premier championships—the United States Open and the U.S. Amateur. Pebble Beach Golf Links has hosted the Open six times now, which puts it behind only two other golf courses, both venerable East Coast layouts: Oakmont Country Club, in Pennsylvania (9); and Baltusrol, in New Jersey (7).
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| This plaque, in the rough on the left side of the 17th green at Pebble Beach Golf Links, commemorates Tom Watson’s historic chip shot in the final round of the 82nd U.S. Open. |
Pebble holds the distinction of being the first public golf course (that is, open to play by the public) to host the U. S. Open, in 1972, when the course rewarded the USGA’s decision by producing a truly worthy winner—Jack Nicklaus—and an historic moment—Jack’s laser-beam 1-iron at the par-three 17th hole, a shot that rattled the stick for a kick-in birdie.
Ten years later Pebble’s second U.S. Open put up another worthy winner, Tom Watson, who finally racked up a win in the national championship after two Masters wins (1977, 1981) and three British Opens (1975, 1977, 1980); and another historic moment at the 17th hole—a chip-in birdie from lush Open rough next to the green, the shot that set up his victory over Jack Nicklaus—a shot so revered that it has been commemorated with a plaque.
In addition to the U.S. Open, the course has played host to the U.S. Amateur five times (1929, 1947, 1961, 1999, 2018), second only to six-time hosts Merion Golf Club and The Country Club (well known as the site of amateur Francis Ouimet’s thrilling 1913 U.S. Open victory over Harold Vardon and Ted Ray.)
The event that really put Pebble on the map was Bing Crosby’s “Clambake” pro-am. Originally played at San Diego’s Rancho Santa Fe Golf Course beginning in 1937, the event was halted in 1942 by the onset of American involvement in World War II. When the event resumed in 1947 it was relocated to the Monterey Peninsula, playing on a trio of golf courses centered on Pebble Beach.
Showcasing the beauty of the Monterey Peninsula, with a star-studded list of Hollywood A-listers (Phil Harris, James Garner, and Jack Lemmon, to name a few) on the amateur roster, the Clambake was a PR bonanza for the region which continues to this day, in its current incarnation as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Design
Challenging despite its relative lack of length—7,075 yards as set up for the Open; 6,958 for the AT&T Pro-Am—Pebble Beach makes up for its lack of yardage in other ways. While it has its detractors (mostly those course architecture buffs who revere the provision of options off the tee), Pebble presents its challenge to golfers largely in its second and third shots, and putting.
Sloping fairways and uneven lies put a premium on second-shot performance at Pebble. For example: holes 9 and 10 slope significantly to the right, in the direction of the “Cliffs of Doom” overlooking Carmel Beach; at the 6th hole you’re faced with a looming three-story-high cliff face that separates you from the putting green.
The greens at Pebble demand approach-shot accuracy of the highest order. At an average area of 3,500 square feet they are the smallest on the PGA Tour, with an average depth of 26 paces, so precision shooting from the fairway (hopefully) is paramount.
Precision second shots and fearless putting are the key to success at Pebble Beach; it’s a shotmaker’s course that asks a lot of a player.
Beauty
For the casual golf fan, or folks who aren’t golf fans, in particular, but who show up or tune in during the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am to see their favorite celebrities tee it up, Pebble Beach is special for its location.
Whether or not Robert Louis Stevenson ever called Carmel Bay “…the most felicitous meeting of land and sea in creation…” (hint: he didn’t), it is a famously beautiful setting—blue Pacific waters lapping up against the rugged, rocky California coastline, all backdropped by the green and gold oak-bedecked hills of the Santa Lucia Range rising up behind.
The rocky cliffs that edge much of the golf course give way, going south, to the broad sandy crescent of Carmel Beach, and further south yet, past the village of Carmel-by-the-Sea and Carmel River Beach, to the rocky fastness of Point Lobos State Preserve (which Australian painter Francis McComas did call the “greatest meeting of land and water in the world”), visible from the southern reaches of the golf course.
The television coverage during the AT&T is rife with beauty shots of the scenery and the local marine wildlife—seals and sea lions, whales, dolphins, orcas and the occasional squadron of pelicans flying above the blue waters in echelon-right formation—and the ubiquitous “dogs frolicking in the surf on Carmel Beach” shots.
These images are a large part of the reason that the television coverage of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is so popular: while viewers in much of the country are shivering in sub-zero temperatures and/or digging out from the latest snowstorm, the Central California coast is, more often than not, enjoying sunshine and pleasant temperatures. (And when “Crosby weather” kicks in, with wind and rain and TV shots of umbrellas being flipped inside-out, the East Coast and Midwest audiences can gloat, just a little, at those Californians getting a taste of nasty weather.)
This combination of factors: the quality of the golf course, the almost overwhelming beauty of its location, and the history of the events associated with the venue give Pebble Beach Golf Links a unique position in the game of golf.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Before it gets real—Wednesday at the 119th U.S. Open
After record high temps, “June Gloom” returns to Pebble Beach
After several days of scorching temperatures in the Bay Area, including record high temperatures recorded at nearby Monterey, Wednesday at the 119th U.S Open, at Pebble Beach Golf Links, brought the cooling “June Gloom” fog. | |
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Like the AT&T Pro-Am, but “more”
If you are familiar with getting around Pebble Beach during the AT&T Pro-Am, you will have to re-learn some things when you come to the Open here. There are more, and different, walking routes—for example, you get to see the left side of the first and second holes, which is no-man’s land during the AT&T; and the walk past #3 tee to #16 and the holes beyond is simplified by the lack of vehicular traffic on the entrance road.There are more concession stands; more grandstands; more marshalls, security, and infrastructure.
More over-tanned guys in the latest golf apparel opining to their buddies about the quality of the golf holes here at Pebble Beach.
More unwilling (and less-willing) girlfriends/wives being dragged around the course by their golfing boyfriends/husbands, wearing more inappropriate footwear (those chunky wedges are going to be a problem, ma’am…) and complaining that there are no celebrities to watch, just golfers.
More families of footsore-but-happy children and frazzled moms taking dad out for a Father’s Day treat.
More event merch being worn by fans on the course (especially when the weather turns from sunny and 85 to cloudy and 61 from Tuesday to Wednesday.)
Tomorrow it gets real
For all the pre-event chatter in the golf media about Brooks and Tiger and Dustin and Jordan and their chances of winning, or whether or not the USGA course setup folks will “lose” the course if the weather stays or turns hot, if the Wednesday practice-day crowds are any indication, this Open will be a huge success—at least from a fan’s point of view.People were taking the day off of work, in the middle of the week, to come to what is arguably the most beautiful, and undoubtedly the best-known, golf course in the United States to watch the best players in the game play practice rounds. That’s some golf love.
Today was a tuneup—tomorrow it gets real.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Golf Hall of Fame Class of 2019 Inducted in Carmel
Changes in the schedule and timing of the induction ceremony for the World Golf Hall of Fame in recent years has seen the ceremony moved away from the Hall’s facility in St. Augustine, Florida to be held at other notable venues in the world of golf.
This year, as the U.S. Open returned to Pebble Beach Golf Links for the sixth time, the Hall of Fame welcomed an auditorium full of golf’s luminaries to the Sunset Center, in nearby Carmel. Thirty-four Hall of Famers were in the audience on the Monday evening before the 119th U.S. Open—more than have ever been gathered in one room at the same time.
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| The 2019 Class of the World Golf Hall of Fame (clockwise from top right: Retief Goosen, Dennis Walters, Jan Stephenson, Billy Payne, and Peggy Kirk Bell) |
Five new members were inducted into the Hall on Monday evening: two for their playing records—Retief Goosen and Jan Stephenson, and three in the Lifetime Achievement category—club pro, trick-shot artist, and disabled golf advocate, Dennis Walters; talented amateur golfer and early LPGA member Peggy Kirk Bell; and former Augusta National Golf Club chairman Billy Payne.
Dennis Walters, who was a 24-year-old assistant club pro when he was paralyzed from the waist down as the result of a golf-cart accident in 1974, has been supporting the growth of the game of golf for over 40 years through trick-shot performances and playing clinics. Walters is one of 11 honorary lifetime members of the PGA of America, was awarded the Ben Hogan Award for courage in 1978, and the 2018 recipient of the USGA’s Bob Jones Award.
Walters has done over 3,000 performance and traveled three million miles since he started doing playing clinics and trick shot shows.
Jan Stephenson has won golf tournaments on five continents – over 20 in all, and has transitioned from a champion golfer into a champion supporter of golf-related charities.
Stephenson earned LPGA Rookie of the Year honors in 1974, and went on to win 16 tournaments on the LPGA Tour, including three major championships—the 1981 du Maurier, 1982 LPGA Championship, and the 1983 U.S. Women’s Open. She became the face of the LPGA Tour in the 1977 when she was featured in an ad campaign, the brainchild of then-LPGA Commissioner Ray Volpe. The use of a somewhat racy outtake photo on the cover of Sport magazine vaulted her into the spotlight, promulgating an image which has followed her throughout her career.
Stephenson was a founder of the Women’s Senior Golf Tour, now the Legends Tour.
Peggy Kirk Bell was an outstanding amateur star, a charter member of the LPGA, and a member of the winning 1950 United States Curtis Cup team. She was a lifetime teacher who lived to spread the word about the game of golf, which she did with relish at her resort, Pine Needles Lodge, in North Carolina. An enthusiastic aviator, Bell once organized a tournament at Pine Needles which required players to hold a valid pilot’s license.
Retief Goosen is a two-time U.S. Open champion, in 2001 and 2004; Euro Tour Order of Merit winner in 2001 and 2002; and played on six consecutive President’s Cup teams, from 2000 to 2011.
Goosen survived being struck by lightning on the golf course as a 15-year-old, yet continued in the game. Transitioning from an amateur career in South Africa, he moved on to the Sunshine Tour, the Asian Tour, and the European Tour, where he eventually racked up 14 wins, before moving on to the PGA Tour. His seven wins on the PGA Tour include two U.S. Opens; the 2001 U.S. Open was his first PGA Tour victory.
Billy Payne was the chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club for 11 years, from 2006 to 2017. He was the driving force behind the effort to bring the 1996 Summer Olympic Games to Atlanta, Georgia. During his tenure, many changes were implemented at ANGC, including the induction of the club’s first two female members—former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Atlanta-based financier and business executive, Darla Moore—and the nationwide Drive, Chip, and Putt competition for children aged seven to 15.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
A 24-handicap’s day at Pebble Beach – in U.S. Open nick
One of the great things about being a golf writer is the perks that come your way, and among those perks is the occasional round of golf at a great golf course. Such was the case 2-1/2 weeks before the 2019 U.S. Open, when I attended the USGA’s May 22nd preview day for that event, at Pebble Beach.
I have played Pebble Beach once before, in support of an article I was hired to write for the 2015 edition of the Monterey County Guidebook. I played with three complete strangers, and had a great day—highlighted by a par on #9, the toughest par-4 on the course.
For the preview day we lucky, lucky media folks played a shotgun start; my group teed off on the 10th hole. It was interesting to tee off on 10 – it gave me some perspective into what players experience when they go off of split tees in tournaments at Pebble. It’s a long trip out there, but if you can’t start on #1, starting on #10 is the next best thing.
True to form, my first tee shot of the day caught a little too much of that fairway slope, and rambled off the Cliffs of Doom to a new home on Carmel Beach. Careful to drop according to the dictates of the latest updates to the Rules of Golf, I promptly put the next bright yellow Titleist into sand of a different sort—the left-hand bunker of the tenth green. (This was to become a recurring theme.) I got out of the bunker okay (thank you, Cleveland RTX-4 sand wedge), and two-putted for a net bogey.
After wasting the two shots my handicap gives me on the 11th hole on a pushed-drive/lost ball off the tee, turning what might have been a net eagle into a net par, I found sand again on #12, planting my tee shot in the yawning front bunker. On the 13th hole I took a circuitous route through the lush, Open-level rough on the right side of the fairway to the bunker in front of the new back-right lobe of the green. Four holes into the round and I had already been in so much sand that I expected to see Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole galloping down the cart path.
My early sacrifice of a brand-new Titleist on the 10th hole must have bought me some credit with the golf gods, however, because I managed to avoid the bunkers on the 14th hole. This loooong par-5, the #1 handicap hole on the course, must have the most lopsided ratio of length to green size of any hole in golf, even after the recent rebuild, which added 800-odd square feet to the putting surface. I discovered just how tricky a hole location on the right-side addition to the green can be, though, when an otherwise good-looking approach shot that flirted with the ski-slope front of the green rolled back to me like an obedient puppy coming to heel, sinking my chances for a one-putt net par.
On #15 I avoided Arnold Palmer’s nasty left-side bunker complex by driving into the rough on the right. On #16, I nailed a line drive off the tee that left me center-cut with 130 yards to the middle of the green, but pulled my second shot into no-man’s land to the left of the green from the resulting downhill lie.
Then came #17 – the well-known par-three with the hour-glass green that would make a corseted fin de seicle beauty envious – where I pushed a hybrid into the grandstands-to-be, found the ball, took relief, made my bogey/net par and moved on to the world-famous 18th hole.
I managed to avoid the newly grown-in rough that now crowds in from the right with a straight, but abbreviated drive (thanks to the stiff breeze that had come up) in the fairway, then went right rough, manhole cover (w/tree trouble – see photo), bunker, out, two putts – double-bogey (net par).
In the interest of brevity, here are some highlights of the front nine:
#1: Right rough, tree trouble, more rough – net par.
#2: Left rough, layup short of the tank-trap bunker, right bunker, nice out, two putts – net birdie.
#3: High draw off the tee – which is the shot you want to hit here, it’s just better if it makes it all the way to the fairway. Mine didn’t.
#4: I honestly don’t remember what I did on this hole, but my score card shows a bogey/net par.
#5: Stubbed my tee shot, resulting in an unintentional layup – on the second-shortest par-three on the course… bogey/net par.
That brings us to Number Six, the monster par-five on Arrowhead Point. Not as long as the fourteenth, nor as famously scenic as the eighteenth, the sixth hole at Pebble Beach is, nevertheless, a beast, an absolute beast. The wide(ish) fairway is bordered by bunkers on the left and a miniature version of the Cliffs of Doom on the right. Keep your tee shot in the green stuff and you’re standing over a slight downhill lie, looking up at a six-story-high green cliff which you have to fly to get to the second fairway, or if you’ve got the oomph, the green. This with no aiming point on the blank horizon that cuts the California sky above you.
The first time I played the sixth hole, four years ago, I pushed my tee ball to the right, over the cliff, took a drop– and lost my next shot left, somewhere in the vicinity of the upper tee box on the eighth hole, leading me to put an “X” on my scorecard and tend the flag for my playing companions.
This time around on #6 I laid a pretty decent drive into the left fringe, short of the bunker complex. Taking 3-wood based on the yardage to the flag, I pushed a low stinger – not the shot I was trying for, by the way – into the cliff face to the right of the green stuff, reloaded, foolishly tried again with 3-wood and stuffed that shot into the looming green wall that separates the lower fairway from the green complex, thus cementing my place in the textbooks under “How Not to Play the Sixth Hole at Pebble Beach”.
I subsequently popped my ball out of the rough and up the cliff face with an iron of some kind—and into one of the left-hand bunkers. On the green lying six, I missed my putt for a snowman, picked up and took my ESC-mandated eight.
All-time score: Pebble’s 6th hole – 2, Me – 0.
Four years ago when I played #7, the picturesque par-3 contender for “World’s Most Photographed Golf Hole” that inhabits the schwerpunkt of Arrowhead Point, I overcooked a GW and flew the green. This time the following breeze knuckled my tee shot short and into the front-right bunker, from which I got up and down for a bogey/net par. I am hoping that, having bracketed the green here in two outings, a third will find me on the dance floor in regulation. (One can dream, can’t one?)
My foursome’s penultimate hole of the day was #8, the par-4 with the greatest second shot in golf. The fairway skew for the U.S. Open was very apparent on this hole, with a good 20 yards of fairway removed from the left side. Overcompensating, I pushed my drive right, into the rough and just yards away from (another) watery grave. With 185 yards to the flag, and ≈ 150 to the “second fairway” layup area in front of the green, I played smart, laid up, and made bogey/net birdie.
Starting on #10 means, of course, finishing on #9 – the most difficult par-4 on the course, thanks mostly to the uneven lies that await you even if you keep your ball away from the “Cliffs of Doom”. I hit one of my better drives of the day here, center of the fairway, maybe 150 yards out.
The beautiful drive left me with a hanging lie on a fairway that sloped away from me and to the right, resulting in a pulled approach and my first experience in the infamous front bunker on nine. This time, however, my trusty Cleveland wedge let me down (or I blew the shot – you choose), and I bladed the bunker shot over the green.
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| Pinch me, I’m in heaven… |
I have played Pebble Beach once before, in support of an article I was hired to write for the 2015 edition of the Monterey County Guidebook. I played with three complete strangers, and had a great day—highlighted by a par on #9, the toughest par-4 on the course.
For the preview day we lucky, lucky media folks played a shotgun start; my group teed off on the 10th hole. It was interesting to tee off on 10 – it gave me some perspective into what players experience when they go off of split tees in tournaments at Pebble. It’s a long trip out there, but if you can’t start on #1, starting on #10 is the next best thing.
The Back Nine
Of course, the tenth hole at Pebble is a tough starting place for other reasons. It isn’t the most difficult par-4 on the course, but as the 7-handicap hole it’s close, after holes 9, 11, and 8; however, with its right-sloping fairway–a characteristic it shares with its predecessor on the course, #9, it is a difficult tee shot for someone who fights the occasional “let’s-call-it-a-fade” with the driver.True to form, my first tee shot of the day caught a little too much of that fairway slope, and rambled off the Cliffs of Doom to a new home on Carmel Beach. Careful to drop according to the dictates of the latest updates to the Rules of Golf, I promptly put the next bright yellow Titleist into sand of a different sort—the left-hand bunker of the tenth green. (This was to become a recurring theme.) I got out of the bunker okay (thank you, Cleveland RTX-4 sand wedge), and two-putted for a net bogey.
After wasting the two shots my handicap gives me on the 11th hole on a pushed-drive/lost ball off the tee, turning what might have been a net eagle into a net par, I found sand again on #12, planting my tee shot in the yawning front bunker. On the 13th hole I took a circuitous route through the lush, Open-level rough on the right side of the fairway to the bunker in front of the new back-right lobe of the green. Four holes into the round and I had already been in so much sand that I expected to see Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole galloping down the cart path.
My early sacrifice of a brand-new Titleist on the 10th hole must have bought me some credit with the golf gods, however, because I managed to avoid the bunkers on the 14th hole. This loooong par-5, the #1 handicap hole on the course, must have the most lopsided ratio of length to green size of any hole in golf, even after the recent rebuild, which added 800-odd square feet to the putting surface. I discovered just how tricky a hole location on the right-side addition to the green can be, though, when an otherwise good-looking approach shot that flirted with the ski-slope front of the green rolled back to me like an obedient puppy coming to heel, sinking my chances for a one-putt net par.
On #15 I avoided Arnold Palmer’s nasty left-side bunker complex by driving into the rough on the right. On #16, I nailed a line drive off the tee that left me center-cut with 130 yards to the middle of the green, but pulled my second shot into no-man’s land to the left of the green from the resulting downhill lie.
Then came #17 – the well-known par-three with the hour-glass green that would make a corseted fin de seicle beauty envious – where I pushed a hybrid into the grandstands-to-be, found the ball, took relief, made my bogey/net par and moved on to the world-famous 18th hole.
I managed to avoid the newly grown-in rough that now crowds in from the right with a straight, but abbreviated drive (thanks to the stiff breeze that had come up) in the fairway, then went right rough, manhole cover (w/tree trouble – see photo), bunker, out, two putts – double-bogey (net par).
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| “I get a drop from this, right?” |
The Front Nine
In the interest of brevity, here are some highlights of the front nine:
#1: Right rough, tree trouble, more rough – net par.
#2: Left rough, layup short of the tank-trap bunker, right bunker, nice out, two putts – net birdie.
#3: High draw off the tee – which is the shot you want to hit here, it’s just better if it makes it all the way to the fairway. Mine didn’t.
#4: I honestly don’t remember what I did on this hole, but my score card shows a bogey/net par.
#5: Stubbed my tee shot, resulting in an unintentional layup – on the second-shortest par-three on the course… bogey/net par.
That brings us to Number Six, the monster par-five on Arrowhead Point. Not as long as the fourteenth, nor as famously scenic as the eighteenth, the sixth hole at Pebble Beach is, nevertheless, a beast, an absolute beast. The wide(ish) fairway is bordered by bunkers on the left and a miniature version of the Cliffs of Doom on the right. Keep your tee shot in the green stuff and you’re standing over a slight downhill lie, looking up at a six-story-high green cliff which you have to fly to get to the second fairway, or if you’ve got the oomph, the green. This with no aiming point on the blank horizon that cuts the California sky above you.
The first time I played the sixth hole, four years ago, I pushed my tee ball to the right, over the cliff, took a drop– and lost my next shot left, somewhere in the vicinity of the upper tee box on the eighth hole, leading me to put an “X” on my scorecard and tend the flag for my playing companions.
This time around on #6 I laid a pretty decent drive into the left fringe, short of the bunker complex. Taking 3-wood based on the yardage to the flag, I pushed a low stinger – not the shot I was trying for, by the way – into the cliff face to the right of the green stuff, reloaded, foolishly tried again with 3-wood and stuffed that shot into the looming green wall that separates the lower fairway from the green complex, thus cementing my place in the textbooks under “How Not to Play the Sixth Hole at Pebble Beach”.
I subsequently popped my ball out of the rough and up the cliff face with an iron of some kind—and into one of the left-hand bunkers. On the green lying six, I missed my putt for a snowman, picked up and took my ESC-mandated eight.
All-time score: Pebble’s 6th hole – 2, Me – 0.
Four years ago when I played #7, the picturesque par-3 contender for “World’s Most Photographed Golf Hole” that inhabits the schwerpunkt of Arrowhead Point, I overcooked a GW and flew the green. This time the following breeze knuckled my tee shot short and into the front-right bunker, from which I got up and down for a bogey/net par. I am hoping that, having bracketed the green here in two outings, a third will find me on the dance floor in regulation. (One can dream, can’t one?)
My foursome’s penultimate hole of the day was #8, the par-4 with the greatest second shot in golf. The fairway skew for the U.S. Open was very apparent on this hole, with a good 20 yards of fairway removed from the left side. Overcompensating, I pushed my drive right, into the rough and just yards away from (another) watery grave. With 185 yards to the flag, and ≈ 150 to the “second fairway” layup area in front of the green, I played smart, laid up, and made bogey/net birdie.
Starting on #10 means, of course, finishing on #9 – the most difficult par-4 on the course, thanks mostly to the uneven lies that await you even if you keep your ball away from the “Cliffs of Doom”. I hit one of my better drives of the day here, center of the fairway, maybe 150 yards out.
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| Center of the fairway on the ninth hole at Pebble Beach—what could go wrong? |
The Wrap-up
Any day at Pebble Beach is a good day, especially with a golf club in your hand, no matter how many brand-new Pro V1x’s you leave out on the course. I didn’t break 100, as I had hoped (though how I had expected to do so when I hadn’t swung a club in anger, except for putting, since December I have no idea.) Actually, my putting was pretty darned good – four one-putt greens and eleven two-putts. Pretty good on Pebble’s infamous dance floors—if only it didn’t take me so many strokes to get there.Some compelling storylines for the 119th U.S. Open
More so than the usual week in/week out PGA Tour events, the majors lend themselves to speculation about possible outcomes well in advance of the event itself. With the biggest of the three North American majors, the U.S. Open, just around the corner, three compelling potential story lines arise:
Let’s take a look at each of these potential headline-makers:
To be honest, it doesn’t look good. Koepka’s only history at Pebble Beach is a T-8 in the 2016 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. With its small, subtly contoured greens and variable weather, Pebble is a course that rewards familiarity. The fairways have been narrowed, and skewed to take away the best angles into some of the more difficult greens, and the rough will be lush and deep. Koepka’s brute strength may get him out of some deep green next week, should the need arise, but you don’t win at Pebble—especially in U.S. Open nick—out of the rough.
Purely from a number-crunching point-of-view, the odds against a Koepka three-peat are pretty long. Winning the same event three years in a row has happened, and probably more often than most golf fans are aware of—in the post-WWII era only Gene Littler, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Tiger Woods, Stuart Appleby, and Steve Stricker have all done it. In fact, Palmer did it twice, at the old Texas Open, and the Phoenix Open; and Tiger four times, at the Memorial, the WGC-Cadillac, and two runs of three at the WGC-Bridgestone.
As far as majors go, there have only been two “three-peats” since 1900: Willie Anderson’s run in the U.S. Open, from 1903 to 1905; and Walter Hagen’s remarkable four-year run in the PGA Championship, from 1924 to 1927. The talent pool was much smaller in those days, so there was a better (but still small) likelihood of a really dominant player going on that sort of run.
So what about Brooks? Koepka has demonstrated a remarkable affinity for the big events (coupled with a relative disdain for non-majors, where he has recorded only two PGA Tour wins: the 2015 Phoenix Open, and the 2018 CJ Cup, an offshore PGA Tour event held in South Korea), but will he pull off a three-peat in the U.S. Open and back-to-back majors? He has already shown the capability to bust up the record books, so we will just have to wait and see.
Oddly enough, the last last item in the “For” column is the first one in the “Against” column. Only seven players have won a major at age 44 or older:
Also working against Phil is his recent playing history: five missed cuts out of 13 events since the Safeway Open, in October; only two Top 10s (the AT&T win, and T-2 in the Desert Classic); and only one of the remaining finishes inside the Top 20.
A win in this U.S. Open for Phil—to close out his career slam, at the golf course where his grandfather caddied as a 13-year-old, on his 49th birthday (which is also Father’s Day) to make him the oldest to ever win a men’s major—would eclipse even Tiger’s recent Masters win as the golf story of the year, and maybe even the decade. At the end of the day on Friday, June 14th we will know if he’s got a shot (by making the cut), and if he accomplishes that, the eyes of the golf world will be watching his every move on the weekend.
From where I stand, all of these lines of reasoning are spurious.
First, there’s age. Forty-three-year-old Tiger is not 24-year-old Tiger. Sure, he just won the Masters, but the Masters was always the best bet for Tiger to notch up another major victory. It’s a course he knows well, where he had won four times before. (To be honest, he didn’t win the 2019 Masters so much as Francesco Molinari lost it with his back-nine-Sunday collapse.)
Second, there’s his history of injuries. As Indiana Jones told Marilyn, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”. The violent action of Tiger’s golf swing has, over the years, resulted in back problems (and three corrective surgeries), knee problems, and even a stress fracture in his left tibia (the larger of the two bones in the lower leg.) Injuries add up, and athletic injuries can force changes in a motion sequence, to avoid pain or re-injury, which result in unaccustomed stress in another part of the body, leading to new injuries.
Tiger has played eight four-round events since December–who can say when (or if) the accumulated stress will catch up with some part of his battered body? One lunge at a ball buried in the deep, lush U.S. Open rough may be all it takes to push yet another tendon or ligament past its capabilities.
The fanboy enthusiasm that inundated the world of golf after Tiger’s Masters win earlier this year was tempered somewhat by his missed cut at the PGA Championship, but the embers flared again with his T9 finish at the Memorial, two weeks before the U.S. Open, when a fourth-round surge (70-72-70-67) shot him up the board from 25th to T-9, sending his fans into fits of ecstasy.
It must be remembered, however, that Tiger doesn’t really like Pebble, despite the events of June 2000. He has cited the late-in-the-day bumpiness of the poa annua greens as one reason, and the lengthy rounds typical of the pro-am format have kept him away between Opens. Taken on balance, the factors working against Tiger taking the win in the 119th U.S. Open are tipping the scales away from this Open becoming Tiger’s 16th major.
- Brooks Koepka wins his third consecutive U.S. Open (and second major in a row)
- Phil Mickelson completes his “career slam” with a U.S. Open win (after six second-place finishes)
- Tiger racks up his sixteenth major
Let’s take a look at each of these potential headline-makers:
Brooks Koepka “three-peat”
Brooks Koepka is on a hot streak. He has won three of the last five majors, and four of the past eight that he has played (he missed the 2018 Masters with a wrist injury). This run of major victories includes an amazing “double-double” – back-to-back wins in the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship. The inevitable question that arises is “Can he keep it up?”To be honest, it doesn’t look good. Koepka’s only history at Pebble Beach is a T-8 in the 2016 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. With its small, subtly contoured greens and variable weather, Pebble is a course that rewards familiarity. The fairways have been narrowed, and skewed to take away the best angles into some of the more difficult greens, and the rough will be lush and deep. Koepka’s brute strength may get him out of some deep green next week, should the need arise, but you don’t win at Pebble—especially in U.S. Open nick—out of the rough.
Purely from a number-crunching point-of-view, the odds against a Koepka three-peat are pretty long. Winning the same event three years in a row has happened, and probably more often than most golf fans are aware of—in the post-WWII era only Gene Littler, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Tiger Woods, Stuart Appleby, and Steve Stricker have all done it. In fact, Palmer did it twice, at the old Texas Open, and the Phoenix Open; and Tiger four times, at the Memorial, the WGC-Cadillac, and two runs of three at the WGC-Bridgestone.
As far as majors go, there have only been two “three-peats” since 1900: Willie Anderson’s run in the U.S. Open, from 1903 to 1905; and Walter Hagen’s remarkable four-year run in the PGA Championship, from 1924 to 1927. The talent pool was much smaller in those days, so there was a better (but still small) likelihood of a really dominant player going on that sort of run.
So what about Brooks? Koepka has demonstrated a remarkable affinity for the big events (coupled with a relative disdain for non-majors, where he has recorded only two PGA Tour wins: the 2015 Phoenix Open, and the 2018 CJ Cup, an offshore PGA Tour event held in South Korea), but will he pull off a three-peat in the U.S. Open and back-to-back majors? He has already shown the capability to bust up the record books, so we will just have to wait and see.
Phil finally wins the U.S. Open
There are a number of factors weighing in both for and against Phil Mickelson finally achieving his career “slam” – a win in each of the four majors – with a victory at Pebble Beach next week. In the “For” column is his record at Pebble Beach – five wins in the AT&T Pro-Am, two in the last five years—including the 2019 event; a sentimental attachment to the course, where his maternal grandfather was one of the first batch of caddies when the course opened in 1919; and the knowledge that he is running out of time, at age 48 (turning 49 on Open Sunday), to close the door on his career Grand Slam.Oddly enough, the last last item in the “For” column is the first one in the “Against” column. Only seven players have won a major at age 44 or older:
- Harry Vardon, 44, Open Championship – 1914
- Roberto de Vicenzo, 44, Open Championship, 1967
- Lee Trevino, 44, PGA Championship, 1984
- Jerry Barber, 45, PGA Championship, 1961
- Hale Irwin, 45, U.S. Open, 1990
- Jack Nicklaus, 46, Masters, 1986
- Julius Boros, 48, PGA Championship, 1968
Also working against Phil is his recent playing history: five missed cuts out of 13 events since the Safeway Open, in October; only two Top 10s (the AT&T win, and T-2 in the Desert Classic); and only one of the remaining finishes inside the Top 20.
A win in this U.S. Open for Phil—to close out his career slam, at the golf course where his grandfather caddied as a 13-year-old, on his 49th birthday (which is also Father’s Day) to make him the oldest to ever win a men’s major—would eclipse even Tiger’s recent Masters win as the golf story of the year, and maybe even the decade. At the end of the day on Friday, June 14th we will know if he’s got a shot (by making the cut), and if he accomplishes that, the eyes of the golf world will be watching his every move on the weekend.
Tiger gets his 16th major
There are people out there who are putting Tiger Woods at the top of their list of potential winners next week at Pebble Beach. Much of the reasoning that is being used to support this view is based on the accomplishments of a very different person than 2019 Tiger: the blowout 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when he won with a score of 12 under par, an amazing 15 strokes ahead of second place. Some of this support for a Tiger win is based on his having won the Masters last April, and the rest is rooted in pure fanboy-ism.From where I stand, all of these lines of reasoning are spurious.
First, there’s age. Forty-three-year-old Tiger is not 24-year-old Tiger. Sure, he just won the Masters, but the Masters was always the best bet for Tiger to notch up another major victory. It’s a course he knows well, where he had won four times before. (To be honest, he didn’t win the 2019 Masters so much as Francesco Molinari lost it with his back-nine-Sunday collapse.)
Second, there’s his history of injuries. As Indiana Jones told Marilyn, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”. The violent action of Tiger’s golf swing has, over the years, resulted in back problems (and three corrective surgeries), knee problems, and even a stress fracture in his left tibia (the larger of the two bones in the lower leg.) Injuries add up, and athletic injuries can force changes in a motion sequence, to avoid pain or re-injury, which result in unaccustomed stress in another part of the body, leading to new injuries.
Tiger has played eight four-round events since December–who can say when (or if) the accumulated stress will catch up with some part of his battered body? One lunge at a ball buried in the deep, lush U.S. Open rough may be all it takes to push yet another tendon or ligament past its capabilities.
The fanboy enthusiasm that inundated the world of golf after Tiger’s Masters win earlier this year was tempered somewhat by his missed cut at the PGA Championship, but the embers flared again with his T9 finish at the Memorial, two weeks before the U.S. Open, when a fourth-round surge (70-72-70-67) shot him up the board from 25th to T-9, sending his fans into fits of ecstasy.
It must be remembered, however, that Tiger doesn’t really like Pebble, despite the events of June 2000. He has cited the late-in-the-day bumpiness of the poa annua greens as one reason, and the lengthy rounds typical of the pro-am format have kept him away between Opens. Taken on balance, the factors working against Tiger taking the win in the 119th U.S. Open are tipping the scales away from this Open becoming Tiger’s 16th major.
Only time will tell
All of this pre-event prognosticating may turn out to be for naught, of course. Pebble Beach has a history of turning up early-round leaders who have the media folk looking around and asking, “Who is that guy?”, and turning to their players guides for background details—and sometimes one of those guys wins (remember Vaughn Taylor, in 2016, and Ted Potter Jr. in 2018?). And it can even happen in the U.S. Open, as it almost did in 2010, when Frenchman Gregory Havret came within a stroke of taking eventual champion Graeme McDowell to a playoff. All I know for sure is that I can hardly wait to see it all play out.
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