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? |
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