The two most dreaded words in professional golf are “Monday finish”, and as luck would have it, the windy conditions on Saturday at the 2023 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am brought them into play. While for recreational golfers the prospect of playing Pebble Beach Golf Links on a clear, calm, if somewhat brisk, February morning would be a dream come true, for pros, to be pulled off the course at sunset, mid-round, and then have to come back the next morning, pick up where they left off and play for a paycheck, it’s a much less ideal situation.
As it has been so often in the history of the AT&T (née Crosby) Pro-Am, the weather was the story. On a multi-course tournament like this, where three courses have to be maintained in the same configuration over three days, making corrections to a hole placement or mowing conditions to mitigate a change in the weather is not an option, and when Saturday’s gusty winds caused balls to move on the exposed 9th and 15th greens at the MPCC Shore course, play was suspended, then ultimately called.
At Spyglass Hill, where all but three holes are sheltered amidst towering cypress and Monterey pine trees, the wind was not a factor, nor was it at Pebble—despite nine holes running along the ocean—because the wind direction left Pebble somewhat sheltered by Pescadero Point and the Del Monte Forest northwest of the course.
Unless it’s a situation where dangerous weather is the cause for a play stoppage, players are given the option of finishing the hole they are on when the horn blows. Some took the option, starting from the tee on their next hole this morning, while others marked their ball and headed in. Leader Justin Rose returned to his ball marked in good position on the 10th fairway; Keith Mitchell’s first shot on returning to the course on Monday morning was a delicate chip from the rough just off of the 12th green.
Crashing surf in Carmel Bay provided a dramatic backdrop of foam-crested waves and azure water for the television coverage of the final holes of the tournament, but the flags hung limp in still air, with nary a breeze stirring to affect the flight of a ball. Restarting the interrupted round in these pristine conditions posed no problem for leader Justin Rose, who made a hot restart with birdies at 11 and 13. The two strokes he picked up bumped Rose’s score to 17-under, maintaining his lead over Brendon Todd, who (no slouch himself) birdied 13 and 14 to get to 15-under.
The NorCal players in the field fared middling to well when play resumed this morning. Chico’s Kurt Kitayama righted the ship with a string of pars after closing out Sunday afternoon double-bogey, bogey; Brandon Wu and Joseph Bramlett each put up pairs of birdies in the first few holes after the restart.
In the meantime, Justin Rose was solidifying his lead with another birdie, at the long, sometimes punishing, par-five 14th hole, distancing himself still further from Brendon Todd. Two holes ahead, Todd, though playing well, was running out of time, and eventually just flat ran out of holes in his bid to overtake the surging Rose.
With no serious contenders ahead of him, Rose played conservatively down the stretch, leaving his driver in the bag for the last three holes. Hitting a four-iron off the tee at 18, followed by two more irons to the green, he finished up with a no-stress two-putt par to complete a three-shot victory. The win makes Rose the first European winner of this event, and only the second non-American champion.
“Pebble is the type of golf course with the conditions and the elements that you think you could argue would suit European players a little bit more.”
– Justin Rose
(Vijay Singh was the first, and previously only, non-American winner of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, carding a 15-under 272 for the victory in 2004.)
The top NorCal player in the field was Stanford Men’s Golf alumnus Brandon Wu, who carded four birdies on the back nine in Monday play to record a 6-under 66, tying Brendon Todd for second at 15-under.
Wu has great memories of Pebble’s 18th green—after missing his Stanford University graduation ceremony to play in the 2019 U.S Open here at Pebble, and after a T-35/2nd-place amateur finish, Wu was presented with his diploma by then USGA president-elect Stu Francis, who got his MBA at Stanford.
Asked how he would characterize the week overall, Wu said:
“I think it was awesome. I’m glad the weather kind of held off and we finished with a perfect morning this morning. I’m really happy to be out here and happy with how I played.”
The next NorCal finisher down the order was another Stanford alumnus, Joseph Bramlett of San José. Bramlett played well after the restart, closing out his round in 3-under 33 for the back nine, but on top of the even-par front nine he put up yesterday afternoon, it wasn’t enough to move him up on the leaderboard. Bramlett’s T-7 performance is his best finish to date on the PGA tour.
Chico’s Kurt Kitayama, playing in the final group, had a front-row seat to Justin Rose’s march to victory, but the specter of yesterday’s 5-over front-nine 41 that opened with three bogeys and finished double-bogey, bogey was too much for him to overcome. Kitayama made a single birdie this morning, at the par-four 15th hole, rolling in a 15' 9" putt from the front fringe.
With the Pebble Beach Pro-Am increasingly coming under fire from some commenters for slow play due to the amateur participants, for the logistical complexities, and for the impact that weather has historically had on the event, it was gratifying to hear Rose, in the post-round interview, characterize the tournament as an event “that really matter(s)”:
“Access to the major championships is a large part of my decision to be playing where I’m playing, for sure, (and) obviously playing in events like this that have a great history, that give access to iconic golf courses, all of those things—winning events that really matter.”
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