2024 AT&T Pro-Am, Day 2: Almost boring…

There is a distinct lack of drama during the Friday round of a no-cut golf tournament. With the exception of the original-format Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which featured a Saturday cut because of the three-course rota, Friday is traditionally go-big-or-go-home day, when players at or near the top of the leaderboard are trying to continue their good play and hang on to their spots, and back-markers are looking to find another gear, up their games and get, or stay, above the cut line in order to make a paycheck.

Five of eight of the PGA Tour’s new limited-field Signature events, of which the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is now one, have no cut (the exceptions are the three player-hosted invitationals: the Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational, and the Memorial Tournament), so that Friday drama (or desperation, in some cases) that made it my favorite tournament day, after Sunday, is gone.

Of course, even in a guaranteed-payday tournament like this there is an incentive to play well. After all, with a total purse of $20 million, 1st-place money is a life-changing (at least for mere mortals) $3.6 million, and 10th-place still nets the player something north of half a million dollars. Even DFL* money is a mere $32,000, but that will at least cover your expenses for the week with a nice chunk of change left over – and you got to play Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill.

When you add to that picture a near-total lack of wind, and rain-softened greens that held every shot that hit them, the drama factor on the second day of the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was, well – low.

That being said, in some ways the new-look Pro-Am stayed true to its roots, because from early in the day Friday, despite the Signature Events’ promise of “more big names” and therefore “more excitement”, two less-than-familiar names – Thomas Detry and Ludvig Åberg, a Belgian and a Swede, respectively, held sway at the top of the leaderboard throughout the day.

Playing at Pebble, Detry laid a 2-under 70 (which included bogeys at holes 4 and 5) on top of the 9-under he carded Thursday at Spyglass Hill to hang on to a share of first place, while Åberg took serious advantage of the benign conditions at the tournament’s namesake course to rack up an impressive 7-under 65, second-lowest score on the day to join Detry at the top of the leaderboard.

Also crowding onto the top step, at this point, was Scottie Scheffler, who has come a long way since his 2013 USGA Jr. Amateur Championship victory at Martis Camp in Truckee. Scheffler took low-round-of-the-day honors, helped to a tidy 8-under 64 by a 35-foot birdie putt on 17. He rose thirteen spots up the leaderboard today to muscle in on a share of first place.

Where were the rest of the big names?

Rory McIlroy, current world #2 who was touted as the event’s biggest draw, couldn’t buy a putt all day (SG-Putting: 2.6), and seems to have lost the ability to hit any kind of a draw; he doubled down on his previous day’s troublesome 1-under round at Spyglass with a weak-sauce 2-over 74 at Pebble, dropping to T65 at 1-over. Of some consolation, perhaps, is the fact that McIlroy and his amateur partner, Jeff Rhodes, a managing partner at TPG Capital, won the pro-am competition with a 17-under total.

Patrick Cantlay, who sat one stroke behind Detry at the end of the first round, clung on with a 2-under 70 today, also at Pebble Beach; he is currently alone in 4th place.

Justin Thomas, who hasn’t stepped foot on this course in a decade, added a 3-under round on Pebble today to yesterday’s 6-under at Spyglass for a comfortable 9-under T5, two strokes back of the leading trio. Thomas shares the T5 spot with Argentinian Emiliano Grillo, and Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, who was last week’s winner on Tour in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am 2023 champion Justin Rose managed just one more birdie than bogeys today, netting a 1-under 71 that dropped him fifteen spots down the leaderboard to T23, while AT&T spokesperson Jordan Spieth managed a 3-under 69, climbing six spots to T44.

The NorCal-associated golfers in the field finished the day as follows:

• Collin Morikawa and Mark Hubbard – 7-under, T10
• Maverick McNealy – 3-under, T44
• Kurt Kitayama, Chico native and UNV grad – 1-under, T55
• Max Homa, 2013 Cal grad – 2-under, T53
• Patrick Rodgers – 6-over, T78

*  (Dead f--king last)

Pebble Beach, 2024: Everything changes, but is it for the better?

The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is far and away my favorite PGA Tour event, has been through a lot of changes over the years. Still sometimes referred to by old-timers from the area (like me…) as “the Crosby”, the event can trace its roots to 1934, when crooner Bing Crosby got together with a bunch of his celebrity pals at the Old Brockway Golf Course on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore for golf, food, drinks, and laughs.

In 1937 Bing moved the get-together to the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, north of San Diego, where he had a home on the back nine. This is when the pro-am aspect began, with Crosby pairing touring pros with amateur players drawn from the ranks of his show-business friends and the member of the Lakeside Golf Club in Hollywood, where he was a member (and five-time club champion).

“The Clambake” as the event came to be called, named for the closing-night beach party, ran for five years in Rancho Santa Fe before the Second World War called a halt, but in 1947 civic leaders in Monterey convinced Crosby to revive the event and move it to the Monterey Peninsula, where it became the National Pro-Am Golf Championship.

AT&T took over as the presenting sponsor in 1986, dropping the Crosby name (and Crosby family involvement) from the tournament, when Bing’s second wife, Kathryn Crosby, sold off the naming rights to AT&T for a cool half-million dollars.

In its Monterey Peninsula glory days the event drew scores of fans to the beautiful scenery of the rugged coastline – and to the star-studded field of pro golfers matched up with celebrities from the world of entertainment such as Phil Harris, James Garner, Jack Lemmon*, and Clint Eastwood (now a partner in the ownership group of the property). The star power of the celebrity amateurs slipped over the years, with sports heroes, B-list (or lower) Hollywood types, and corporate bigwigs taking over the amateur field, but the scenery and the promise of a glimpse of a famous (or semi-famous) name struggling to make the pro-am cut (cough, cough Ray Romano cough, cough) still drew the crowds, especially on Saturday, when the A-list celebrity/pro pairings were all stacked up on Pebble itself.

For 2024, however, the upheaval in the world of men’s professional golf of the last two years, engendered by the influx of Saudi money and the creation of the LIV Golf league, has resulted in the largest change in the structure and format of this event since the Second World War shut it down.

In order to deal with the threat represented by the deep pockets of the Saudi PIF and their apparent determination to dominate the world of men’s professional golf, the PGA Tour created Signature events, tournaments with limited fields, no cut (except for three player-hosted tournaments), and most importantly, to the players at least, increased purses – $20 million (up from $9 million in the case of this tournament), with $3.6 million to the winner.

For this event, quickly, the changes for 2024 are: 

• 80-player field vice the old 156-player field.
• Course rota cut down to two courses (Pebble Beach itself, and Spyglass Hill) from three, with weekend play only on Pebble.
• Amateurs playing Thursday and Friday only.
• Amateur players restricted as to handicap (looking for better, and hopefully faster, players), and no more show business amateurs; just deep-pocket corporate and pro sports amateurs.

AT&T-featured player Jordan Spieth spoke to the assembled media at Pebble Beach on Wednesday afternoon, and as he struggled to be heard over the gusty winds that rattled the temporary tarps-over-frame media-center structure, he said that the tournament this year has “a lot less Bing Crosby” in the event this year; “on course it feels like a major, off course it feels a lot less like the old Crosby**.” 

Jordan also mentioned the potential thrill of seeing some of the best players in the world (18 of the Top 20 in the World Rankings are in the field this week) coming down the stretch in contention on Sunday afternoon. While this is undoubtedly a Good Thing, how will the new format of this classic, and formerly unique, event compare to the glory days of yore – and how will the fans, both onsite and at home, react to the new look?

No other event in the world of professional golf has ever looked like Pebble Beach – and I’m not just talking about the scenery. Now, however, with the exception of the scenery (which is unmatched in the game  – fight me…), an event that started as a gathering of friends for golf and laughs, and thrived as an entertainment showcase and the premier charity-beneficent event in professional golf, has morphed over 80 years’ time into a bigger-money clone of seven other events on the schedule.

Maybe a Sunday afternoon with four or five of the top 10 players in the world coming down the stretch in contention for the trophy makes for an exciting finish, but honestly, we can see that several times a year, at many other tournaments. What we have lost in this change, however, is an intangible charm that “the Clambake” brought to the world of professional golf for one rainy/sunny/windswept wintertime week every year – a charm that, I’m afraid, we will never see again in the even-bigger-money New Age of men’s professional golf.

* (Youngsters in the audience may want to do a quick online search of some of these names.)

** (It hasn’t been called “the Crosby” since eight years before Jordan was born.)

Big names not missed as AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am comes to an exciting climax

The absence of most of the PGA Tour’s big names this week didn’t take away from the excitement of professional golf’s most scenic tournament, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

With the likes of Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson—both multiple winners of this event—and many others opting to take Saudi blood money just for showing up at the Saudi International, it was left to Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Beau Hossler and a host of less recognizable names to bring the excitement from the Monterey Peninsula.

First-round leader Tom Hoge book-ended his tournament in the best fashion possible, facing down a surging Jordan Spieth to hoist his first trophy on the PGA Tour, bank a cool $1.5M, lock up two years’ worth of eligibility, and earn invites to the Masters and the Open Championship.

As many as five players were tied for first place mid-round as the likes of Patrick Cantlay, Troy Merritt, Beau Hossler and Jordan Spieth made moves early to mid-round.

Merritt was as low as seven-under after a birdie at the par-five 14th hole, even after a bogey at #8, but a double bogey at the par-three 17th killed his chances for a meaningful look at a win.

Cantlay came into the final round 65-68-68–201, 14-under and T-4, one stroke back of third-round co-leaders Tom Hoge, Beau Hossler, and Andrew Putnam. Strong iron play but poor putting stymied a move up the leaderboard by the SoCal pro, and a pair of late bogeys sealed his fate; a birdie on 18 boosted him into a share of fourth place alongside Troy Merritt.

First-round co-leader Beau Hossler stuttered early with a bogey on the par-five second hole and a bunker-to-fringe-to-three-putt adventure at the par-3 fifth hole. This usually relatively benign one-shotter played more difficult today as a new tee box, to the right of the usual position, was put into use for the first time. Birdies at 9, 10, and 11, and later at 17, buoyed his chances at a run for the win, but he still came to 18 needing an eagle to force a playoff. His last chance was a hole-out from the right-hand greenside bunker, which didn’t happen, and three putts later he had slipped from possible contender to solo third place.

Jordan Spieth was the hopeful story of the round for most of the day. Starting the final round 11 strokes out of first place, he marched ahead as the first-round leaders slipped back. His hopeful fans held their breath as he came to the 8th hole, where he danced with death at the edge of the cliff yesterday, his ball actually beyond the red line at the precipice. They clung to hope as he birdied 12 and 13 to take the solo lead; his birdie at the notoriously tough par-three 12th was only the second of the day.

Meanwhile, another first-round co-leader, TCU grad Tom Hoge, was struggling to an even-par front nine after a double-bogey on #5 and a bogey from the rough above the green on #8. Known as a player who doesn’t give up late in the game, Hoge righted the ship with birdies at 11 and 14, and pulled up on Spieth with another, at #16.

Now it was Spieth’s turn to stumble in the stretch. A slightly mishit 8-iron off the tee at #17 landed short, leaving him with a mediocre lie in the yawning front bunker. Not known for his excellent sand play in recent years, Spieth blasted out to five feet above the hole and missed the crucial par putt, handing the lead to Hoge, one hole behind him on the course.

More woes attended for Jordan Spieth on the 18th hole. His tee shot came to rest to the right of the strategically placed cypress tree mid-fairway, and a slight mis-hit off a bare lie resulted in a plugged lie in the seawall fairway bunker. Another poor shot left him short of the green, over 50 feet from the flag—long story short: chip short, par putt, solo second.

Hoge, in the mean time, played conservatively down the famously scenic fairway that curves around the blue expanse of Carmel Bay, getting to the green in a regulation three shots and taking two putts to get to the hole from 37 feet. It took Hossler’s botched run at the 18th hole (described above) to clinch the win for Hoge, but there was little doubt of the outcome once Hossler’s second shot landed in the greenside bunker.

In the final equation, it was two Texans and a man from North Dakota who went to school in Texas who provided the drama in the final round of the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; three names that ranged in rank from well-known to “Oh, yeah—him,” to “Who?”, and nobody really missed the guys who bailed on one of the most historic, and certainly the most scenic, events on the PGA tour.

Power fades, Hossler hustles, and Spieth makes a giant leap on Saturday at the AT&T Pro-Am

In your run-of-the-mill PGA Tour event, Friday is Cut Day, when players have to play their way into the weekend, and Saturday is Moving Day, when the lucky 60+ who survived to play for a paycheck are playing to attain, or hold, a position close to the top of the leaderboard and be poised for a run at a high finish. As it is in so many ways, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am is exceptional in this regard. Played on three courses—Pebble Beach Golf Links, Spyglass Hill, and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Golf Club—this tournament cycles the players through all three courses, with the cut coming on Saturday, after 54 holes of play.

This unique configuration turns Saturday into a combination of “moving day” and “cut day”. This unique circumstance becomes even more significant when, as has happened this week, the 36-hole leader rides a record-tying five-stroke lead into the weekend.

Ireland’s Séamus Power opened his run at an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am title on Thursday with a noteworthy bogey-free eight-under 64 at Spyglass Hill, which is acknowledged to be the toughest of the three courses in the tournament rota. Rotating to Pebble Beach on Friday, Power kept the pedal down, and with two bogeys against ten birdies, carded a second eight-under 64 to set a new 36-hole scoring record of 128.

The new record is one stroke better than the previous record of 129, jointly held by Nick Taylor (2020) and Phil Mickelson (2005)—each of whom went on to win.

Power’s pursuers got the help they needed as the firm and fast MPCC course kept a lid on the Irishman’s game. Beau Hossler, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, and Andrew Putnam playing at Pebble, and Tom Hoge, at Spyglass, all made moves to close the gap.

Hossler, who led the 2012 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club briefly in the third round as an amateur, caught up to Power in the latter part of their respective rounds. The Texan traded off between co-leading and trailing by one over a run of several holes before Power sputtered to a 3-over 74 on the Shore Course, eventually falling to T-7, while Hossler ascended to a tie for the lead with Andrew Putnam and first-round leader Tom Hoge. Hossler carded a 7-under 65 on five birdies and an eagle, on the par-five 6th hole.

A few groups behind Hossler, Patrick Cantlay endured a string of pars and one bogey, at 15, on the back nine before a 22-foot putt at the 17th hole yielded a timely birdie and gave his game a boost that had been missing to that point. He followed it with a birdie at 18 after getting on in two with driver–3-wood, cementing a 4-under round and -14 for 54 holes, good enough for T-4 going into the final round.

The biggest move on the day was made by the 2017 Pro-Am champ Jordan Spieth, who rode a run of sterling iron play to a 9-under 63, lifting him to 14-under for the tournament and into a three-way tie for 4th going into the final round.

Cantlay and Spieth were joined at T-4 by Joel Dahmen, who posted a sneaky-good six-under 66 at Spyglass Hill to join Cantlay and Spieth in the three-way tie for fourth.

NorCal notables who made the field include 2021 runner-up Maverick McNealy; Nick Watney, who squeaked in with 4-under, T-65 finish*; Austin Smotherman, who opened 65-68 in the first two rounds and sputtered to a 3-over 75 at Spyglass today, and former San José State golfer Mark Hubbard, who stitched a light-running 7-under 65 on MPCC Shore for an 8-under T-21 placement going into the final round.

Sunday promises to be a long day on the course, with 77 pros in the field*. Interestingly, the fate of the twelve other players who were tied with Sahith Theegala at 4-under lay in his hands when he got to the 18th hole. If he birdied the final hole to move to 5-under and solo 65th, the dozen at 4-under would fall to the wrong side of the cut line; par or worse and they are all playing for a paycheck tomorrow.

Theegala placed his third shot in the back fringe, 28-1/2 feet from the hole, and then missed that birdie putt. There are twelve guys in the field tomorrow* who owe Theegala a steak dinner.

* (Late update – Given the size of the field, and the presence of amateurs, the PGA Tour invoked the MDF rule—so just the top 64 pros are playing on Sunday. It would have been very difficult to get a finish in before dark, otherwise.)

Thursday at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Who are those guys?

It’s a recurring theme at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: the first round goes into the books on Thursday evening, and the universal reaction to the name at the top of the leaderboard is “Who?”

Mind you, I’m not talking about the fans walking back to their shuttle buses at the end of the day, or the punters propping up the bar at the 19th Hole—I’m talking about in the media center, where some of the finest minds writing about golf today are gathered to ponder, pontificate, and promulgate their wisdom via the various forms of media, social and otherwise.

This phenomenon has been known to extend through Friday and Saturday, and even persist to the final round—who can forget Vaughn Taylor in 2016; or maybe the ultimate “Who dat?” winner, Ted Potter, Jr., the Orlando Mini-tour King, in 2018? (Potter’s win is even more remarkable when you consider the group that tied for second behind him, which included Jason Day, and multiple Pebble Beach champions Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.)

This year’s first-round leaderboard treated fans and the media to such well-known names as Knous, Hoge, Putnam, Malnati, Lipsky, and Eckroat. You can be forgiven for thinking that this lineup sounds more like a firm of auto-accident lawyers that advertise on local cable than the top of the leaderboard at a prestigious PGA Tour event.

To be fair, the absence of most of the biggest names in PGA tour golf has left the venerable Del Monte Forest beach bash awash in lesser-known players, so the odds are good that this year’s winner could be someone with a low recognition factor.

A veritable who’s-who of men’s professional golf, most of whom could have been reliably counted upon to be in the field here at Pebble Beach, decamped to Saudi Arabia to play for a smaller purse ($5M vs $8.7M) but big appearance fees (reportedly larger, in some cases, than the winner’s share here at Pebble Beach).

The list includes five-time Pebble Beach winner Phil Mickelson; two-time winner Dustin Johnson; Graeme McDowell, the winner of the 2010 U.S. Open, held here at Pebble Beach; and sundry other golf luminaries and recognizable names such as Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed, and several more.

The biggest names in the field this week at the Clambake are Jordan Spieth, who is among the stable of players affiliated with presenting sponsor AT&T; #3-ranked Patrick Cantlay, a California kid (if SoCal…) who acknowledged, but resisted, the temptation of Saudi gelt and came to Pebble Beach this week because he loves the place; Maverick McNealy, local boy and Stanford Men’s golf star who grew up in a house on Pebble’s 16th fairway before his family moved to Hillsborough; and former World #1 Jason Day, who showed some long-missing form at the Farmer’s Insurance Open at Torrey Pines last week before fading over the closing holes of the final round.

There is an old saying that goes: “The race doesn’t always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet”, so the chances are good that one of the four names I mentioned in the preceding paragraph will top the leaderboard come Sunday evening. The odds are even better that, even if none of them do top the field, one or more of them will be in the hunt on Sunday, and will end up in the Top 5 after 72 holes are played.

As far as Round One went, an 11-year pro from North Dakota by way of Texas Christian University (“Go Frogs!”) named Tom Hoge (pronounced “hoagie”, like the sandwich) topped the leaderboard after 18 holes.

Starting on the tenth hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links under clear skies in a dead calm, Hoge opened with birdies at 10 and 11, carded another at 18, and went on a six-hole birdie run on holes 3 through 8 after pars at 1 and 2. His clean-card 9-under 63 is one off of the tournament course record of 62 that is jointly held by Dave Kite (1983 – win), David Duval (1997 – runner-up), and was most recently equaled by Patrick Cantlay in last year ’s first round.

Hoge is trailed by Irishman Seamus Power, who carded an 8-under 64 at Spyglass Hill, and NorCal’s own Austin Smotherman, a native of Loomis, CA, a small town straddling Hwy 80 just east of Sacramento, who carded a 7-under 65 at Pebble Beach, more than offsetting a pair of bogeys with eagles at the par-5 sixth and eighteenth holes. Swede Jonas Blixt, who played at Spyglass Hill today, is tied with Smotherman at 7-under.

Patrick Cantlay is the highest-place of the bigger names in the field, T-5 at 6-under after his opening round at Spyglass Hill; Jason Day is T-14, 3-under at Pebble Beach; Jordan Spieth sits at T-31 after a 3-under round at MPCC, and Maverick McNealy is T-51 with a 2-under round, also at MPCC.

Daniel Berger seals the deal, in style, for 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am win

The eagle must be Daniel Berger’s favorite bird—especially after he made four eagles this weekend at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, including two in the final round. The second eagle of the fourth round, on Pebble’s world-famous par-five 18th hole, was clinched by a 31-foot putt that cemented his victory when two putts would have done the job.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 14: Daniel Berger of the United States celebrates his eagle putt to win on the 18th green during the final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links on February 14, 2021 in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Local boy Maverick McNealy—very local, in fact, given that he grew up in a house overlooking Pebble’s 16th fairway before his family moved to Hillsborough, in San Mateo County—produced his fourth round in the 60s to take second, his highest finish on the PGA Tour.

Berger, who won at Fort Worth’s Colonial Country Club in the opening event of the post-lockdown return of professional golf last spring, trailed Jordan Spieth by two strokes going into the final round, but while Spieth wobbled to a two-under round of 70, Berger carded the low round of the day, a 7-under 65, to take the win.

An eagle three at the short par-five 2nd hole set the tone for Berger’s round, followed by birdies at the 3rd and 6th holes. The only misstep he made was a bogey at the notorious par-4 eight hole, where his approach shot landed long and left, on a slope above the green, leaving him a tricky pitch to a green that sloped away.

As Spieth and another contender, Patrick Cantlay, fell away in the latter stages of the round, journeyman pro Nate Lashley stepped up to challenge for the win. Lashley, whose sole victory on the PGA Tour is the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic, started the day in a three-way tie with Berger and Cantlay, two strokes back of Spieth. Four birdies on the front nine saw him briefly in the lead before Berger’s birdie on the par-4 ninth, then reclaiming the top spot with a birdie on the tenth hole.

Berger and Lashley remained tied, with Spieth and Cantlay struggling to right their ships and make a move, through the fifteenth hole. In the meantime, Stanford University alumnus McNealy put together a string of four birdies from holes 11 through 15 to make up ground on the two co-leaders, pulling within a stroke of the pair.

And then came the 16th hole. A downhill, left-to-right turning par-four with trees and a tank-trench bunker guarding the front of the green, #16 has rarely been cast in the role of a make-or-break hole in this tournament. Berger assayed the hole with a drive to the edge of the left rough, an approach to the bottom of the green and two putts from 25 feet—nothing special, nothing memorable. Lashley, on the other hand, will remember this hole for a long time; in fact, it may haunt his dreams for years to come.

Playing from good position on the upper tier of the fairway, about 150 yards from the flag, Lashley’s approach shot hit the back of the green just past the hole and bounded over the edge into the rough, leaving a touchy little punch-pitch to a tucked flag. His pitch back to the green rolled out to about 12 or 13 feet past the hole, from where he proceeded to putt one, two, three… and yes, four times before closing out the hole.

Just like that, the one-time real estate agent who is, appropriately enough, sponsored by Rocket Mortgage, played himself out of the running to win the tournament, and ultimately into a T5 finish that cost him $1,102,725 compared to a potential win, or $392,925 if he had parred in to finish tied for second with (as it turned out) Maverick McNealy. That’s $367,575 or $130,942 per putt, depending on the scenario.

With Lashley out of contention, Maverick McNealy, playing a group ahead, could potentially force a playoff with an eagle-three at the final hole. With the 18th hole playing from a more-forward tee position, the bold and the accurate were given the incentive they needed to risk a two-shot approach on the finest par-5 in existence.

McNealy did just that. After a 277-yard drive to the left fairway, he slung a high-draw three-iron shot (a three-iron!) 232 yards to the green, putting the club away with a flourish, like D’Artagnan sheathing his rapier, as he watched the ball soar toward its target through the California sky. That target is a 4,400-square-foot green guarded by bunkers and a cypress tree that looks like it was planted there by Mother Nature with her own two hands, and McNealy’s golf ball went after it like a lawn dart heading for your cousin Billy’s left foot.

Left with a 22-foot putt for eagle, McNealy narrowly missed his chance to force a playoff in the event of a birdie by Berger. His ball slid past the hole on the high side so closely that some of the left-side dimples were rolling over air, finishing less than a full turn outside the hole. He tapped in for a birdie and a mortal lock on solo second.

Now it was up to Berger. Taking on the right side of the fairway, as he had the day before with disastrous results, he squeezed his drive between the infamous fairway tree and the bunkers on the right, leaving himself a longer shot, at 253 yards, for his eagle try than McNealy had had just a few minutes before. What followed was, in Berger’s words, “…one of the best 3-woods I’ve ever hit in my life.”, a swinging draw that ended up 31 feet above the flag.

It was the type of finish that Tour pros dream of at night, tucked up in their Florida tax-haven mansions: two putts to win on the most famous finishing hole this side of St Andrews—and Berger played it like a boss.

For all its length it was a straightforward putt, straight down the fall line, as Johnny Miller used to say, and the young man from Florida who started out as a tennis player before switching to golf (which is a very Florida thing to do) rolled it in like it was the winning putt in a Saturday-morning Nassau.

The 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was one for the ages. For as much as we love this event, and the iconic landscape over which it is contested, it has produced some ho-hum finishes in the past—do you remember Ted Potter, Jr’s three-stroke win in 2018, or Vaughn Taylor in 2016? Neither does anyone else.

But despite the weak field, which had pundits (mostly of the sports-betting variety) wringing their hands and clutching their pearls in the lead-up to the event, and despite the lack of fans, and amateur playing partners for the pros, this year’s tournament had drama and pathos in equal measure: Jordan Spieth’s pursuit of a renewed grasp of his game, which had made a long-overdue reappearance the previous week in Phoenix; local kid Maverick McNealy’s dashing run for his first Tour victory, literally in his old backyard; and journeyman-pro Nate Lashley’s surge to the top and ignominious crash in four putts at the 16th hole, all eclipsed by Daniel Berger’s three-step climax—driver, 3-wood, 30-foot putt—on the most beautiful finishing hole in the game of golf.

A little rain, a little wind, a little luck—and once again Jordan Spieth sleeps on a 54-hole lead

Looking more and more like a man on the comeback trail since grabbing a 54-hole co-lead last week in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, Jordan Spieth took over the lead at the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after the second round, 65-67–132, to lead by a single stroke over Daniel Berger, and two strokes over Patrick Cantlay. Memories of his final-round woes in Phoenix were coursing through people’s minds when he stepped up to the first tee this morning to start his third round, and for a while there it looked as though the spectre of the previous week’s collapse might be riding his shoulders.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 13: Jordan Spieth reacts to his tee shot at the par-three 17th hole during the third round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. (photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

The short par-5 second hole at Pebble Beach generally plays as the easiest hole on the course, but a stubbed 5-iron approach and a woeful performance on the green left Spieth with a bogey six, on a hole that players expect to birdie, and which, in fact, played nearly a half-stroke under par in the third round.

He appeared to set things right with birdies at the par-four 4th, where he drove just short of the green, chipped up to 7 feet below the hole and sank the putt; at the long par-five 6th, where he just missed an eagle three from the right-hand greenside bunker; and at the notorious par-four 9th, where a beautiful approach shot from 110 yards set him up for an 8-foot below-the-hole birdie putt.

Then came the turn. Strictly speaking Pebble makes the turn between 10 and 11, reversing course from SSW to NNW, and on days like today, turns into the chill, blustery wind. Pebble’s tenth hole, the final stanza in the three-hole stretch of rigorous par-4s that the late, great sportswriter Dan Jenkins dubbed “Abalone Corner”, is frequently to be found in the #1 spot when the course handicap is tallied—as it did today, playing to a stroke average of 4.209.

Number Ten started the string of holes where Spieth gave back the birdies he had earned on holes 4 through 9, with bogeys at 10, 12, and 14. Bad shots, bad judgment, and what appeared to be a growing level of confusion as to how hard to rap his putts set him back to where he had been when he walked off of #2—plus-1 on the day, and looking up at the top of the leaderboard from a few steps below where he had started in the morning.

Then came 16. One hundred and sixty-odd yards out in the fairway, two strokes behind Daniel Berger, wind in from the right and a bit of mud on the ball. He took eight iron, and slung it up and into that quartering wind and, in his words, “…kind of let the wind and the mud do most of the work.”

Mother Nature’s factors did a wonderful job, and as seen on the television coverage, the ball described a great tilted arc through the afternoon sky, slamming into the green about a flagstick’s length above the hole before trickling down ever so slowly, until, with its last erg of energy, it dropped into the hole for his second, and most impressive, chip-in eagle of the tournament.

Tied now with Berger, Spieth split the par-three 17th with his fellow 27-year-old, both making pars.

At 18, fate stepped in again. With Spieth in good position in the fairway, Berger’s tee ball rode that WNW wind far to the right, bouncing from turf to cart path to OB, effectively sealing his fate. Spieth laid up to a solid number short of the green, threw his approach above the hole, and two-putted his way to another 54-hole lead.

Sunday’s weather is forecast to be cool, dry, and breezy, with the winds increasing in the afternoon—the usual pattern. Speaking after Saturday’s round, Spieth sounded prepared for what he, and the rest of the field, will be facing in the final round:

“…it’s almost two different golf courses when the wind blows out here with that kind of out and in. But I think it’s a good lesson for tomorrow that there’s going to be some … guys are going to make runs and I just got to stay really patient, recognize that setting a goal for myself and sticking to it is important because things can change quickly out here.”

Like when your playing partner ties it up by slinging a banana-ball from 160 yards out for an eagle-two with two holes to play. Just ask Daniel Berger.

Young guns rule after 36 holes at 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

After the first round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was played under a gloomy grey overcast, blue skies predominated for most of the day on the Monterey Peninsula during Round 2, but at the cost of breezy conditions. At Spyglass Hill, where 14 of 18 holes are sheltered by the massive pines and cypress trees of the Del Monte Forest, the average score increased by less than a full stroke from Day 1 to Day 2, but at Pebble Beach Golf Links, which runs in a narrow out-and-back band right along the shore of Carmel Bay, the scoring average jumped by a little over two strokes.

Pebble Beach, California – February 12: Jordan Spieth on the eighth tee at Spyglass Hill in the second round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)

Statistically speaking, players who drew Pebble in Round 1 and Spyglass Hill in Round 2 enjoyed a one-stroke advantage over those who went the other way, a fact that is borne out by the composition of the top of the leaderboard after 36 holes. Of the 13 players between 1st place and T8, 11 played Pebble/Spy. After a lot of adding and subtracting and squinting at the numbers, the conclusion that comes out of all this is that Spyglass is harder than Pebble, but Pebble gets harder, by more, when the wind blows.

Another conclusion that jumps out from a long, hard look at the scoreboard is that the young guns are pretty much in charge of this tournament.

Of those top 13 players I mentioned before, one is 19 years old, five are in their 20s, five are in their 30s, and two geezer-codger 40-somethings snuck in there when no one was looking. Looking at the full field, players in their 40s that finished above the cut line were as rare as affordable housing in Carmel; Jim Furyk, at 50, is the elder statesman of the weekend crew, followed by 49-year-old Brian Gay. Furyk’s position comes as little surprise, though; he won the PGA Tour Champions event here last September, taking home a little more than what a two-way tie for 5th will net this weekend.

The name at the top of the leaderboard today, Jordan Spieth, is one that was much spoken of coming into this tournament. Spieth wowed PGA Tour fans and sent the golf-betting tyros back to their spreadsheets last week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open when he went 67–67–61 before losing the plot and closing with a 1-over 72. Despite the stumble in the final lap, that performance showed that his long search for the game that abandoned him after seeing him to eleven wins in his first four years on Tour, including three majors, is finally bearing fruit.

On the strength of the showing in Phoenix, and keeping in mind that he is a past champion of this event, in 2017, there were high hopes for his performance this week. After closing out the first round with a more-than-respectable 65 at Pebble Beach, which was still three strokes behind 18-hole leader Patrick Cantlay’s record-tying 62, Spieth backed it up with the low round of the day today, on either course, a 5-under 67 at Spyglass Hill, for a two-day tally of 12-under.

First-round leader Cantlay found Spyglass Hill a more difficult proposition than Spieth did, having a much tougher day there than he did on Thursday at Pebble. After opening his round with a double-bogey six at the 10th hole, he could only set three birdies against the double and two bogeys, to card a 1-over 73, leaving him leaning heavily on his first-round 62 to keep him within three strokes of the new leader, Spieth.

The third twenty-something in the top four is 27-year-old Daniel Berger. Playing the tougher Spyglass/Pebble draw, Berger managed to better his first-round score by a stroke at Pebble, even in the breezy conditions, bucking the trend that saw Pebble play two strokes more difficult today, on average, than it had on Thursday. His 67-66–133 sees him in second-place behind Spieth, whom he will join in the final grouping, along with third-place Henrik Norlander, tomorrow.

The other Spyglass/Pebble player who bucked the scoring trend today was Paul Casey, who posted 68-67–135 to share T4 with Cantlay, fellow Brit Tom Lewis, and Scotsman Russell Knox. Casey also bucked the youth trend as the only player over 40 sitting T4 or better after 36 holes.

Rounding out the under-30s at the top end of the scoreboard are Stanford alum Maverick McNealy, 25, and 19-year-old Akshay Bhatia, of Wake Forest, North Carolina.

McNealy, the oldest son of Silicon Valley tech legend and Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, put together rounds of 68 and 69 at Pebble Beach and Spyglass, respectively; at 7-under he heads into the weekend five strokes back of leader Spieth.

Bhatia, who joined an elite group that includes Jack Nicklaus and Davis Love III when he hit all 18 greens in regulation at Pebble Beach in the first round, found Spyglass Hill a tougher row to hoe in Round 2, carding a 1-over 73 to put up against his first-round 64. Bhatia and McNealy are tied with Americans Brian Stuard, Nate Lashley, and Tom Hoge, and 46-year-old Aussie Cameron Percy, in 8th place going into the weekend.

With no amateurs in the event this year, and only two courses in play, the usual 54-hole cut is by the board, and Saturday and Sunday will see all 69 players remaining in the field playing Pebble Beach Golf Links both days. Saturday’s forecast is for intermittent light-to-moderate rain in the morning, clearing but turning breezy in the afternoon—conditions that do not bode well for players who are hoping to make a move up the leaderboard before the final round.

Dustin who? Patrick Cantlay leads after a record-tying first round at Pebble Beach

Sixty-two is a magical number in golf. Maybe not as magical as 59, but when you put up a 62 at Pebble Beach in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, you’re in pretty good company, sharing that distinction with the likes of Tom Kite and David Duval. Patrick Cantlay did it today in the first round, putting up the kind of stats that generally result in a spot atop the leaderboard: 16 greens in regulation, 18 putts, leading the field in strokes gained tee-to-green, and T4 in strokes gained putting.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 11: Patrick Cantlay of the United States plays a shot from a bunker on the fourth hole during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links on February 11, 2021 in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Another record-tying performance was turned in today by 19-year-old  Akshay Bhatia, who joined Jack Nicklaus, Peter Jacobsen, Tom Lehman, Davis Love III, and Ryan Palmer on the roster of players who have hit all 18 greens in regulation in a round at Pebble Beach. Bhatia, a native of Northridge, California, currently resides in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He was an accomplished junior player who played on winning Junior Presidents Cup and Junior Ryder Cup teams before deciding to pass up college golf and turn pro.

Bhatia, who weighs in at a wispy 6-feet tall and 130 pounds and may be in trouble if the winds pick up over the weekend, capitalized on his record-tying tee-to-green performance, posting a final score of 64 to close out the day tied for second with Swede Henrik Norlander.

Another player who has the eyes of the golf world watching him closely this week is Jordan Spieth. The young Texan, who notched up 11 wins in his first four years on Tour, including three majors, has been laboring under the twin burdens of a two-way miss off the tee and an on-and-off ice-cold putter, resulting in a winless drought since his 2017 Open Championship victory at Royal Birkdale. 

Spieth raised the hopes of his fans last week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, posting a third-round 61 at TPC Scottsdale after opening with a pair of 67s. Tied for the 54-hole lead with Southern California’s Xander Schauffele, Spieth couldn’t muster the magic on WMPO Sunday, staggering home in 1-over 72 to finish T4, his best finish since his solo 3rd-place at the 2018 Masters, and one of only eight top-ten performances in that time.

Today at Pebble Spieth showed some more of the spark that was on display through 54 holes last week, carding a 7-under 65 on the strength of six birdies and an eagle against a lone bogey, the result of three putts on the notoriously difficult eighth hole. The eagle came two holes later, when his approach from 113 yards out landed just past the hole, checked up, rolled back, and dropped in the hole for a two. Spieth currently sits T-4, three strokes behind Patrick Cantlay.

Overnight rain in the area is expected to clear off before sunrise tomorrow, with Friday forecast to be partly cloudy and slightly breezy, with even windier conditions anticipated for the weekend. The wind is Pebble’s best defense against low scores, so we may not see any repeats of today’s record-tying performances.

Don’t give up on the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

 Circumstances have really piled it on to the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Public health restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic mean that there will be no fans allowed on the property this year. There will be no amateurs—celebrities or CEOs— playing in the event, and the resulting reduction in the size of the field means that the scenic Monterey Peninsula Country Club Shore Course will be left out of the mix, leaving just the pros to duke it out on Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill. Not only that, but the field is not just lacking star power of the celebrity kind; for the most part the stars of the golf world are staying away, too.

Still, for the fans watching from home—which is all of them—there are still a lot of reasons to tune in Thursday through Friday. With a polar vortex and yet another oddly named winter storm pounding much of the country east of the Rockies, the prospect of seeing golf being played on your TV set against the backdrop of the picturesque coastal scenery of the Monterey Peninsula isn’t a bad thing to look forward to.

Of course, the weather is always a consideration here in Steinbeck Country in early February—they don’t call it “Crosby Weather” for nothing—but the forecast as I am writing this is calling for a chance of rain Thursday after sundown, partly cloudy skies Friday, another chance of rain Saturday, and partly cloudy conditions again on Sunday. Compared to the deep freeze most of the country is being subjected to, this forecast is heavenly.

But who are the fans going to be seeing this week? One of the criticisms that has been leveled at this year’s event is a less-than-stellar gathering of golf talent. The tournament could initially lay claim to only one player in the Top 10 of the World Golf Rankings, World No. 1 Dustin Johnson, a two-time winner of this event; the next highest ranked players in the field were #11, Patrick Cantlay; #15, Daniel Berger; and #17, Paul Casey.

With ranking points available in the event determined by the strength of the field, and Pebble’s points running down in the low 30s, the tournament was starting to look like an opposite-field event—one of those also-ran tournaments like the Puerto Rico Open or Puntacana that are put on against a WGC event to give the “other” players something to do that weekend.

The dearth of higher-ranked players can be partially attributed to the absence of the CEOs and other high-rolling hotshots that make this tournament a top-tier networking event. Pebble has always been a draw for Tour players who are on the lookout for corporate sponsorships to carry them over those hard times when the top-ten finishes aren’t coming thick and fast. The fact that Pebble is followed in short order by the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club, an event sponsored by Tiger Woods; and a WGC event in Florida is another excuse—oh, I mean reason—that has been cited by some of the higher-ranking players for taking this week off.

And then the somewhat weak field at this year’s event got even weaker with the withdrawal of Dustin Johnson, who cited jet-lag and a need to rest after winning a European Tour event in Saudi Arabia the previous weekend. Johnson’s withdrawal dropped the OWGR points for Pebble to 30—an all-time low.

Still, there are a number of players in the field that have drawing power for even the casual golf fan. Phil Mickelson, who shares the record for most wins in the event, at five, with Mark O’Meara, will be there. Jordan Spieth, who last week in Phoenix showed some of the fire that powered him to 11 wins in his first four years on Tour, including three majors: the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015, and the Open Championship in 2017, is in the field. Former World # 1 Jason Day, who has placed T5 or better in five of his last six starts in this tournament, is back, along with 2018 Open Championship winner Francesco Molinari. Both are looking to break long-running winless streaks. Perennial fan favorite Rickie Fowler is making his first appearance in the AT&T Pro-Am since 2012.

For Bay Area golf fans the chance to see some locally familiar names is also a draw. Former Stanford Men’s Golf standouts Patrick Rodgers, Maverick McNealy, and Joseph Bramlett are in the field, along with former Cal players Max Homa, and James Hahn, and San Jose State Men’s Golf alum Mark Hubbard.

It’s been a tough year since the previous AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but I trust that the event that has weathered World War II, hail storms, tornados, and even a snow delay in 1962, will still put on a great show for golf fans this week.

PGA Tour season opens in the Napa Valley under orange-tinted skies

 Advocates of a PGA Tour off-season got no satisfaction this week as the 2020–2021 season opener got underway at Napa’s Silverado Resort and Spa on Thursday – hard on the heels of the Labor Day Monday finish of the 2019–2020 Fedex Cup final.

Ominous orange-tinted skies brought back memories of the 2018 event, which closed out its final day in blustery conditions that, later in the evening, played a part in igniting wildfires in the nearby hills that swept across the tournament venue destroying at least one grandstand complex. Though not directly threatened by any of the wildfires currently raging across the state of California, the Napa area, like much of Northern California, is suffering the worst air-quality conditions the region has ever experienced.

This year’s field for the event is a disparate collection of young guns and established stars, with a healthy dose of major winners—Sergio Garcia, Jordan Spieth, Jim Furyk, Shane Lowry, Charl Schwartzel, Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, and the ubiquitous Phil Mickelson (whose representing agency, Lagardère Sports, is the event organizer), and one former World Number One, Luke Donald.

You had to look a ways down the leaderboard after the first round to see any of those names, however, as Schwartzel, the 2014 Master champion, Shane Lowry, 2019 Open champion, and Keegan Bradley, the 2013 PGA champion, had the best first rounds of their major-winning peers, all opening at T11 with 4-under 68s.

Dufner and Mickelson were next among the major winners in the field at 2-under and 1-under, respectively, while none of the rest managed to break par: Garcia and Furyk at even par; and Jordan Spieth, whose struggles continue into the new season, at 1-over. Luke Donald, whose tenure as World #1 lasted for a mere four weeks in 2012, struggled to 6-over 78.

The leader after Round One was Scotsman Russell Knox, who opened with a clean-card 9-under 63 on the 7,203-yard North Course at Silverado, followed by Sam Burns, Bo Hoag, and Cameron Percy, all one shot back at 8-under. Two-time Safeway Open champ Brendan Steele opened with what for him was a typical opening round on the wine-country course, a 7-under 65. The 2017 and 2018 champion in the event carded opening rounds of 67 and 65 in his recent back-to-back victories here.

Mix of old hands and newbies top Round 3 leaderboard at PGA Championship

A mix of experienced “old hands” and fresh-faced newbies crowded the top of the leaderboard after an exciting Round 3 at the 2020 PGA Championship at San Francisco’s TPC Harding Park Golf Course. Among them are NorCal native Cameron Champ, of Sacramento, and former Cal Men’s Golf standout Collin Morikawa, a native of Los Angeles.

Sacramento native Cameron Champ is in contention for his first major-tournament title in the 2020 PGA Championship title at TPC Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco.(Photo by Christian Petersen/PGA of America/PGA of America via Getty Images)

Morikawa, who started the day at two under par, shared low-round-of-the-day honors with 54-hole leader Dustin Johnson and runner-up Scottie Scheffler. His seven-under score after three rounds was good for a T4 finish, which he shares with England’s Paul Casey and 2018 and 2019 PGA defending champion Brooks Koepka.

Cameron Champ opened the current PGA season with an emotional victory at the Safeway Open last October, dedicating the win to his grandfather, Mack, who passed away from cancer soon after the tournament. Morikawa and Champ will be play together tomorrow in the second-to-last pairing, behind Dustin Johnson (-9) and Scottie Scheffler (-8).

Scheffler, 24, of Dallas, has a place in Northern California golf history himself, having won the 2013 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at Martis Camp Resort in Truckee.

The late stages of today’s third round resembled a game of Whack-A-Mole as players rose through the rankings only to be knocked back down by poor play or just plain bad breaks. The changeable Lake Merced-area weather had the players contending with wind, then calm, then increasing misty and chilly conditions that sapped distance from tee shots, demonstrating that the bucolic Arcadian beauty of the lakeside region can conceal an iron fist in its foggy velvet glove.

Second-round leader Haotong Li found tree trouble off the tee at the 13th hole when one of the notorious Monterey Cypress trees that line the Harding Park fairways grabbed his ball and kept it, as they sometimes do. The resulting double-bogey was followed by a bogey on #14, and another at #16, the drivable par-4 on the Lake Merced shoreline. Five dropped shots and two birdies left him with a 3-over 73, and 5-over, T13, going into the final round.

Brooks Koepka, who unlike Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth, is going into the final round with a shot at a new line in the history books for a third consecutive PGA Championship, got a big dose of “leaderboard gravity” with a string of bogeys on holes 13, 14, and 15. Only a well-executed birdie on #18, the result of a 170-yard approach shot to six feet above the hole, and the clutch birdie putt that followed, pulled him out of an eventual six-way cluster of players at six-under.

Arguably leading that group of six-under finishers sitting T7 after 54 holes is Clovis, California’s, Bryson DeChambeau. The former SMU golfer won the 2015 USGA Amateur Championship, and was NCAA champion as a junior, but dropped out before his senior year and turned pro when SMU was suspended from NCAA championship competitions for recruiting violations.

DeChambeau posted a 4-under 66 today to finish the third round at six under par. Known for his length off the tee after undertaking a “bulking-up” regimen of weightlifting and protein shakes during the PGA Tour’s hiatus, it was, ironically, a 95-foot putt from the front edge of the 18th green that was the highlight of his round today, for a final birdie that lifted him into the top dozen finishers after 54 holes.

Final-round play gets underway tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. local time, with online coverage on ESPN+ beginning at 10 a.m., switching to ESPN online and on television at noon, with CBS-TV taking over from ESPN at 3 p.m.

Record hopes still alive for Woods, Koepka, and Spieth in PGA Championship

The three players I highlighted in my pre-tournament story, Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, and Jordan Spieth—all of whom were coming into this week’s PGA Championship with a line in the history books hanging on a win this week—are all still alive, so to speak, in the pursuit of their respective accomplishments. But much like what Magic Max said of The Dread Pirate Roberts—“It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead, … mostly dead is slightly alive.”—there are varying degrees of “still alive”.

Brooks Koepka, the 2018 and 2019 PGA champion, is in good position to successfully defend his title going into the final two days of the tournament.

 (Photo by Darren Carroll/PGA of America)

Tiger Woods, who is chasing the PGA Tour all-time wins record and a co-leader spot on the all-time PGA Championship wins podium; and Jordan Spieth, who would lay claim to the Career Grand Slam with a win this week, just scraped their way into the weekend today.

Tiger, after an opening-round 68 in which he made nearly 115 feet of putts with the backup Scotty Cameron putter he brought out for the occasion, couldn’t buy a putt today; his Strokes Gained-Putting score dropped from 1.249 to -1.671. He hit more fairways—nine of 14, vice seven yesterday—but fewer greens; indeed, his SG scores were worse across the board except for off the tee. He scraped into the weekend at even par, one stroke to spare against the +1 cut line, and unless the Big Cat scares up a Big Change in his game on Saturday and Sunday his pursuit of those records will have to wait for another weekend, and another year, respectively.

Jordan Spieth, on the other hand, who cut it even more fine, making the cut on the number with rounds of 73 and 68, saw an uptick in his play today. His stats improved across the board, compared to Thursday—he gained 3.3 strokes on the field today, overall—and a lone bogey at the par-four 18th hole was the sole black mark on his round. Still, going into the weekend trailing the leader, China’s Haotong Li, by nine strokes, and with 57 guys above him on the leaderboard,  his chances of eking out a win aren’t looking good.

And then there’s Brooks Koepka. The man who has won more majors (four) than regular PGA Tour events (three) saw his game dip a bit today, but rounds of 66 and 68 put him squarely in the pack of six players who are two strokes back of the 36-hole leader, Li. Koepka was getting on-course work done by his trainer during today’s round, for a tight adductor muscle—“It’s no problem,” he said in a post-round interview—and his stats slipped across the board from Thursday to Friday, Tee-to-Green and Putting most significantly. 

All three played early-late for the first two days of the tournament, and the extent to which the afternoon conditions—generally windier, and with greens firmed up by a day’s worth of sun (mild, San Francisco-by-the-sea sun, but still sun…)—affected their results is open to speculation. Tiger and Spieth will be going off earlier on Saturday; 9:50 and 8:40 a.m., respectively; but Koepka, with his high finish over the opening two days, will again be playing in the afternoon, with a 2:40 start time. With no significant changes in the weather forecast being predicted, those early start times may prove to be the more favorable.

Still, it’s Koepka, with a red “-6” next to his name on the scoreboard going into the weekend, and a history of coming from behind in majors—he was three shots back going into the final round in five of his last eight majors, and finished outside of the Top 10 in all but two—who stands the best chance of coming out of this weekend with the Wanamaker Trophy, and another line in the history books, in hand.

Who’s chasing history at the 2020 PGA Championship?

The circumstances under which the 2020 PGA Championship is being played—a global pandemic, no spectators on course, a timeframe reversal back to its usual August time slot, and a first-time appearance at an iconic San Francisco venue—are enough to afford the event a highlighted spot in the golf history books. Beyond those circumstances, though, there are three players in the field this week who are chasing history above and beyond a single major championship victory: Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth.

(Image © 2020 Christian Petersen/PGA of America)

Coming into the tournament Woods stands on the threshold of an all-time wins record with the possibility of breaking his tie with Sam Snead at 82 total victories, and maybe even more significant than that, a win in San Francisco this weekend would bring him one step closer to equaling Jack Nicklaus’ major victories record.

Woods tied Snead’s long-standing record of 82 PGA Tour victories in grand fashion in 2019 when he recorded his fifth Masters win after a 14-year drought in the event; the 2019 Masters chop also moved Woods one step closer to sharing the top step on the all-time major-victories podium with Jack Nicklaus, marking his 15th major victory—three less than Nicklaus, with 18; and four more than Walter Hagen, who with 11 majors is the only other member of the double-digit-wins club in professional majors. A win this week would also elevate Woods to the top step of the “PGA Championship wins” podium, which he would share with Nicklaus and Hagen.

Another player who will be spotlighted this week for the potential of an historic achievement is Brooks “Mr Majors” Koepka. With two consecutive PGA Championship victories in his pocket, Koepka is going for a hat trick this week, and while not a record, a win at Harding Park would make him only the second player, after Walter Hagen, to take the PGA Championship title three years running.

Hagen, by the way, was PGA champion four years running, 1924 – 1927, after having won it in 1921. The cup awarded to the winner, the Wanamaker Trophy, mysteriously disappeared after his 1927 victory at Cedar Crest Country Club, in Dallas; Hagen claimed that he gave it to a cabbie to deliver to his hotel. Leo Diegel, who won the PGA Championship in ’28 and ’29; and Tommy Armour, the 1930 champ, had to make do with a firm handshake and a smile from then-PGA president Alex Pirie.

The trophy resurfaced in the fall of 1930, a few months after that year’s event, when workers clearing a warehouse in Detroit found the massive silver cup in a trunk. The owner of the warehouse? The Walter Hagen Company. Hmmm…

Last but not least comes Jordan Spieth, who is chasing probably the most elusive of the potential records that are in the mix this week on the shores of Lake Merced—the Career Grand Slam.

Spieth jumpstarted his run at this career goal in 2015, his third year on the Tour, when he took home the Masters and the U.S. Open titles and served notice that the others were within his grasp with a T4 finish in the British Open at St Andrews, and solo second, three strokes back of Jason Day, in the PGA at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits.

After a T2 finish in the 2016 Masters, the result of an infamous meltdown at the 12th hole, Spieth went into something of a tailspin where the majors were concerned; he didn’t crack the Top 10 again in any of the Big Four until the British in 2017, where he edged the majorless Matt Kuchar for the win at Royal Birkdale.

Since that time, however, Spieth has sputtered. His record in the majors in the interim ranges from a third-place finish in the 2018 Masters to a T65 at last year’s U.S. Open, just down the coast from Harding Park at Pebble Beach Golf Links, with only two other top-ten finishes in that time. He hasn’t won a regular PGA Tour event since the 2017 Travelers Championship, and is 12-for-49 for top-10 finishes since 2018.

Still—coming to the shores of Lake Merced for the first West Coast PGA Championship since Sahalee, in the Seattle area, in 1998; and the first in California since the 1977 event at Pebble Beach Golf Links; and with Masters, U.S. Open, and British Open titles to his credit, the 27-year-old Dallas native has his sights set on the tournament he needs to win to put that last notch in his tally stick.

“It’s probably the No. 1 goal in the game of golf for me right now…. I’d love to be able to hold all four trophies, and this is the one that comes in the way right now.”

– Jordan Spieth 

Spieth is already keeping company with some pretty big names, men who lack just one of the four majors in their CVs —

• Walter Hagen, Masters
• Lee Trevino, Masters
• Tommy Armour, Masters
• Sam Snead, U.S. Open
• Phil Mickelson, U.S. Open
• Byron Nelson, British Open
• Tom Watson, PGA Championship
• Arnold Palmer, PGA Championship

—and a win this week at Harding Park will vault him into even more illustrious company, that of the five men who have claimed each of golf’s major titles at least once: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen.