“Playing Dirty”, by Joel Beall – a “compare-and-contrast” examination of the current state of the game of golf ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆

Playing Dirty, by Golf Digest senior writer Joel Beall, is the newest book from the golf specialty publisher Back Nine Press. An intriguing mix of thoroughly researched investigative journalism and golf sentimentalism of the Golf in the Kingdom school of golf writing, it is a “compare-and-contrast” exercise between what might be seen as two wholly unrelated aspects of the game of golf.

The book combines a hard-news journalistic examination of the current state of men’s professional golf, specifically the effects of the influx of Saudi investment, with a somewhat dreamy-eyed look into the experience of the game as (when?) played in its ancestral homeland, Scotland. While I am myself essentially immune to the more spiritual side, if you will, of the golf experience, I deplore the grotesquely cynical approach that has been taken by the professional players who have taken the Saudi shekel, of which Joel Beall offers a concise examination.

The portions of the book that deal with the current kerfluffle in the men’s professional game are thorough, well presented, and obviously well researched—and while I for one have grown somewhat weary of reading about Saudi Arabia, the PIF, LIV Golf, and the current state of the seemingly unending negotiations between the PGA Tour and the golf-obsessed Saudi money-man Yasir Al-Rumayyan, I found a smile creeping across my face as I read the sections in Chapter 3 in which Beall skewers the LIV Golf membership, their tournament format, and the twisted rationalizations employed by the men who have taken Saudi blood money to participate in these farcical exhibitions; in these opinions we are brothers.

“LIV is a moral crisis masquerading as a golf league.”

   – Joel Beall, Playing Dirty

(You will note that I specifically define the affected aspect of the game as men’s professional golf, because for all the bandying about of the well-worn phrase “growing the game” in LIV Golf communications and the scripted diatribes delivered by LIV Golf members, it is only men’s professional golf that is affected. There is no aspect of this issue that has any impact whatsoever on the recreational game of golf as it is played by millions of people all over the world, beyond, perhaps, arguments over post-round drinks.

Not only that, but a clear-eyed assessment of the supposed “rupture” of men’s professional golf can only come to the conclusion that it is a tempest in a teapot, an over-reaction by Jay Monahan and the PGA Tour leadership to the departure of a handful of mostly fading former stars and the pick-up of some unproven newbies who lacked confidence in their abilities to make the grade in the meritocracy-based pro game as it is played on the PGA Tour.)

As for the other side of the coin: the “hie me away to the misty links” portions of the book, well, this is the bread and butter of the folks at Back Nine Press and an area where our viewpoints diverge somewhat (see my review of their 2022 release Swing, Walk, Repeat by Jay Revell.)

Beall hits the reader with this stuff right from the get-go, in the introduction, starting up with the story of an itinerant seeker-after-truth named Hess (“just Hess”) who dabbles in real estate and personal training to support his true purpose in life—playing golf. This side of the book segues into examinations of, among other things: the differences between golf in the United States and in Scotland, caddies, lists of the greatest golf courses in Scotland, descriptions of the aforementioned great courses (and others that didn’t quite make the cut), the joys of and proper ways to conduct a Scottish golf pilgrimage, etc., etc., etc. …

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to take my golf clubs to Scotland. It is, after all, the land of (some of) my ancestors, the origin of my surname, and the birthplace of the game—and I have enough of a sense of history to acknowledge the importance of that last fact. What wears me down is the insistence on attributing an air of mystical importance to the experience, a practice which I attribute to a man with whom I share a hometown—fellow Salinas, California native Michael Murphy, the author of the aforementioned Golf in the Kingdom.

Murphy’s book originated the idea of “golf’s mystical journey”, perhaps as a counterpoint to the aspirational country-club ideal of golf as the game was interpreted when it came to the United States. While golf is an everyman’s game in Scotland, and despite the fact that 75% of the golf courses in this country are open to the public either as daily-fee or municipal facilities, the non-golfing public-at-large in the United States view golf as an elitist, members-only activity for RWMs (Rich White Men). It is an image that has proven to be difficult to shake, and in the wake of the popularity of Michael Murphy’s pretentious little tome, many a golf writer has swung that pendulum to the other extreme, extolling the mystical, soul-healing qualities of this crazy game especially when played in Scotland.

Despite my impatience with tales of healing journeys to the mystical homeland of golf, I recognize the counterpoint comparison that the author is making in this book when he contrasts that side of the game, as pursued and experienced by devoted amateurs, to the cynical and unholy, if you will, pursuit of more money than a person could reasonably want or need, by professional golfers.

In Playing Dirty Joel Beall has, I believe, drawn a thoughtful comparison between two widely disparate aspects of the game of golf, contrasting the pursuit of the pure enjoyment of the game by devoted (if somewhat obsessive?) amateurs with the stubbornly obdurate pursuit of obscene wealth, in total disregard of the moral objections to the source of that wealth, by professional players who have, in many cases, already profited enormously from their ability to play this maddening game at a high level.

This book captures a snapshot of the current landscape of the game of golf which will be appreciated by thoughtful students of the game, and looked to, I think, by future scholars of the history of golf.

Does men’s pro golf really need “reunification”?

There have been plenty of social media posts made and column inches written in the golf magazines lately on the issue of healing the rift in men’s professional golf. In a recent Golf.com article, Adam Scott is quoted as saying that a “reunification[1]” agreement whereby LIV Golf defectors[2] would be welcomed back to play PGA Tour events is one way forward. Flip-flop king Rory McIlroy has gone on record saying that reunification would be “the best thing for everyone”[3]—but does the men’s professional game really need the players who have signed on with the Saudi-backed league to come back to the mainstream fold? What is there to be gained from it?

The Saudi pick-up league, initially headed up by the perennially butt-hurt Greg Norman, lured players with promises of big paychecks, which they delivered on, and OWGR points so that LIV players could still earn their way into the four men’s majors, which they have not delivered on. This classic bait-and-switch played on the “have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too” mentality of entitled and/or desperate pro golfers, some of whom may in the near future be looking back wistfully on the good old days scrambling to make cuts and a paycheck.

Let’s look at a few of the golfers who play for LIV Golf and what they bring to professional golf. We’ll start with the chief rabble-rouser:

Phil Mickelson – Fan favorite, multiple-event winner, record-holder for the oldest ever to win a major championship, FIGJAM Phil (as he is known around the Tour) has won more money on the golf course (and lost more betting on sports, including golf) than most people would earn in a dozen lifetimes, but he has for years been at odds with the PGA Tour leadership on the subject of money. As in, why don’t the players, who provide the content, get more of the cash that the Tour rakes in from TV rights, video content, etc.?

Phil raised a storm of controversy when he phoned golf writer Alan Shipnuck in May 2022 and bared his breast concerning his decision to throw in his lot with Greg Norman in his Tour-busting alliance with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf League. The storm increased in intensity when he back-pedaled, whining that the conversation had been off the record (reader, it wasn’t–gkm). He allowed as how the Saudis were “scary motherf**kers” to work with, but he was going that route in order to gain leverage to try to squeeze more gelt out of the PGA Tour (in much the same manner, I imagine, as his bookies might have been putting the squeeze on him to settle his gambling debts.)

Aside from his record-breaking 2021 PGA Championship victory, which truly was a performance for the ages, Phil had been increasingly fading into a non-presence, last playing any non-major events on the PGA Tour in late 2021 and 2022, making only one cut out of three cut events – a T-36 finish at what was then the Fortinet Championship. He hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in his time playing LIV Golf’s team scramble format, either, carding only two Top 10 individual finishes since 2023.

So, does the PGA Tour need to bring this contentious, antagonistic, aging member of the over-the-hill-club back into the fold?

Dustin Johnson – DJ, as he is known, may be the quintessential laid-back, no-worries guy. Long of limb and stride, and long off the tee, Johnson was also fading in the stats when he accepted the Saudi gelt. In his last season playing non-major Tour events he managed two Top 10 finishes and eight cuts made in 10 cut events—not exactly covering himself in glory.

Other issues have clouded Johnson’s PGA Tour career, such as a six-month suspension in 2014 for drug use (marijuana, cocaine), and at the best of times it has seemed that the slow-walking, slow-talking (slow-thinking?) South Carolina native is only out there playing golf as an easy (for him…) way to make a lot of money and support a laid-back Low Country lifestyle. His LIV Golf record is no barn-burner, either, with two wins and eight Top 10 individual finishes in the first two full seasons.

Brooks Koepka – Brooks started his pro career in 2012 busting his hump on the Challenge Tour, the (then) European Tour’s equivalent of the minor leagues. He traveled so much that he had to have extra visa pages added to his passport, won several events, and in 2014 stepped up to the PGA Tour. He enjoyed success, if somewhat focused, in the big league of golf – his nine wins include back-to-back U.S Opens in 2017 and 2018, two Phoenix Open wins (2015, 2021) and three PGA Championship titles (2018, 2019, 2023) with the last coming after he kissed Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s ring in 2022, hauled a wheelbarrow-load of money home, and put the PGA Tour in his rearview mirror.

I remember when Brooks was a humble, soft-spoken newbie on the PGA Tour, telling the assembled media at the 2014 Fry’s.com Open about eating horse meat in Kazakhstan, and other tales of the Challenge Tour, in between going through the shots of his tournament-leading second and third rounds. No one could have been more surprised than I was when he morphed into a brash, prickly “big name” in pro golf with a fragile ego and more major wins than regular tournament victories. Koepka has played consistently well since jumping ship, with five Top 10 finishes in 2023 and four in the 2024 season – but would PGA Tour fans (or PGA Tour members) welcome him back?

Patrick Reed – Reed has been a lightning rod for controversy over the years. He came up as a hard-scrabble Monday qualifier, playing his way into six PGA tour events in 2013 to earn his card for the 2014 season, but controversy has haunted his footsteps from the beginning. There were hints, and later outright accusations from his Augusta State teammates, of cheating and marginal off-course behavior, and both on- and off-course controversy in his years on the PGA tour. There was the “embedded ball” incident at Torrey Pines in 2021, his “Captain America” schtick at the Ryder Cup matches over the years, and his wife, Justine, ran a (then) Twitter account called @useGolfFACTS which was a badly disguised Patrick Reed propaganda account. His LIV Golf record is in the upper echelon, with five Top 10 finishes in 2023 and three in the 2024 season, but perhaps the jump to a guaranteed prize, Sunday-scramble, team golf format league has taken the shine off of his “Captain America” persona.

Bryson DeChambeau – What can I say about Bryson DeChambeau that hasn’t been said by scores?[4]Sure, he has won two U.S Opens – the first, in 2020, by dint of a show of bomb-and-gouge golf that gave the lie to the “just grow the rough really deep” school of thought when it comes to reining in modern-day bulked-up big hitters; and the second, just last year at a woefully overmatched Pinehurst #2, by playing well and waiting for Rory McIlroy to make a mistake (which, sadly, he did).

Quirky, mouthy, prone to using (and misusing) big words that most golf fans (and golf writers) don’t understand anyway, DeChambeau has always reminded me of that one nerdy only child with social-skills issues that we all knew when we were kids – the one who spent a lot of time around grownups, vying for their attention by showing off his awkward braininess. A physics major at Southern Methodist University who dropped out after his junior year[5], he was nicknamed “The Scientist” for his meticulous, technical approach to golf, but as a career mechanical engineer with an actual degree to my name I can tell you that a good 50% of the “technical content” he spouts is nonsense.

The quirky kid from Clovis, in California’s Central Valley, is a YouTube star now, embracing video sensationalism to “build his brand” as the kids say these days, and was a fan favorite while still on the PGA Tour. Fans might welcome home back to the home of real competitive golf – but does he deserve it?

Jon Rahm – Let’s wrap it up with the Big Man from Arizona State, the guy who told the world that he had made plenty of money and was staying with the PGA Tour, the organization that had made him, like it had the other players profiled above, a multi-millionaire. (By show of hands, who thinks that his representation team were negotiating with the Saudis at the very moment that he said this?) It has been reported that Rahm, whose physical size (6' 2", 220 pounds) is apparently matched by the size of his ego, has flattered himself that his jump to the Saudi golf league with a contract worth $300 million would be the impetus that would heal the schism and make men’s professional golf one big happy family again, though the last 20 months of ongoing negotiations between the Tour and LIV Golf representatives give the lie to that thought. Can the bitter taste that his “surprise” money-grab exit left in the mouths of players and fans be washed away sufficiently to allow his return?

There are a host of others, notable and not-so, who could be put up as examples, but compiling even the brief list above has left a bad taste in my mouth.

The bottom line is, does the PGA Tour really need these guys back? Like any athletic endeavor, professional golf experiences turnover as players age out of ability, or desire to play. Is the public recognition of the fading stars, pedestrian journeymen, and struggling newcomers that currently inhabit the LIV Golf roster such that losing them to the three-ring (round) circus LIV Golf tournaments will hurt the sport as played in the traditional, and more competitive, manner that it has been for decades?

I don’t think so.

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[1] (Meaning a common competition pool for all men’s professional golf’s players across different tours or leagues, not necessarily a conjoining of the tours themselves.)

[2] (My descriptor, not his.)

[3] (By “everyone” I think he means his bank account.) 

[4] (Gold stars for those of you who recognize the reference.)

[5] (Because recruiting violations by the football staff brought a lockout of ALL SMU athletics teams from national championships for a year.)

Money talks – Rory McIlroy flips his stance on PGA Tour–LIV Golf standoff

Rory McIlroy, who became the first invertebrate[1] winner of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am a couple of weeks ago, has totally flipped, in more ways than one, from PGA Tour crusader to LIV-accepting, bootlicking Donald Trump sycophant. According to a pair of articles penned by unabashed Rory fanboy Josh Schrock at Golf.com (‘Get over it’: Rory McIlroy says PGA Tour-LIV unification works only in 1 way; ‘On the Tour’s side:’ Rory McIlroy thinks Donald Trump can help PGA Tour-PIF negotiations), McIlroy has shed his guise as stalwart defender of the PGA Tour, not only adopting a “can’t we all just get along” attitude with respect to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, but sucking up to the convicted felon who lied and hoodwinked his way into the White House for a second term (to our nation’s shame), saying that the convicted felon, failed businessman, and oligarch suck-up can help with negotiations between the PGA Tour and the LIV Golf league.

With the exception of the reigning U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau (and just typing that made me throw up in my mouth a little) few, if any, of the defectors were or are still players in the top tier of the game—and I say good riddance to them all.

The greedy pros who ditched the PGA Tour to join LIV signed on with an outfit whose goal was to destroy the tour that had, in many cases, made them multi-millionaires, joining a league that is funded by a blood-soaked, misogynistic, religio-authoritarian monarchy with one foot in the Middle Ages who see it as a way to put a good face on their heinous government by participating in international sports[2].

Rory and other LIV apologists on the PGA Tour are caving in because the Tour leadership panicked at the loss of a few big names to LIV and instituted changes that will open the way to making players who stuck with the PGA Tour even richer. (Rory himself has benefitted from these changes: as the winner of the Signature event at Pebble Beach two weeks ago, McIlroy banked a $3.6 million paycheck thanks to the now-$20 million total purse for those select events.)

And now McIlroy is sucking up to the heinous grifter and convicted felon who lied his way into the White House, again, in hopes of cementing an agreement that will put the PGA Tour in bed with not one but two criminal regimes—the Saudis and the current U.S. administration—all in the interests of padding his own already-over-stuffed bank account[3].

Some in the golf media see this attitude shift as personal “growth” on Rory’s part, viz the following quote:

“Everyone sees things through their own lens. McIlroy has  changed his opinion on a multitude of things, but that’s a sign of growth and evolution in any person. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with how the stance has changed or that the contradictions can’t be addressed.”

– Josh Schrock, Golf.com

Others, like myself, see it as giving up in the face of the realization that you are going to make a butt-ton of money no matter what happens, so why bother to push back any more?

Any number of the LIV defectors have shown a similar lack of character, notably Spaniard Jon Rahm, who very publicly declared that he was “playing for legacy, not money” and pledged to remain a PGA Tour player, until the Saudis waved a contract under his nose that has been reported[4] to be worth $300 million over several years. In a press conference after his 2022 win in the Open Championship at St Andrews, Aussie Cam Smith waved away questions about a possible move to the Saudi-backed golf league, saying that he just played golf, his “team” worries about that stuff:

Q. Cam, apologies for having to bring this up in these circumstances, but your name continues to be mentioned, has been mentioned to me this week about LIV golf. What's your position? Are you interested? Is there any truth to suggestions that you might be signing?
CAMERON SMITH: I just won the British Open, and you're asking about that. I think that’s pretty not that good.
Q. I appreciate that, but the question is still there. Are you interested at all? Is there any truth in that?
CAMERON SMITH: I don't know, mate. My team around me worries about all that stuff. I'm here to win golf tournaments.

But Cam is the one signing on the dotted line and banking all that Saudi gelt.

Ever since two big sea-change events in the world of men’s professional golf—the immense popularity of Arnold Palmer (which coincided with the advent of television coverage of golf and the influx of that sweet TV money), and the arrival of Tiger Woods on the scene, which brought step-changes in both endorsement deals and tournament purses—the game has been a road to generational wealth for those at the top of the heap. No one is saying that it’s easy—golf is still a difficult game to play well, consistently, and fields are deep, but the money is there. Not everyone achieves multi-million dollar status, of course, but a damned good living can be made by those who make it into the pro ranks, and can stay. As middle-tier pro Kevin Kisner said in an interview back in January, 2021[5], “They give away a lot of money for 20th.”

(My favorite quote on the subject of making money in professional golf comes from the great Dan Jenkins, speaking through his character Kenny Lee Puckett in his 1974 golf novel, Dead Solid Perfect: “Compared to your basic millionaire like Jack Nicklaus, I’m nobody. But I can win myself about $200,000[6] a year if I can just manage to thump the ball around with my dick.”)

The ranks of men’s professional golf have become increasingly stratified in recent years—especially in the last couple of years, as the PGA Tour’s response to the emergence of LIV Golf has been to create the Signature Events mentioned above, limited-field no-cut events with purses bumped to $20 million from the measly $9 million paid out at run-of-the-mill Tour events. Rory McIlroy and some other inhabitants of the upper tiers of the game are pushing for more separation between the Haves and the (relatively speaking) Have-Nots in the game, greedily seeking entry into the One-Percenters Club on the back of their ability to knock a little white ball into a small hole in the ground starting from hundreds of yards away, doing so in fewer strokes than can those of us who play the game for recreation.

My final word on this subject again comes from the typewriter of Dan Jenkins, speaking as Kenny Lee Puckett:

“Now if you ask me why so many people want to put up so much money for us to compete for, I can’t give you a sensible answer. There’s no law that says there has to be a golf tour. 

If all the sponsors got together and decided they were weary of seeing us every year, it would be all over. Most of us would have to sit down on the curb and learn to play the harmonica, or something.”

[1] (That is to say, spineless.)

[2] (Also known as “sportswashing”.)

[3] (Rory’s current net worth is estimated at around US $170M.)

[4] (Jon Rahm LIV Golf contract, explained: How much money does he make from LIV deal in 2024?)

[5] Kevin Kisner had a hilarious response when asked if he can win anywhere on tour, https://www.golfwrx.com/644924/kevin-kisner-had-a-hilarious-response-when-asked-if-he-can-win-anywhere-on-tour/ Jan. 14, 2021.

[6] (Quote is from the 1999 edition of the book; that number is chump change these days.)

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.)

If you are going to gripe about the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, get your facts straight.

On the Monday after the final round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a GolfWRX.com contributor named Ronald Montesano pulled up his soapbox and summed up the event, taking the opportunity to laud the absence of amateurs (thank you, COVID-19), take shots at the native Californians in the event who didn’t win, and generally pitch in his uninformed two-cents worth from a part of the country where golf courses lie sleeping under blankets of snow from October to May.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 13: Tom Hoge of the United States plays his second shot on the ninth hole during the third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links on February 13, 2021 in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

I read his piece (Berger wins at Pebble, golf world wakes up) with much head-shaking, and considered scrolling down to the Comments section to set him straight on a few points—but then I decided that I would get a bigger audience here.

This is what I have to say to Ronald: 

“You really should do some research before you sit down at your computer in the frozen tundra of Buffalo, New York and start pounding, monkey-like, at the keyboard, Ron.

“Referring to the Crosby Clambake in your latest Tour Rundown article, you wrote, ‘That event went through an evolution, from a few friends in the California desert to a move to the coast, to a short stay in North Carolina (without the PGA Tour, of course) when AT&T took over the title on tour.’ This sentence runs the gamut from grossly misconstrued to factually incorrect, so let me enlighten you.”

The Crosby Pro-Am was never held in the desert. The event that we now know as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am can trace its earliest roots to 1934, to an informal gathering of Bing’s celebrity friends at the Old Brockway Golf Course on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore. In 1937 Bing moved the get-together to Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego, where he had a house on the back nine. This is when the pro-am really 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. From the beginning of its run at Pebble Beach, the tournament was a charity event that supported local causes, and it has remained so for 75 years.

As for “…a short stay in North Carolina”, well, when AT&T took over as the presenting sponsor in 1986, dropping the Crosby name (and Crosby family involvement) from the tournament, Bing’s second wife, Kathryn Crosby, started a somewhat look-alike charity tournament in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area called the Bing Crosby National Celebrity Golf Tournament. Running from 1986 until 2001, this event did feature both amateur and professional players, but they did not play together in pro-am pairings. (Kathryn Crosby was responsible for the sell-off of the naming rights to AT&T, for a cool half-million dollars.)

Of course, in this COVID-19 year all golf tournaments have looked different, with, as of this writing, only one—the Waste Management Phoenix Open—allowing spectators (and then only a fraction of the usual number), and the Pebble Beach Pro-Am was no different.

For the first time, there were no crowds of spectators lining the fairways and clustered around the greens, and not only that, there were no amateur playing partners—so the event was a “pro-am” in name, but not in fact. Cutting down the field to just the 156 pros brought in another change from previous years—the move to two golf courses, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, leaving the third course of recent years, the Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course, off the roster.

Montesano had something to say about all this, too (another mixed bag of mostly bad takes):

“Should the amateurs return? In one word: No. We don’t love golf for the antics of the celebrities, and we don’t need to see corporate types […] play well on a big stage.”

While the 2021 event had a different look from its seventy-four predecessors, without the amateur participants it just looked like a better version of a regular PGA Tour stop (because, hey, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill). The pros might have liked the (relatively) quicker pace of play and shorter rounds, but those who play this event regularly missed the networking opportunities that the tournament has always provided—many a lucrative sponsorship or other business relationship has had its beginning in a pairing at Pebble Beach.

And sure, this is no longer the Golden Age of radio, movies, and TV, and the celebrity roster has, in recent years, lost a bit of the glamour of the past. No longer do stars of the magnitude of Phil Harris, James Garner, Jack Lemmon, and Clint Eastwood stride down the fairways during the event, but there is a new generation coming up who have name recognition and a love for the game that matches the big names of yore.

The lone celebrity event that remained on the schedule this year, a Wednesday five-hole charity shootout, included stars of the worlds of movies and TV (Bill Murray, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Kathryn Newton), music (hip-hop recording artist Macklemore), sports (Arizona Cardinals WR Larry Fitzgerald), and even a former Miss America (Kira K. Dixon). This mini field of celebrity golfers all have stick, and put on a good show while raising a wad of cash for the event’s causes.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 10:  Kira K. Dixon tees off on the 18th hole during the Charity Challenge at AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on February 10, 2021 at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, California. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

And even the corporate CEOs and other deep-pockets participants have their place. Sure these folks are almost all members at swanky private clubs, and while they may play more golf than many of us, on better golf courses, they don’t play for a living like the pros they are paired with. Watching them play alongside a pro in this event allows us to vicariously put our games up against the highest standard in the world—and that chance at comparison has entertainment value.

The celebrity watching which makes Saturday of tournament week (when the biggest names are scheduled at Pebble Beach) the best-attended day of the tournament broadens the scope of attraction for this event beyond golfers. I have seen a bigger gallery following a pairing which included a San Francisco Giants pitcher than I think I have ever seen following any of the pros.

“Why might the amateurs stay? Some would point to the origin of the event, as the Bing Crosby Clambake. It’s the last event that folks from past generations (little dig there, I think – GKM) associate with a celebrity host; [no other event has] had that staying power.”

I can sum it up in one word: tradition. Bing Crosby invented this format, and while imitators sprang up over the years, the Pebble Beach Pro-Am—the original and the greatest—is the only one that still survives. The Bob Hope Desert Classic came closest to the format of the Crosby, but that event, and all of the rest of the celebrity-name events on the PGA Tour over the years have either morphed into something else or faded away entirely.

I grew up in Salinas, an inland farming community not far from Pebble Beach, and though neither I nor any of my friends or family played golf when I was growing up, everybody knew the Crosby, and watched it on TV on those January or February weekends in the ’60s and ’70s.

“The AT&T has the opportunity to reimagine its event, (to) make the bold decision to eliminate the Am portion of the event. Return the Monterey Peninsula (Country Club) Shore Course to the rotation next year (and) add even more professionals…”

Here Mr Montesano is off-base in more ways than one. As I laid out above, the amateur participants are a huge part of this tournament’s appeal, and an enduring tradition that has no counterpart in the world of golf. Eliminating that aspect of the tournament would change it into just another PGA Tour event, albeit an exceptionally beautiful one, as no other venue that the Tour travels to can provide such scenic vistas.

Yes, we look forward to the return of the MPCC Shore Course to the event; it is a beautiful and strategic seaside layout that takes good advantage of its location, and being private, its inclusion provides golf fans with an opportunity to see the course that they otherwise would not have. As for adding even more professionals—while going back to three courses and a 54-hole cut with no amateurs might make it feasible, schedule-wise, to bump up the standard 156-player field, such a move would require approval from the PGA Tour, and, I warrant, the Players Advisory Committee.

To sum up: While I admit to a certain bias, having grown up in the area watching this event on TV, and now, as a golf writer, having attended the event in a professional capacity for eight years in a row, I look forward to a return to normality (hopefully) for the 2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am; a return to throngs of spectators, and amateur playing partners—both celebrities and CEOs; a return to three courses and a 54-hole cut; a return to the traditions that make this tournament stand out, head-and-shoulders above the rest of the cookie-cutter events on the PGA Tour.

A return to all the things that make this tournament the one that we who love it still call “The Crosby”.

(References for facts presented in this article: Cover Stories, a publication of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation Book Project Staff, 2009; 18 Holes with Bing, by Nathaniel Crosby with John Strege, Harper Collins Publishers, 2016)