Nine Things to Know: Pebble Beach Golf Links - pgatour.com

The U.S. Open returns to one of golf’s iconic locations this week. This will be the sixth U.S. Open conducted on Pebble Beach Golf Links, a course known for its beautiful scenery and stiff challenge. It may be short by today’s standards, but small greens and high winds still provide plenty of challenge. Tiger Woods is the only player to finish under par in the past two U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach, and he did it with the greatest performance in the game’s history.

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Here’s 9 Things to Know before play gets underway on the California’s Central Coast.

1. AN INAUSPICIOUS START

It’s impossible to fathom now, but the first attempt to construct the Pebble Beach Golf Links was unsuccessful. Twenty-five memberships for the new seaside course were sold for $25 apiece, according to Neal Hotelling’s official history of Pebble Beach. Nine temporary oil-and-sand-greens were built. In April 1910, the new course was advertised as “soon to open”. Ten members backed out, though, and the plans were scrapped. It was nearly a decade before golf was played at Pebble Beach.

Then the land that is now one of the world’s most famous courses was almost sold for housing lots, but Samuel Morse destroyed the plans and convinced the owners that the land would be better used as a golf course.

Morse hired two amateur architects, Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, designed Pebble Beach.

“The big idea was to get as many holes as possible along the bay,” Neville said. “Nature had intended it to be nothing else but a golf links.”

When it opened, Pebble Beach was simply referred to as the No. 2 course at Del Monte. The new seaside course was preceded by the inland Del Monte Golf Course, which opened in 1897, and was an attraction for the well-heeled guests of the Del Monte Hotel. 

Though the centennial of Pebble Beach is celebrated this year, the course was first played the previous year.

Only one man, Mike Brady of Massachusetts, finished within 20 shots of par in the 36-hole tournament that marked the course’s unveiling. Brady, the runner-up at the 1911 and 1919 U.S. Opens, shot 79-75 to win by 13 shots.

“The critiques on the opening day included lack of turf, rock-infested fairways and indentations on the greens from the sheep employed to maintain the grounds,” Hotelling wrote.

The San Francisco Chronicle said the course was opened “somewhat prematurely.” At a time when golf balls cost more than the greens fee, the course was deemed too difficult. One newspaper called the course “a conspiracy to make necessary the purchase of large quantities of golf balls.”

It was closed for nearly a year until being re-opened on Washington’s Birthday in 1919.

To mark the birth of the country’s first president, a cherry tree was planted in front of the Lodge at Pebble Beach. All golfers present that day took an oath swearing to turn in honest scorecards. The course and lodge were built for a reported cost of $200,000.

2. SHORT STUFF

Pebble Beach will play 7,075 yards for the U.S. Open. Since 2010, only one U.S. Open venue has been shorter (Merion, 2013).

Pebble Beach still provides a stiff challenge, though. The average winning score in U.S. Opens at Pebble Beach is 282.6 strokes (the course has played as a par-71 in the past two U.S. Opens). The legendary sportswriter Jim Murray called the course “7,000 yards of malice.”

“It’s a more strategic golf course than people give it credit for,” said Golf Channel analyst Arron Oberholser, who won the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. “People think you can just bludgeon it because it’s barely 7,000 yards, that it’s a pitch and putt, but you have to give yourself the right angles.

“You have to be very strategic on where you attack and when you attack. You have to know your outs. Knowing where to leave it is massive. People look at the greens and think they’re just tilted (back-to-front), but you miss a couple in the wrong spots and you have nothing.”

The June date virtually guarantees a firm and fast golf course. And the seaside locale means wind will be a factor.

“Pebble Beach without any wind is not a very hard golf course,” said Jack Nicklaus. “But you never find it without any wind.”

Scores can soar when the wind blows especially hard. That’s what happened in the final round of the 1972 and 1992 U.S. Opens, when the scoring average was 78.8 and 77.3, respectively.

Eight of the final 14 players to tee off in 1992 shot 80 or higher. Scott Simpson shot 68-88 in the final two rounds. Mark Brooks shot an 84 on Sunday after starting the final round in second place.

Jeff Sluman, the runner-up in 1992, said the final round was “as much fun as a migraine.”

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2019-06-10 13:04:13Z
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