A Day at Monterey Peninsula

SO YOU WANT TO PLAY PEBBLE?
By John Craig

OK, so I won’t be invited to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – the former Bing Crosby Clambake. But that’s OK, I go to check off Pebble Beach Golf Links from my “Bucket List” in 2010, just two and a half weeks before the U.S. Open when I played a round by myself, had a seagull steal my banana and was applauded on the 18th green.

Here’s the story, as I recalled it shortly after that great day on June 1, 2010. I’ve also added some photos and then summed up my scorecard. Take a few minutes and enjoy and I hope you get to go to Pebble one day. By the way, I played it from as far back as the tees would allow, under USGA conditions, and shot a 112. I’ll take that but still, won’t be asked to play with Phil or Tiger or even Kyle Stanley any time soon.

MY DAY AT PEBBLE

Pebble Beach Golf Links was the host for the 110th U.S. Open in 2010.

“It’s coming fast and furious,” said Paul Spengler, Executive Vice President of Pebble Beach Company since 2004. He’s been there 20 years. “It’s going great. All of the facilities set up is ahead of schedule. The golf course is ready.”

Typically, the United States Golf Association closes its course several weeks in advance of their U.S. Open to protect it, keep it fresh for practice rounds, and make sure that every blade of grass is where it should be and, in some cases, as long as it should be. There are exceptions when the USGA comes to a public facility like last year at Bethpage Black on Long Island and this year at Pebble Beach.

The course was open for public play up until Friday. Now, it’s ready for the players.

“It has given us a good spike as far as people are curious and inquisitive and want to come and play and we have access to the golf course,” Spengler told me during an interview in his office, complete with an Arnold Palmer bobblehead doll on his desk.

I got to see Pebble and play Pebble the day after Memorial Day. First, there was work, though. I was set up with several interviews and took some photos and video too. Some of that accompanies this account. Then I was off to play.

My day began at 7:00AM with a 2 ½ hour drive from San Francisco down to the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel Bay. The highway leads to Route 1, which winds down through Pacific Grove and Monterey.

The road at the peninsula is famed 17-Mile Drive, which snakes through a spot discovered by Spanish explorers in 1602. The cost to make the drive is $9.50. It takes you past Poppy Hills Golf Course, The Links at Spanish Bay, Seal Rock, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Cypress Point Lookout, Ghost Tree, the Peter Hay Golf Course and then Pebble Beach, which is built around Stillwater Cove.

The peninsula was fogged in a bit and it was 55 degrees, but at points you come out and can see into the sea and you just say, “Wow.” I stopped a couple of times to take in the view, including The Lone Cypress, which is the symbol for Pebble Beach – that cypress tree out on a rock.

There, I found Jeanne Smith painting her version of the Lone Cypress for her art landscape class. Most of the other students were at Seal Rock that sports “a vibrant mix of marine and bird life” according to the brochure. I would have liked to have seen that but I was on a deadline and that tree was my mission.

Up around the bend, I also stopped at Ghost Tree, which has a trunk bleached white from wind that “has a sinister silhouette.” It did.

By 10:30, I made it to the pro shop for my interviews.

“We’re excited. The electricity, it’s an 11,” said Chuck Dunbar, the Head Golf Professional, doing an English accent and paraphrasing “This is Spinal Tap” when 10 on the dial just wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do for me either. My waiting to play was “an 11” too.

This year, 9,052 people file entries with the USGA. From exemptions and open qualifying, 156 will make it. I didn’t qualify but I felt like I had made it, sort of.

“Not some much calm but excited and enthusiastic about what’s kind of imminent here in the next two weeks,” said Golf Course Superintendent Chris Dalhamer, who has worked at Pebble for five years, but volunteered the last time the Open was held here, in 2000. Now, he’s in charge of every blade of grass and every drop of piped in water.

“We’re going to make it firm and fast and just right to the USGA specifications,” Dalhamer said. “Any golfer can understand right there that your ball’s not going to plug, stop, not roll. You’re going to have balls rolling out onto the fairways, the greens are going to have a couple bounces to them.”

Around 1:00PM, I got to play. By myself. With limited play, all caddies had been spoken for or gone home. After finishing my work, no warm up, I was standing on the first tee. I played it from the tips, more than 6,740 yards.

The first couple holes, I had a hard time keeping my heart in my chest. Maybe that’s what contributed to my combined 16. Yikes.

I took a cart but would have preferred to walk. However, with rental clubs, two cameras, a dozen balls and all the rest, a cart was easier. It was cart path only, though, so I did plenty of walking, including back to the third tee. I mean back.

When I got there at the par-4, 404-yard hard dogleg left, I looked over the other tee boxes and high grass and thought, “How am I going to carry that after what I just did in the first two holes?”

Using the Callaway Diablo driver, I took a breath and a nice, easy swing and striped it, almost willing it to “just get to the edge of the fairway.” I think I actually yelled, “Go!”

It landed right where you want it to. A sigh of relief. I got to the second shot and poked a five-iron to just in front. From there, would bogey but felt like par.

The USGA’s Mike Davis, the General Chairman of the 2010 Open R.J. Harper and Arnold Palmer “have really strategically changed this golf course like it’s never been before for a U.S. Open basically by bringing in the water into play,” Spengler said. “The fairway alignments on the 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 18th holes are all cut to the water, close to the water and there’s no rough on the water side so any shots hit through the fairway towards the water will, most likely, go in the water.

“Pebble Beach has never been what you would call a really difficult golf course but it certainly is a challenging U.S. Open golf course because the greens are the smallest, probably, in major championship play,” Spengler said. “And when they get firm and have the four or five inch rough around the greens, that’s where the real difficulty comes in as far as scoring at Pebble, plus the fact that we do need the climate. We need the wind conditions to be there so it doesn’t play as benign.

I had a bad chip and lost another ball at the fourth. On the fifth, I took too much club and flew the green on the par-3. That’s also where my battle with the birds began. I bought a sandwich and spent more time protecting it from the birds than my ball from the sea. I lost four balls in the next three holes. A seagull did steal my banana, though.

My best hole on the front nine came at the ninth. I smacked two great shots and bogeyed, feeling pretty good for a 59.
“8, 9 and 10 are kind of the cliffs of doom,” Dalhamer said, referring to the set up that takes away any protection from land to sea so if you slice, and I do, you’re in trouble. But for whatever reason, I played 9 and 10 pretty well.

“I’ve always said it’s seven holes of offense and 11 holes of defense,” said Dunbar. “There’s a couple scoring holes on that back stretch but nonetheless, you’ve basically got to get a good start in the first seven holes…if the wind is blowing, then they are all hard.”

Maybe it was my battle with the birds, the fact that I reminded myself I was just playing golf, or that I called my parents to share a brief experience more than 3,000 miles away, but I played better.

My only par came at the 15th. I rolled in a 42-foot putt from the front of the green. As it tracked closer to the hole, I raised my putter in triumph when it dropped, but there was no one around. 16 was a disaster and then came the famed 17th. A “classic” that the USGA has not changed, it’s where Tom Watson made that jaw-dropping chipshot in 1982 to vault him to victory. With some wind, I took a five-iron from 178-yards and came up just short, but it bounced. I got some help from some tourists who were taking pictures nearby to help me locate the ball. Then, I opened up a pitching wedge and flopped a shot that skirted the edge of the hole – almost a birdie. It rolled past and I two-putted.

Then came 18. “Just don’t hit it left,” I actually said out loud just before drawing back the driver. It went right down the middle. Off in the distance there was a couple taking a stroll. As I got close, the guy said, “nice shot.” Cool.
Then I stood over that shot and hit a bullet over the two trees in the middle of the fairway to about 120-yards. For that third shot, again I talked to myself, “One good 9-iron,” I muttered, and it took a nap in the right greenside bunker. I stepped into the bunker, having had some sand trouble, but blasted it out to about six-feet and two-putted. I finished bogey-bogey for my 112.

“I can’t wait for the week to be here,” Dunbar said. “You do all the preparation stuff and all the anticipation and we all want to enjoy the fruits of our labor and see the whole thing come together.”

“It’s an honor and a privilege for us to host an Open,” said Spengler. “We look at it that way, we treat it that way.”

It was an honor and a privilege to lose seven golf balls. It really was.

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