BlogPebble Beach Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

The PGA Tour season is officially a quarter of the way over, and with 12 players winning 12 events, we are seeing a lot of parody.  Funny the same thing happened last year, it took 20 events before Jimmy Walker became a multiple winner at the Valero Texas Open.  Now the good folks at Ponte Vedra smile with that word parody, but for this year things are different.  Last year there was a lot of non-marquee winners from January on, while this year we have seen some great winners between Jordan Spieth, Jason Dufner, Brandt Snedeker and Hideki Matsuyama.  This week we are going to have a great taste of marquee names as the field at the AT&T Pebble Beach will have six of the top-ten world rank players.  We know it will get better next month at Honda and Doral, but for a west coast event a good field.

Things you need to know about the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am

This and the CareerBuilder Challenge are the only events played on three different courses. Each player and team will play one round at Pebble Beach (which is the host course), Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula C.C. After Saturday the cut are made and the final round is played at Pebble Beach.  The AT&T is really two tournaments in one.  The field is paired with an amateur partner and played the first three rounds together.  After 54 holes a cut is made, approximately 25 low teams of the best amateurs/pros will make it to the final day at Pebble Beach.

This is the last of the big time pro-celebrity events on the PGA Tour.  The CareerBuilder, which was the Bob Hope use to have a good field of celebrities, but now the only one left is this event.  The good news is that crowd favorite Bill Murray is back, he has been the highlight of the tournament for over two decades, the best was when he won the pro-am in 2011.   Some of the celebrities playing are Mark Wahlberg, Chris O’Donnell, Aaron Rodgers, Andy Garcia, Craig T. Nelson, Wayne Gretzky, Huey Lewis, Carson Daly, Ray Romano, and Kenny G.

For some, the AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am is the greatest.  Played at one of the most speculator places in all the world, on three of the greatest courses in the world.  On top of that the Monterey area offers a lot to do with great places to go like the Monterey aquarium, some great restaurants and bars plus you can’t beat a walk around the village of Carmel after the tournament is over.

For others, playing with amateurs in foursomes with rounds sometimes going six hours this isn’t their cup of tea.  Still it’s a staple on the PGA Tour.

Course information:

• Pebble Beach Golf Links
• Pebble Beach, Calif.
• 6,816 yards     Par 36-36–72

Course has a 74.4 rating and slope rating of 142 from the championship tees Pebble Beach Golf Links is resort and open to the public.

In 2014 the Pebble Beach was the 7th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 73.385 average.   But last year with perfect weather and no wind, Pebble was the 45th hardest course with a 70.241 average so three shots easier than the year before.

Course designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant in 1919,  Revised in 1928 by Henry Chandler Egan.  Between then and 1997 there were little minor changes done to the course.  But in 1998 the biggest changed happened when the par-three 5th hole was rebuilt.  The redesign was done by Jack Nicklaus and the hole was relocated about 100 yards away, along a 50-foot cliff over the Pacific.  At the cost of $3 million, the new hole could be one of the most expensive holes that hold a PGA Tour event.  It’s funny to compare the cost.  $3 million for one hole in 1999, the total cost to build the course in 1919 and that included the money spent on at the time was the first automatic sprinkling system in golf was a mere $66,000.

The course is situated on the Monterey Peninsula, its 120 miles south of San Francisco, Pebble Beach is considered the most spectacular golf course in all the world.

Despite it official name, the course is not a true links course because it is set on craggy cliffs above Carmel Bay.  Eight of the holes skirt the coastline and it’s these holes that distinguish Pebble Beach.

The land was owned by Samuel Morse who was the nephew of the inventor of the telegraph and Morse code.  Morse had an eye for the natural beauty of the Monterey Peninsula and bought 7,000 acres of the Peninsula, including seven miles of Pacific oceanfront for $1.3 million in 1915.  Morse then formed the Del Monte Properties company and had a vision of a resort with a golf course on prime acreage that ran along the bluffs above Carmel Bay.  Instead of selling the ocean front property for homesites, Morse built his golf course.  One of his real estate agents was Jack Neville who won the California Amateur Championship and although Neville had never built a course before, Morse decided to give him a chance to handle the design.  Neville asked another California Amateur Champion, Douglas Grant, to help him on the project and they spent a month routing the 18 holes.

In 1918 the course was opened for play, but in the inaugural competition the course was deemed to be unplayable for the average golfer and was closed for revision.  Neville and Grant softened it up and in 1919 it was again open for play.

Over the course of the next ten years the course was modified by Neville and Grant, and in 1928 H. Chandler Egan, Robert Hunter and Roger Lapham strengthened the course for the 1929 U.S. Amateur.  Since then the course has remained the same, except for the redesign of the fifth hole, which is surely an endorsement of the sound design of Neville and Grant.

Nine holes at Pebble are set along the rocky shores of Carmel Bay.  They are the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 17th, and 18th.  The 18th hole is considered by many as the best finishing hole in golf.  It was originally a par 4 of 379 yards until Egan changed it into a par 5 of 550 yards.

Pebble Beach has held many tournaments, the U.S. Open (1972, ’82, ’92, 2000 and in 2010), the PGA Championship (1977),  four U.S. Amateurs (1929, ’47, ’61 & ’99), the 1989 Nabisco Championship and is the host course for the annual AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am which at one time was the Bing Crosby.

The average green size at Pebble is 3,580 square feet that make the greens the smallest that are used on the PGA Tour.  The course has 92 bunkers, and water comes in play on nine holes along the Pacific.

Other courses used in the rota:

• Spyglass Hill Golf Course
• Pebble Beach, Calif.
• 6,953 yards     Par 36-36–72

Course has a 75.3 rating and slope rating of 148 from the championship tees.  The course is resort and open to the public.

In 2014 the Spyglass Hill was the 11th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 72.755 average.  For the first time since 2010, Spyglass played under par in 2015 to a scoring average of 71.199, the 33rd hardest course on tour. Again easier because of the great weather.

The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones and opened in 1966.  The course was the built thanks to Samuel Morse who had originally thought of building it as part of the Lodge at Pebble Beach.  The course was to be called Pebble Beach Pines Golf Club but Morse changed it to Spyglass Hill.  That was partly because of his friend Robert Louis Stevenson who got his inspiration for his book Treasure Island while visiting the area in which Spyglass was built.

Spyglass is a mix of several different courses.  The first five holes go down through sand dunes and offer magnificent views of the Pacific.  The next couple of holes play back into the pines, still offering ocean views.  The last nine you wouldn’t even know that the ocean is a mile away, the holes play through Monterey pines.  Spyglass is a totally different course than Pebble.  While the greens at Pebble are small, those at Spyglass are large and undulating.  Weather is a big part of Pebble, while it can be blowing up a storm there, Spyglass that is just a couple miles away could be calm.  When Spyglass first opened up it annually would drive the pros that played in the Crosby crazy and would be among the hardest courses on Tour.  It’s still one of the toughest courses on tour, but the course has softened with time, and now there is nothing but praise about the course.

• Monterey Peninsula C.C. Shore Course
• Pebble Beach, Calif.
• 6,867 yards     Par 34-37–71

Course has a 73.3 rating and slope rating of 133 from the championship tees.  The course is private.

In 2014 the Shore Course was the 22nd hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 71.252 average.  But in 2015, again in perfect weather the course played to a 68.936 scoring average as only two other courses in 2015 played easier.

Monterey Peninsula Country Club was founded on January 19, 1925. Samuel Finley Brown Morse, president and general manager of the Del Monte Properties Company.  The club has two clubs; the Dunes Course was originally designed by Charles B. MacDonald and Seth Raynor in 1925. The Dunes Course was redesigned and rebuilt in 1998 by Rees Jones and was the site of the Bing Crosby Pro-am for 18 consecutive years beginning in 1947, and then shifted to the Shore Course in 1965 and 1966. In 1967, the tournament was moved to Spyglass Hill Golf Course. The Crosby later returned to MPCC in 1977.

The Shore Course, site of this year’s AT&T was originally designed by Robert Baldock and Jack Neville. Construction began in 1960, and the course was opened for play in 1961. Reconstruction of the Shore Course began in February 2003, and the new course was opened in June 2004. Golf course architect Mike Strantz created a links-type golf course on the Club’s ocean-side property. For the AT&T, the course will play at a par 71 and at 6,867.

Two things will come into play this week at the Shore course; one is how it won’t be protected from the elements of wind off the ocean.  The course it replaced, Poppy Hills was very well protected with big pines but that won’t be the case here, so if you get unlucky and are paired on this course on a poor day it could put you out of the tournament.  The second tough element will be the greens, they average 7,000 and Mike Strantz made them tough and it will take much local knowledge to be able to read them.  Most of the pros in the field are making sure to play the Shore Course and they all are saying the same thing; the greens will be tough this week.

One thing that will make all three courses a bit tougher is the weather, the Pebble Beach area has had 14 inches of rain since the start of the year so the rough will be higher and thicker this year.  Also the courses won’t have the same run as they had last year, yes the weather has been ok the last week but not enough to make it run dry and the ball running like last year.

Sorry but only two rounds are played at Pebble Beach so we won’t have course keys this week.  It will return next week.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am:

Key stat for the winner:

The AT&T Pebble Beach brings on some special problems; it takes a lot of patience to endure this week with amateur partners.  Another problem is the luck of the draw, someone could be playing at Spyglass that is tree lined on the last 12 holes and may not get the brute of a heavy wind that some player’s encounter at Pebble Beach and Monterey Peninsula.  For some that play in the late afternoon the conditions of the greens get dicey, especially since Poa Annua greens get bumpy and hard to predict.  So it takes a special breed of player to endure this.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Unimportant stat:  With the exception of Brett Ogle in 1993 and Dustin Johnson in 2009 those that have won at Pebble were veteran players.  The point here, don’t look for any inexperienced players winning here, in it’s history going back to 1950 only one pro has won on his first visit to Pebble and that was Ogle.
• Now this doesn’t rule out the fact that a rookie or a person with very little experience could win. Look at D.A. Points in 2011, he missed three out of four cuts before winning.  Some could call this a flunk, I feel that having comedian Bill Murray as his partner helped him and without Murray, Points probably would have never won.  Also look at Dustin Johnson who won at age 24 & 25. In 2009 Johnson was a surprise winner because he won because of weather reducing the event to 54 holes, it’s always easy to win a tournament that you lead after 54 holes.
• The best-kept secret of this event between 1981 and 2005 none of the first round leaders went on to win.  But, Phil Mickelson started a trend in 2005 that 5 of the last 10 winners, Mickelson twice, Johnson twice, and Points in 2011 were in the lead after the first day.  Last year Brandt Snedeker led after the first and second rounds, then was T-2nd in the third round.  So the question, could this trend continue, realistically no because of the nature of using three courses.  But again anything is possible in golf.
• One streak that will stay intact is that in the previous 56 years of the CareerBuilder Classic, nobody has ever won both the AT&T and the Humana in the same year.  So Jason Dufner will try to break the streak, in five previous starts he has only made two cuts and his best finish is T-55th, so look for the streak to continue.
• Putting is always a key at the AT&T especially since the tricky poa annua greens tend to get very bumpy in the afternoon.  Those that are able to deal with it will be ahead of the game mentally.
• Look for someone that either hits lots of greens or putts very well to win.  He also has to play very well over the weekend that seems to be the key with the rest of the winners.  Pro’s play Pebble twice, which has the smallest greens on the PGA Tour.  Because of that and the greens at Pebble don’t have much undulation, putting becomes important in winning.  In making putts between 4 and 8 feet it has ranked the easiest course on tour 3 of the last seven years, last year it ranked 10th.  In putts inside 10 feet, Pebble was 15th last year, but first in 2014.  In the last six years last year was the highest as the previous five years it was in the top-nine four of the five years. In putts inside of 25 feet it slipped last year to 22nd after being first in 2014 and 3rd in 2013.
• Weather is always a factor in the AT&T.  Last year there was good conditions and with all the dry conditions in the months before, the courses played easy.  This year January was a rainy month so conditions will be tougher.  The good news is picture perfect weather during the tournament with very little wind. 

Lastly and very important, to win you have to make sure that you play well at Spyglass Hill.  In a way, that is the hardest of the courses and a good round there gives you a big advantage.  A perfect example was in 2005 with Phil Mickelson, he opened up with a 62 at Spyglass, shattering it’s scoring record and could build upon that great round.

Now Spyglass is not the only secert, but also playing well on Monterey Peninsula is important.  All three of these courses usually play to a total field average of par, since 2005 Spyglass has been over par 8 of the 10 years.

What we did in the chart below was take the field average for that course and subtracted the winners score to figure out how many shots are picked up on the field and come up with a total shots gained on the field for these two rounds.  The findings are remarkable across the board for the ten winners:

Winner                  Shots won by           Spyglass*            Monterey Peninsula*    Gain on Field

2015-Brandt Snedeker             3        67 (71.199) +4.199       64 (68.936) +4.936          8.5 shots

2014-Jimmy Walker                  1        69 (72.755) +3.755       67 (71.252) +4.252          8.0 shots

2013-Brandt Snedeker             2        68 (72.641) +4.641        66 (70.244) +4.244         8.9 shots

2012-Phil Mickelson                2         70 (72.581) +2.581       65 (69.883) +4.883          7.5 shots

2011-D.A. Points                      2        70 (72.426) +2.426       63 (69.840) +6.840          9.3 shots

2010-Dustin Johnson              1         64 (71.603) +7.603       64 (68.948) +4.948         12.5 shots

Winner                                                   Spyglass*                     Poppy Hills*

2009-Dustin Johnson              4          69 (72.644) +3.644       67 (71.928) +4.928         8.6 shots

2008-Steve Lowery     won in playoff  69 (73.206) +4.206      70 (72.828) +2.828         7.0 shots

2007-Phil Mickelson              5             70 (72.855) +2.855     65 (72.089) +7.089         9.9 shots

2006-Arron Oberholser         5              68 (72.006) +4.006     65 (72.302) +7.302       11.3 shots

2005-Phil Mickelson             4               62 (72.134) +10.134   67 (71.915) +4.915      15.5 shots

*Field average on that course in parentheses, then shots gain on field for that course

The Bottom Line:

So what will be the important stats for this year?  Look for the player that hits lot’s of greens and are able to make those tricky putts inside of ten feel