IN FOCUS PEBBLE BEACH:GEOFF OGILVY describes Pebble Beach as one of the "spiritual" homes of American golf, not so much because it was one of golf's founding influences – it wasn't – but rather for the type of championship it invariably provides whenever the USGA come calling every few years for the US Open.
“It’s symbolic of American golf and you’ve had three of the biggest legends win,” he will tell you.
Just how Tom Kite – the winner in 1992 – feels about being the odd man out is probably immaterial but, for sure, in producing winners of the calibre of Jack Nicklaus (1972), Tom Watson (1982) and Tiger Woods (2000), this famed and majestically located links on the Monterey peninsula, hard by the Pacific, has produced some of the sport’s greatest champions in an examination which is second to none.
Each year at this second major of the season, the USGA set out with the philosophy to present the hardest test of any of the four majors. As Tom O’Toole, the championship chairman at Pebble Beach puts it, “the US Open should be the most rigorous, the most difficult and yet fair test in championship golf, an examination which tests both the players’ physical capabilities, which includes all shot-making, but also tests the players’ mental capabilities and tenacities . . . we can see well-executed shots rewarded, poorly executed shots penalised.”
For the third year in a row, the USGA has brought the US Open to what is deemed to be a public links, following on from Torrey Pines (2008) and Bethpage (2009). Yet, there is a mystique about Pebble Beach which doesn’t resonate with the previous two venues. What is it? It’s location?
“It’s one of the special spots for golf, arguably one of the most beautiful spots in the world for golf. It’s everything about the place. It may not be where golf started in the US, but it is one of the spiritual homes for golf. It’s like a British Open at St Andrews. It’s one of those places that you put the US Open there, it only makes it better.”
At just 7,040 yards, it is one of the shortest courses on the US Open rota – and the shortest since Shinnecock Hills in 2004, which played ay 6,996 – and, for this fifth visit of the major, three holes have actually been lengthened substantially: a new tee on the ninth hole is 39 yards farther back (making it play 505 yards); the 10th has a new tee 49 yards back (bringing it to 495 yards) and the 13th has a new tee 39 yards back (extending the hole to 445 yards).
One of the other changes since Woods’s master class in 2000 – where he was a wire-to-wire winner and eventually had 15 strokes to spare on the field – has seen a decision to mow down the rough to the right of the sixth fairway alongside the cliffs.
One thing’s for sure, anyone teeing up at Pebble Beach will have a tingle down their spine. As Bill Perocchi, the chief executive of Pebble Beach put it recently, “(Pebble Beach is) one of the most spectacular spots on earth. It doesn’t get any better than this, does it? Pebble Beach truly is the greatest meeting of land and sea, and the tradition and history is unmatched by any golf course in the world. It’s hard not to get goosebumps and a special feeling when you drive through the gates on 17 Mile Drive.”
The Pebble Beach links is short by modern standards. But the USGA’s Mike Davis explains why he still regards it as the toughest test in championship golf; firstly, you have small greens; and, secondly, you’ve got a wind that hangs around all the time, for all four days.
The biggest concern for Davis and O’Toole is the wind. Anyone who has played Pebble Beach knows about the potential for howling gusts. Just ask those who competed at the 1972 or 1992 US Opens, which produced two of the highest final-round scoring averages in modern US Open history (78.8 and 77.3, respectively).
“I personally think setting up a golf course in windy conditions is the hardest thing to do,” says Davis. “If you are planning on a hole playing downwind, and it plays into the wind, you might set a hole location that’s unfair.
“You may have a forced carry off the tee that (the players) can’t make. So I think we run more risk at a place like Pebble Beach if a meteorologist misses it. We can look pretty stupid in situations that almost become unfair.”
As Davis adds: “In large part Mother Nature plays into just how tough it is, but nonetheless, when you look at that scorecard, you say, how can that really test the world’s best players? The answer is that this golf course is such a wonderful blend of short and long . . . what really makes this an extremely tough, but great test of golf is, first of all, the putting greens. They are absolutely the smallest greens in major championship golf. There’s no course I can think of on the British Open rota that are close to this size; obviously Augusta National greens are bigger; and I can’t think of a venue that the PGA of America has used (for the PGA Championship). So at least for the majors, this is by far I say by far – it really is the smallest greens we go to.”
As far as Ogilvy, the winner at Winged Foot in 2006 is concerned, one trait more that any other is required of the potential champion. “Patience,” he says, “(it requires) a phenomenal week from inside 100 yards, I would say. Most people point at driving. Driving is very important, but even if you have the best driving week of your life, you’re still going to miss a fifth of the fairways because it is just so narrow.
“You’re going to have to lay up on par fours, where you have to get up and down from inside 100 yards for par . . . and the guy who wins is the guy who can do that.”
14th Par 5, 580 yards
Pebbles toughest challenge the 14th
IF THE holes by the cliff, that stretch from the 10th to 12th and the finishing 18th by the ocean are most famed, the toughest is likely to be the Par 5 14th. It has had its fair share of disasters, both in past US Opens and in the ATT National Pro-Am, the annual stop-off on the US Tour.
In the 1992 US Open, Nick Faldo pushed his nine-iron approach into an oak tree to the right of the 14th green, had to climb the tree to search for the ball, never found it, played his provisional from a greenside bunker and ran up a triple-bogey eight.
Arnold Palmer had even more tree trouble on the 14th. Trailing Jack Nicklaus by a shot in the last round of the 1967 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, Palmer went for the green in two, hit a pine tree on the right and bounced out-of-bounds. He tried the same shot again, hit the same tree again and suffered the same result. By the time he holed out, he had scored a quadruple-bogey nine and ultimately finished third. The following day, a storm swept through and lightning struck the offending tree, toppling it.
“I remember seeing that tree laying across the fairway,” recalls Palmer. “I didn’t know about the lightning. I thought a fan had snuck out and cut it down.”
In the 1977 US PGA, Danny Edwards six-putted the 14th for a nine. In the 1982 US Open, reigning US amateur champion Nathaniel Crosby took a nine. And earlier this season, in the final round of the ATT Pro-Am, three contenders – Alex Prugh, Bryce Molder and Paul Goydos – all ran up quadruple bogeys. In this year’s ATT tournament, the hole saw just eight birdies.
– PHILIP REID
What makes US Open hardest test in golf
The USGA's 14-point philosophy:
1. Length, variation and playing characteristics of individual holes.
2. Length of overall golf course relative to total par.
3. Teeing ground locations (ie, angles of play, variation of distance day to day).
4. Fairway width and contours.
5. Fairway firmness and speed.
6. Green speed relative to percentage slopes and contours of the putting greens.
7. Putting green firmness.
8. Rough height, density and stages of severity.
9. Bunker preparation (ie, create challenge of recovery).
10. Green surrounds (eg, closely mown areas v primary rough)
11. Hole locations (relative difficulty, balance in location of left v right, front v back of green, anticipated wind, anticipated length of approach shot).
12. Risk and reward options.
13. Anticipated weather conditions.
14. Pace of Play
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