Sunday, June 18, 2000
A Pebble Beach paradise
By Larry Guest
The Orlando Sentinel
(KRT)
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.-The famed Pebble Beach
Links that you've seen on TV, with pros and celebrities squinting
through icy sheets of rain like freighter deckhands on the North
Sea, is only a distant cousin to the one where they're contesting
the U.S. Open this weekend.
That's according to most of the pros who
have discovered a sharply different personality to the course
they're accustomed to slogging through in February winter rains.
The difference goes far beyond the summer fog that has played
havoc with the early rounds.
"I've played in the AT&T three
times," Orlando pro Robert Damron said, alluding to the annual
tour stop long known as the Crosby Clambake and for it's Crosby
weather. "This is not the same golf course. Every time I've
played it in the AT&T it was like oatmeal in the fairways.
One year we even rolled it in the rough it was so wet. My impression
was that the course was a little overrated because of that.
"But it's not," Damron reversed
field, shifting to current fast, firm conditions at Pebble. "It's
unbelievably good like this. You really get an appreciation for
it in this condition."
Tiger Woods agreed, saying he found two
different golf courses when he played here in the U.S. Amateur
in the summer and in the AT&T in the winter.
Woods first played Pebble when he was just
12 and says he remembered it as an especially long course. All
grown up when he came back as a Stanford college student, he mused
with a toothy smile: "It wasn't so long anymore."
The U.S. Golf Association sadists are uncommonly
adept at giving a course a dark personality, but the transformation
here is especially dramatic. And it seems the more you've slogged
through the AT&T/Crosby, the tougher it is to ignore ingrained
course knowledge and adjust to clubbing oneself on a faster Pebble.
For example, sentimental favorite Jack Nicklaus was trying to
keep his second round on Friday from becoming his disappointing
final Open bow when he reached the difficult eighth hole. In the
AT&T, he typically hit driver onto the plateau fairway. Given
the firmer conditions, he ratcheted down two clubs to make sure
he didn't run through the end of the hardened fairway and into
the yawning gorge beyond.
Nevertheless, his tee shot kept bounding
and wound up in the heavy collar of rough at the edge of the cliff.
He had to take a penalty drop before attempting what he has called
the most difficult approach shot in golf and wound up with a double-bogey
six to virtually assure he would miss the cut.
More than two hours later, Jack gave fans
once last reason to roar by reaching the famed, par-5 final hole
in two mighty blows to punctuate what was probably his last lap
in a U.S. Open. "I can't think of a better place to go out,"
he said.
$425 per night plus taxes
Former Disney World Classic champ John Huston
said he "bit the bullet" and booked two rooms for himself
and his family at the Del Monte Lodge right on the grounds of
the Pebble Beach course. He reasoned that his options were to
stay 10 miles away and still pay a lot of money, or pay a little
extra to stay right at the course. "I'd be about 20 feet
from the first tee. But it's $425 per night, plus California taxes
on taxes," he said, explaining it works out to about a grand
per day. Playfully asked if he has to win the tournament to break
even, he said, "Yeah, that's about what it works out to."
. . . Stone wall near the Pebble first tee features a bust of
course founder Samuel F. B. Morse (distant relative to the telegraph
inventor) and plaque likeness of crooner Bing Crosby who hosted
annual pro-am starting in 1947, and names of individuals and teams
who have won each event. While Hollywood celebs and stars of other
sports attract much of the attention at the annual pro-am-now
operating as AT&T Invitational-not many of them made the winners'
plaque. The amateur half of winning teams are typically unknown.
Old-time baseballer Lefty O'Doul was an early exception and was
far better known than his 1949 pro partner, somebody named Bill
Nary. More recent sports stars to win the pro-am have included
George Brett and Dan Marino.
The Daly toll
Golf historians seem to agree that after
his 14 on the final hole here Thursday, John Daly's reverse "ringer"
score may be approaching 200. There was his 11 on the Pinehurst
hole he turned into a field hockey exhibition last year, a 10
on a Turnberry hole in the British Open and, of course, the 18
strokes he took while depositing five balls in the lake alongside
Bay Hill's sixth hole two years ago. Toss in some of his other
frequent blowouts, and it's easy to figure his composite high
score is averaging at least 10 strokes per hole for a 180 total.
. . . Bank of America, which recently vowed to tighten its belt,
spent about a quarter-mill to book a posh Pebble chalet and all
24 deluxe rooms of the new Casa Palmero resort to house bigwigs
during the Open. . . . Remember this one the next time you try
to crash a sports event: A woman fan was given a replacement ticket
during Thursday's round after she claimed her original had fallen
into a portable toilet. No one was willing to verify her story,
so they gave her a ticket.
(c) 2000, The Orlando Sentinel
(Fla.).
Visit the Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/. On America
Online, use keyword: OSO.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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