Pebble Beach – 2008
Hey all,
Over 70 years ago they called it the Crosby Clambake in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. Bing and his cronies moved it to the Monterey Peninsula during the mid 40′s, and it has survived the notorious weather here ever since. This week we got lucky and enjoyed 60 degrees with a bunch of sun. You simply can’t find a better place for golf, fun, entertaining stories, and high priced relaxation than the Carmel/Monterey Peninsula region. A night at “The Lodge” or the Inn at Spanish Bay will be about $650, naturally I stayed elsewhere (Watsonvile Motel 6) and commuted.
The AT&T Pro-am is still a big event for the celebs and amateur corporate big-wigs, but the top tour pros avoid this week. You’ll see names playing this week you won’t see all year, and the leader board is dotted with unknowns the first few days. Pebble and Spyglass are probably two of the toughest tour courses, and Poppy Hills is just funky enough to cause problems. It’s to bad political correctness forced Cypress Point out of the rotation 17 years ago, and a lot of pros still sneak over there for a round instead of playing the tournament courses. In fact, Robert played there his first time Wednesday while I spent the day at Duarte’s in Pescadero. He said he could play there every day the rest of his life, it’s that spectacular.
If you’re ever cruising Highway 1, just south of Half Moon Bay, stop by and see my friends Tim and Dee at Duarte’s Tavern (established 1894) for some wonderful food, and then head up the hill to Harley Farms. Sample Dee’s goat cheese, take the tour of their farm, and enjoy their wonderful hospitality. The world famous restaurant is fourth generation, Dee runs the 10 acre goat farm, and both have done time on the Food Channel Network.
Sorry back to golf. We’d had a couple of weeks off so I met Robert Monday at Poppy Hills for a practice round. He was stiff and sore, his wife was sick, so we just hit a few balls and I walked the course. Robert Trent Jones Jr. really screwed up a great piece of property. Poppy has the worst set of 5 pars, and the course drainage is terrible creating what we affectionately call “Sloppy Poppy”. When we first moved to Poppy from Cypress Point in 1991 I was working for Greg Twiggs and we had the honor of Mr. Jones in our foursome. Junior wore the same sweater every day (he was bit eccentric), and after about the fifth or sixth hole at Poppy he asked Greg what he thought about the course. Sorry, I can’t repeat his comments here.
A Tuesday practice round at Pebble with Joey Sindelar, Jeff Couch (the local Budweiser distributor and philanthropist) was quite enjoyable. You lose your concentration taking in the sights and sounds, and you don’t actually mind the six hour round. Robert even let me take the fore caddy shortcut off of five green so I could enjoy my favorite outdoor urinal. Usually I have to go back to every tee box, it was a special treat, and those simple pleasures mean a lot.
Jeff Couch put the “whammy” on us Thursday morning. He played with Robert Wednesday at Cypress and said, “your boy is hitting it so good I’ll see you late Sunday afternoon.” Of course we bogied three of the first four at Spyglass, got it back to even, before doubling the eighth hole (our 17th). Actually it was a good six. We hit a tree off the tee, our playing partner Jeff Maggert found the ball in the woods with little time to spare, and then hit another tree on our second shot. Our third shot was longer than our second, a caddy guesstimate of 240 yards to the front, and we strolled to our last tee two over. Their was a gentle bag tackle, nothing serious, and we parred the last.
If you can have a bad day at Pebble, we did Friday. With four holes to play we were seven over for the tournament, mired in 160th, so it was time to light a cigar. Robert seemed to relax and we birdied the last four, making Saturday’s round at Poppy a little more meaningful. We were three or four shots off the cut and Poppy can be had on a calm day.
Like I said this is a celebrity pro-am. Our partner was Tom Dreesen, Clay Walker was in our foursome, and despite our poor play we had quite a few laughs. Dreesen was always cracking one-liners, telling jokes, mixing it up with crowd, and talking about our beloved Cubs. Clay was a true country gentleman, and despite his Muscular Dystrophy, hits the ball well, plus, he had quite the following of pretty ladies. I told you the scenery was nice on the Monterey Peninsula.
Anyway, Poppy wasn’t good to us, even with good luck charms Schmitty and Nancy in the crowd. We missed a short birdie putt on our first hole, and couldn’t buy a putt all day. The poa annua greens are quite bumpy this time of year, and with all the traffic, you get little moguls around each cup. It’s frustrating, a good putt can bounce off line at any time. We still had a chance with five holes to play, but doubled our fifteenth, airmailing the green. It was part caddy error, part wind switching at the wrong time, and that we had to force our shot to a sucker back pin. I hate it when you take to much club and the wind sneaks in behind you. Robert chose to blame the wind switch and not the caddy, thank God.
We played behind Chris Dimarco and he had an amazing gentleman following him. D.J. Gregory, 37, afflicted with Cerebral Palsy from birth, plans to follow a different golfer each week during the entire PGA Tour schedule. You can follow his journey on PGATour.com. After a bogey, you didn’t feel so bad watching his smiling face enjoying a struggled walk chasing a bit of dream. I didn’t get the chance to meet him, but I will, he’s one of the heroes out here.
Take care, I’m off to Naples, FL working for Mike Reid on the Champions Tour this week.
Mark
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