Pebble Beach Golf Links

[Bob_Huntley]

Rich,

You can get heavy winds at Pebble at any time of the the year. Think back to the US Open won by Kite, this in June, come January and February and I would like you to deliver a wedge shot at the 7th.

Bob

[ForkaB]

Pat

I always had problems with the 6th, but that was due to the remnants of trauma in my brain after having played the late but great old 5th (to get back on topic!).  Of course, it might also be due to the fact that in those days I hit low hooky iron shots (much like TE Paul).  Now that I can hit the high fade the hole seems (in my reconstructed memory) to be quite easy.

Bob

Those of us who lived in the sunnier climes of the Bay Area would go to Pebble Beach in Jan/Feb only to watch the people crazy enough to play in the Crosby make fools of themselves.  Same with June/July when PB's weather matches that of San Francisco's.  Why would I choose to play a golf course just in order to play it under abominable conditions?  I once had to hit a 4-wood to the 150 yard 10th at Dornoch, but I was playing the course for free.  Why would I pay $450 to subject myself to such torture?

All the best (to both of you)

Rich

[Bob_Huntley]

Pat

I always had problems with the 6th, but that was due to the remnants of trauma in my brain after having played the late but great old 5th (to get back on topic!).  Of course, it might also be due to the fact that in those days I hit low hooky iron shots (much like TE Paul).  Now that I can hit the high fade the hole seems (in my reconstructed memory) to be quite easy.

Bob

Those of us who lived in the sunnier climes of the Bay Area would go to Pebble Beach in Jan/Feb only to watch the people crazy enough to play in the Crosby make fools of themselves.  Same with June/July when PB's weather matches that of San Francisco's.  Why would I choose to play a golf course just in order to play it under abominable conditions?  I once had to hit a 4-wood to the 150 yard 10th at Dornoch, but I was playing the course for free.  Why would I pay $450 to subject myself to such torture?

All the best (to both of you)

Rich

Richard,

You denigrated the  7th as a nothing hole, rather like Ian Woosnam some years ago. You go on to say that you wouldn't play in January, February, June and July.... the wind blows at other times,  as you well know. Even in decent weather it can cause havoc with one's score, especially mine.

Bob.

[ForkaB]

Bob

Maybe because Woosie and I are both vertically challenged we just do not feel the wind on the 7th tee?

Rich

PS--I might have "denigrated" the 7th on some far distant thread (my take is that it is pretty but not great, as a golf hole--yes, in Kite's Open it played like a bastard, but so would have the 10th at Pacific Grove that week) but not on this thread, that I can remember.  I have talked here about the 6th and opined that it was one of the lesser lights at Pebble Beach (IMHO, of course) but that even so it was a very good golf hole.

PPS--my comments on the weather on the Peninsula were meant to be tongue in cheek.  Apologies to the Chamber of Commerce for any offence taken.

Slainte

R

[Rick Shefchik]

If this discussion morphs into a forum on PB #7, I want to stick up for that one, too. A pox on any architect that can't figure out a way to design one short, fun, dangerous par 3 on a course. Nothing more typifies the bad drift in golf course design than the course that features 4 par 3's that play 200+ yards from the members' tees -- or even 190, for that matter.

Sure, #7 gets extra points for the wind and the ocean, but there are many ways for short holes to be eye-pleasing and difficult. Are there any places where the wind doesn't blow?

 

[Patrick_Mucci]

Rick,

I'd agree.

Cookie cutter 190-210 par 3's seem to be everywhere.

More great, fun little short holes are needed.

But, the setting at # 7 at PB is tough to duplicate.

[Scott_Burroughs]

Hey Scott

Can we get the story on these pants?

Yes, she regrets ever putting them on.  

[David Ober]

Rich Goodale,

You are aware that TEPaul grew up on and played golf courses hundreds of times and never noticed the architectural merit of many holes until I pointed it out to him.

# 6 is a terrific par 5.

You drive from an elevated tee, down to a sloping fairway with trouble left and right.  The longer you drive, the more abruptly you must get your second shot airborne.

The blind, skyline nature of the second shot is fabulous, and unsettling to most golfers.  Mis-hits are penalized, especially bladed or peeking type shots.  As to the last 80 yards, are there many difficult shots to any par 5 from 80 yards ?

I think you under rate # 6.

While you may be comfortable with the hole due to repeat play, most are intimidated by it from the tee to the green.

Played Pebble for the first time in June of this year and will be playing it again when I go up to play the State Amateur in 2006.

I came away thinking 6 was one of the best holes on the golf course if only for the sheer jaw-drop factor of climbing that hill, seeing the lone tree in the distance and really looking out over the Pacific for the first time.

Love that hole. And the second shot is NOT easy -- even for an experienced player.

[ForkaB]

And the second shot is NOT easy -- even for an experienced player.

David

"EASY" is a relative term and depends on your capabilities and ambitions.  For you, as an elite and experienced player, whose ambition is probably to hit the green in two, yes that is not EASY.  Also, for a high handicapper who has trouble getting the ball airborne and doesn't like hitting off the side of a hill out of the rough with no visibility of the target, the hole must be bloody HARD.  However, for someone who's ambitions are to get a 5, and who is capable of getting the ball airborne with some distance, it is one of the easier "pars" on the course.

Rich

PS--of course the view is great, but that has nothing to do with architecture, does it?  (If you are confused just ask Pat Mucci....)

[Peter Galea]

I came away thinking 6 was one of the best holes on the golf course if only for the sheer jaw-drop factor of climbing that hill, seeing the lone tree in the distance and really looking out over the Pacific for the first time.

At one time I suggested to managment that the cypress behind  the green be removed. I thought it would be a fantastic skyline green (very surreal) and a much more deceptive third shot.
The answer I got was "Are you out of you mind? That tree goes over my dead body!"

[ForkaB]

Pete

Is that cypress at the backof 6 a fairly recent addition?  I don't remember one there 20+ years ago and an diagram I have from that period doesn't have it on either.

Thanks in advance and hope all is well.

Rich

[David Ober]

I came away thinking 6 was one of the best holes on the golf course if only for the sheer jaw-drop factor of climbing that hill, seeing the lone tree in the distance and really looking out over the Pacific for the first time.

At one time I suggested to managment that the cypress behind  the green be removed. I thought it would be a fantastic skyline green (very surreal) and a much more deceptive third shot.
The answer I got was "Are you out of you mind? That tree goes over my dead body!"

Without that tree, the holes loses something big, IMHO.

[Tom Huckaby]

Thanks to Scott for posting the pics of six. If you look at the last pic, where the caddy is standing is about where you come out from the new fifth hole, and then you walk up that hill to get to the tee. That is the hike that I think really throws off the flow of the course and Tom Huckaby says doesn’t.

I’ve also never seen Velcro hill (the hill going up toward the sixth green) cut like that to fairway height. When I played there the week after the 1990 Open, they could have gotten hundreds of bushels of hay off that hill.

The other issue that pic shows is had five always hugs the cliff, and the sixth had been a par-4, with the tee down by where that caddie is standing, you wouldn’t get that view of Carmel Bay from that hole. You’d get it eventually when you get to the green, but you’d get no view from the tee.

Dan King

Bumpy greens don’t bother me anymore, since I’ve become an analyst. I don’t see the problem.
 --Dave Feherty at Pebble Beach

Dan my friend, one misconception clear-up:

I never anywhere said that the way 5 and 6 are now is NOT a flow disinterruption - I've acknowledged that many times.  My point is that this the new hole is so much better than the old, and the flow now works so much better continuing to hug the coast rather than arbitrarily turning inland (no matter what Adam the bridge-hater says), that this negative is outweighed by the positives.

But good point about the view from 6.  As much as that is neat though, it too isn't enough to warrant the dumbass old blind dogleg par 3 fifth.

But you guys want a blind shot... well I give you one with my new tee on 6, by the caddie.  Methinks the views looking right will satisfy the soul... and you all seem to love this delayed view stuff (or you did when talking about old 5)... won't that be rather dramatic truding up Velcro hill, then having the majest lay out before you?

TH