Man, I'm glad I played it at $375 (before caddie and tip).


Stop and think about that for moment. $600. $700. $1000 for a round of golf. I find no fault with capitalism, but goodness that's alot for a round. Think about this:


What $1000 can get you in golf, non Pebble Beach wise. And remember, you virtually can't gurantee you'll get on without the $700 some odd per night stay which will get that time.



1) 4 rounds at any of the Bandon courses (Low season)
2) A California coastal excursion (green fees only) that   includes Pasatiempo, Harding Park, Sandpiper, Spyglass (which in of itself is very expensive) and Torrey Pines and I think there would be a little left over for Pacific Grove and Rustic if you wanted to head inland a bit.
3) I haven't checked the exchange rate lately so I'm guessing, but I think you can cover the green fee's for Ballybunion, Lahinch, RCD, Portrush and Portmarnock
4) I think you can do same for the following: SA, Dornoch, North Berwick, Cruden Bay, Royal Aberdeen and Carnoustie. You may have some left over and do other smaller courses, or blow the rest and do Kingsbarns.



I guess for some people, it's a "bag the elephant" thing. I love Pebble Beach immensely, but if it came to playing it again for $1000 or going somewhere where I haven't been like the places above, sorry Arnie and Clint.

Before people stake their positions,I bet I am not the only one who is lucky to get 24 rounds a year at my club.At $600 a month that is $300 a round,never mind initiation fees.

Ridiculous.  Pebble has become a caricature of itself.

I will tell you this, I've paid more than $300 to play some courses, not many, but a few, and I felt that the learning experience made it worthwhile.  I've seen PB hundreds of times on TV and think I know the course pretty well.  For some reason I don't feel compelled to play it at even the current prices.  I wouldn't pay that to play the courses in Las Vegas.  I would definitely pay the current rates to play the Bandon Courses because there are 3 courses with 3 architects and architecture that I want to see.  Once I've played them I don't know that I would go back.  

In 1980 an average CEO made 42 times that of a production worker. In 2004 that went up over ten-fold, to 431 to 1.
If the minimum wage followed such an increase a minimum wage job would pay around 20 bucks an hour and a trained production worker would be making an average of around 100k per year, instead of the 25k or so they average now.
If worker's wages were like the above, Pebble Beach, on occasion, would be worth 5, 6, or maybe even $700, across the board. In our present day reality, you have to be on the board to afford that kind of scratch.

It's a sad state of affairs when such an icon of American golf prices itself outside the reach of a large number of its admirers.

It seems like that we have this discussion from time to time when PB raises their rates.

To me, it doesn't matter whether PB raises their rates $1 or $1,000.  The bottom line is what they charge is what the market will bear.  There's not a person on this site that is happy with it, unless you own stock in the company, but until the teesheets at Pebble start showing consistent openings on them, they are going to charge what they think they can get.

The one time I played it, it seemed like a lot of corporate golf was being played.  I would think that if I owned a large corporation and if I could smooze one of my multimillion $$ customers at Pebble Beach, $500 would be money well spent.

Is it right?  I'm sure that it's debatable, but being brought up in a capitalistic society, the laws of supply and demand are usually not wrong when you are talking about gasoline or greens fees.

I believe the access difficulty is perhaps oversold. A couple years ago I called two weeks before my trip and was offered a couple of choices of tee times at Pebble Beach, although I ended up playing at Spyglass Hill instead. Now admittedly that was as a single but still, getting on the course does not seem to require staying at the resort.

Adam: Do you think that PB is great architecture or is it good architecture in a great setting?  Surely Torrey Pines is a great setting with rather boring architecture (I've played it a number of times).  I haven't been to Bandon but I'm willing to speculate that the architecture is perhaps better at Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes than at Pebble Beach.  I would rather spend my money playing two at Bandon than one at Pebble.  That being said, I still have issues with Bandon.

Cary,

I think this is a flight of fantasy for someone to state that.

The plan of the owners of the property seems to be that they increase their overall prices about 3-5% a year, a step ahead of the inflation rate. Note, I said "overall" prices.

Some of the assumptions that they get the maximum rate for the golf course is also something of chimera. Sure, if you and eleven friends have reservations and are staying at the Lodge you will pay the max. However, if Lexus or some other convention group comes in the price is shaved.

Few people fail to realize that a million visitors go through the five gates at $9.00 a pop.... now that is a bunch of money taken in by less than twenty low paid employees.

Bob

Jerry, To me, Pebble sums up the axiom "greater than the sum of it's parts".
They do not.
 If Bobby Jones can throw down a 62 @ CPC, back in the day, Why is PB's lowest competitive round still Kite's 62, in 82' ?

Adam,

I am not sure but wasn't that under Lift, Clean and Place?


Bob

Kite couldn't have shot a 62 in the US Open, as the lowest round in ANY major is 63, which has been done several times

Paul, You are correct. It was in 1983 that Kite fired the 62 which meant it would've been the clambake and could have easily been LC&C.

Nick Watney recently took it to 61.

Few people fail to realize that a million visitors go through the five gates at $9.00 a pop.... now that is a bunch of money taken in by less than twenty low paid employees.

The gate fee wasn't a problem for me, Bob.  I merely told the attendant I was going to lunch with Mr. Huntley and he smiled and waved me through!