Pebble Beach - A Retro Photo Tour

[Patrick_Mucci]

Bob,
 
Agree on # 3, it's significantly under-rated.
 
What most miss is how the green rejects and deflects approach shots hit from the right side of the fairway.
 
The closer you drive to the danger on the left, the more the golfer is rewarded with a more receptive approach.
 
It's a terrific hole that many overlook.



I've always thought the 3rd hole was under-rated. It looks like the fw bunkers left of the elbow have changed. Thoughts?


Bob

[paul cowley]

Bob and Rob - I'll try to answer your questions but it might take a few posts.


I arrived at PB in a broadly circular manner. I grew up in a small village in upstate NY, and I had started working in plant nurseries when I was 12, after substituting for my older brothers job when he broke a leg playing soccer. I was running landscape crews by the time I was 16 and had developed a growing interest in golf. I had only played on muni's and my interest leaped after playing the Leatherstocking CC...it was an unexpected whole new world for me and really fueled my curiosity about golf and design. Come November the same year, and with little prospects besides plowing snow and woods clearing contracts for the winter, I loaded my Ford Pickup with clothes and some camping stuff and and took off to the South to find a job in the warm world at a GC. I think I had about $400 dollars cash and no credit cards (who did then?)...but I was rich and ready for adventure....


- I disagree with Adam's previous post about the way 7 green has changed over the years...and I say this knowing full well that he was playing golf there at the same time I was mowing the greens. I can say this because I had first hand knowledge... first hand in that my hands were physically involved in the reasons for the gradual changes that evolved from the early photos until my time in the 70's.


The sand splash effect is the major reason for change in many of the greens...especially those that were closely bunkered in the early photos. Sand splash occurs when a player sprays sand on the green during a bunker shot causing a constant top dressing of both the lip and the down slope to the green. Pebble has a perfect climate and condition for this to affect to be maximized...cool weather for most of the year that grass loves to grow in. PB has no problem growing grass, but the opposite, keeping up with mowing the grass.


The sand stays after a shot and the grass grows up to meet it...and this happens many thousand of times a year. In optimal conditions like PB I can see the lips and the increasing back slope raise by 3/8ths to half an inch a year...in 40 years 15" to 24"s in height. Those were the heights I encountered when I was there. In recent time courses can de thatch and verti-cut etc to control this effect...but we didn't do anything except fix the lips when they fell down...primarily caused by people walking up out of the bunkers. Fixing them was one of my jobs.


Sand splash had another effect beyond raising the bunker lips. It causes the back slope down to the green to get gradually steeper...and as a result the green would be cut increasingly smaller. Very much in evidence when I was there compared to the early photos.


The greens most affected by higher bunker heights and smaller size were:  4 (esp all around), 5 (esp the front right bunker, the first I rebuilt), 7 (esp all around), 8, 11, 12 (in part),14 (a lot but that's another story in itself), 16 (in part), 17 (esp all around), and 18 (in part). BobC...the gap in 17 had started to close from the early photos but this was primarily due to the increased height of the front left bunker. Standing on the tee I don't remember being able to see any of the left green.


...I drove first to Myrtle beach...I had been there before on a golf trip with my Dad. I knocked on 4 or 5 course doors with no luck. I thought well maybe Disney might be a good chance and drove farther south thru GA and SC marveling at the live oaks and spanish moss (years later I returned to Saint Simons Island for 34 years and raised a family). The Disney area didn't pan out, and I headed west on the coast, always sleeping in the front of my truck...bathing at rest stops. When I got to New Orleans the only job I could turn up was a night security job at a Hotel, not me. My battery had gone dead and I had to park on slopes to be able to pop the clutch to start (not easy to do in flat New Orleans).


I was also down to $40 so I headed north going towards Shreveport and picked up a hitchhiker. I said I was looking for work and he replied "there's always work offshore in the oilfields". I said thanks and left him off at the next exit, turned around and headed south for the Louisiana delta country, not sure if I had the gas to get there. I was amazed at the change from Plantation oaks to sugar cane to the endless marsh and bayou canals and settlements. The road ended in Grand Isle and a community built of trailers on telephone pole stilts. At the the very end there was a closed for the winter State Park and across from that was Grand Isle Shipyards...the local employer. I walked in and said my name is Paul Cowley and I need work. "Pays $4.25 an hour. We work 4:30 to 7:30..14 hr days...7 days a week...so you get 51 hrs a week overtime. Sign here and be at the dock 4:30 sharp", I signed and pulled my truck over to the State Park. I found a cold water beach shower, then got back in the truck and put my head down to sleep....

[Peter Pallotta]

Paul - you know that I was fond of you before, but after that post I can now honestly say that I'm in love with you. Granted, being "in love" can be a fickle state; but I'm a thoughtful person, and if you continue with such perfect little gems I'm almost certain that my feelings will deepen and become permanent.


Peter

[Adam Clayman]

Paul- I was there in the mid-to late 90's and actually saw all the equipment and generators for the 10k lights they used to rebuild the entire front and right bunker on #7, overnight sometime in the late 90's.

 So, I never said they didn't redo them. What I said was one can't tell definitively from the pictures how much they've shrank.

 

When a green changes it's configuration, the bunkers follow suit, no ?

Patrick, Perhaps you've been too busy to keep up on what's been happening to Pebble Beach recently, but I believe recent work on the 17th would prove you 180 degrees wrong on the order they altered the bunkers and the green, or, that they should quit consulting with that hack Arnie Palmer, and call you to make proper changes, because you're right. We'll have to wait and see.

The fact is they changed the bunkers around 17 several years ago and only recently altered the green. Making it flatter and wider. What's next? #14 green? A non golfing Artists rendition that's survived nearly 100 years.

#3 is underrated by who? Management? Certainly the holes merits didn't escape Dr, Mackenzie, who wrote about it's merits in the 30's. Only the current management doesn't seem to care for the hole's finer points. Adding bunkers up that right side, actually easing a players approach from the traditionally penal right side.

[paul cowley]

Paul - you know that I was fond of you before, but after that post I can now honestly say that I'm in love with you. Granted, being "in love" can be a fickle state; but I'm a thoughtful person, and if you continue with such perfect little gems I'm almost certain that my feelings will deepen and become permanent.


Peter

Thanks my friend...I love you too! Don't love writing though...

[paul cowley]

Paul- I was there in the mid-to late 90's and actually saw all the equipment and generators for the 10k lights they used to rebuild the entire front and right bunker on #7, overnight sometime in the late 90's.

 So, I never said they didn't redo them. What I said was one can't tell definitively from the pictures how much they've shrank.

 

When a green changes it's configuration, the bunkers follow suit, no ?

Patrick, Perhaps you've been too busy to keep up on what's been happening to Pebble Beach recently, but I believe recent work on the 17th would prove you 180 degrees wrong on the order they altered the bunkers and the green, or, that they should quit consulting with that hack Arnie Palmer, and call you to make proper changes, because you're right. We'll have to wait and see.

The fact is they changed the bunkers around 17 several years ago and only recently altered the green. Making it flatter and wider. What's next? #14 green? A non golfing Artists rendition that's survived nearly 100 years.

#3 is underrated by who? Management? Certainly the holes merits didn't escape Dr, Mackenzie, who wrote about it's merits in the 30's. Only the current management doesn't seem to care for the hole's finer points. Adding bunkers up that right side, actually easing a players approach from the traditionally penal right side.

Sorry Adam...I am confusing you with another. I know PB has changed, especially the past 20 years. I'm just making a comparison of my time there 40 years ago with the earliest renditions and photos of the post. Thx

[Patrick_Mucci]

Paul- I was there in the mid-to late 90's and actually saw all the equipment and generators for the 10k lights they used to rebuild the entire front and right bunker on #7, overnight sometime in the late 90's.

 So, I never said they didn't redo them. What I said was one can't tell definitively from the pictures how much they've shrank.

 

When a green changes it's configuration, the bunkers follow suit, no ?

Patrick, Perhaps you've been too busy to keep up on what's been happening to Pebble Beach recently, but I believe recent work on the 17th would prove you 180 degrees wrong on the order they altered the bunkers and the green, or, that they should quit consulting with that hack Arnie Palmer, and call you to make proper changes, because you're right. We'll have to wait and see.

Adam,


Evidently, you didn't understand my post

The fact is they changed the bunkers around 17 several years ago and only recently altered the green. Making it flatter and wider. What's next? #14 green? A non golfing Artists rendition that's survived nearly 100 years.

#3 is underrated by who? Management?


GOLFERS


Certainly the holes merits didn't escape Dr, Mackenzie, who wrote about it's merits in the 30's. Only the current management doesn't seem to care for the hole's finer points. Adding bunkers up that right side, actually easing a players approach from the traditionally penal right side.



Evidently Bob Crosby and I feel the same regarding the perception of the hole.
Perhaps you should re-read what we posted

[Kalen Braley]

A couple of things that stood out to me.
 
The centerline bunker complex on the 9th hole, with a little pine poking out of the left hand side. I know its already a tough hole, but I think that was a very cool asthetic, that would certainly come into play as well.
 
The way how the 18th green was tucked into those trees that have since been removed.  I get that they need space for the stands during the tourney every year, but having those trees gave more of a intimate feel to end the round....

[JWL]

Thanks for posting all the pics and diagrams of the holes.  I also enjoyed Paul's inside baseball info on the green shrinking.   That is what I was also told when I worked on the new 5th hole and several other changes on the course prior to the 2000 open.   There have been some amazing transitions on that course over time.    Fun to see.  Thanks

[Bill_McBride]

More chapters of the Paul Cowley memoir please.   This is as good or better than Tom Paul's stuff. 

[Robert Kimball]

My attention was drawn to hole 5. From what I understand (and my caddy explained), the green used to be more inland, away from the water.


The diagram looks somewhat -- i say somewhat -- similar to today's hole. I heard that the old pros would call it "the only dogleg par-3 in existence."


What am I missing? Trust me, I am sure it's something. Having the opportunity to fill in the bucket and play there last summer it is a day I will never forget. What a glorious setting.


-- Rob

[Adam Clayman]

Rob, Truthfully, I have no idea what your caddie was talking about, with regards to the green's location. (unless it's been moved very recently.

The merits of the hole have been somewhat camouflaged, with the growth of the trees in the baranka (ravine), that in the sketches above, was a string of bunkers. Also, the increased distance in the I&B, allowing everybody and their mothers, to easily carry the diagonal cross carry, that baranka affords. But before the I&B thang, the hole actually caused the player to decide their own individual strategy on how to attack, this apparently easy hole. I say apparently, because, depending on how well executed and thought out your strategy may be, the resultant tee shot placement defined the level of difficulty you have for your next shot.

When I was there, from the white tees, the carry over the pot bunker (That's what the farthest right bunker evolved into from the sketches above) was only 150 yards. According to an old yardage book. I say only because it felt farther and looked even more.

All in all, I believe the hole to be sneaky great. It's emotive and requires thoughtful execution and respect, to take advantage of a low score.

[Robert Kimball]

Hey, Adam -- my fault, I meant to say hole 5 . . .  I just edited it.

[paul cowley]

Rob - the original par 3 fifth hole was inland from what you play now. It was moved in the 90's by the Nicklaus group (JWL?) to its current location on the cove. The original was an uphill par 3, blind green, with a deep barranca left and OB right. Not the most glamourous hole, but not the easiest either. I got most all the balls I played with from the barranca...really good ones too!

[BCrosby]

Paul -

I think the par 3 5th was originally planned for the site of the current hole. The iteration of the hole that went left, uphill was required when PB could not get title to a house that blocked the the construction of the planned hole.

When the owners of the house (or more probably their descendants) agreed to sell the property to PB, Nicklaus was commissioned to build the current hole. As I recall, he expressed a desire to build the hole to the original plan. My shaky recollection is that he did a pretty good job. There were a number of threads here at GCA about Nicklaus' new hole back in the day.

Bob

P.S. I don't think that PB ever made public the amount they paid for the house and lot, but my guess is that the 5th is the most expensive hole in the world on a per yard basis.
 

[Wayne_Kozun]

P.S. I don't think that PB ever made public the amount they paid for the house and lot, but my guess is that the 5th is the most expensive hole in the world on a per yard basis.

What would be the competition - the $61M spent on the 18th at the Ocean Trails / Trump National Palos Verdes course?

[Adam Clayman]

Bob, Whether it was made public or not the lot sold for 9m, split between the PB co. and the two other parties that built homes. I think it was Paul Allen and Chuckie Schwab.

[JMEvensky]

Bob, Whether it was made public or not the lot sold for 9m, split between the PB co. and the two other parties that built homes. I think it was Paul Allen and Chuckie Schwab.

I think it was George Roberts and Charles Schwab.

[BCrosby]

Thanks for the info on the purchase price. Taking just PB's net outlay, that was $25,710 per yard for the new 5th, exclusive of construction costs and design fees.


Bob

[Wayne_Kozun]

And if you believe the $61M for Ocean Trails / Trump that would be $119,141 per yard from the tips.  So the 5th at Pebble was "cheap like borscht" as my grandfather used to say.

edit - And I am guessing that 18 at Pebble isn't cheap either as they must have spent millions reinforcing the shoreline after the washout they had a number of years back.

[paul cowley]

- #14 has bothered me of late as it seems to play much different than when I was there, and I played a lot. PB, Spyglass Hill and Old Del Monte were owned by the Del Monte Corp, and they had a rather enlightened attitude concerning greens keepers playing the courses. They not only allowed it, but encouraged it. When I arrived the crew was comprised of about 80% portugee ex anchovy fishermen. They were older guys who rarely got off their 6 reel gang mowers, and didn't play or understand golf. The owners felt that if the people who maintained the courses really understood the game they would do a better job identifying problems and take greater care of the courses in general.


We worked from 5 til 2:30, and when done we were allowed to get a cart and go play anytime there was an opening...and we did, probably about 5 times a week. There were only 3 of us younger strong backs who loved to play.
Myself and two Johns. John Carlisle was a writer from Playboy who was on leave from the magazine after convincing them that he could start from scratch and become a Pro in a year. He was chronicling his progress as he went. The other John...Koufax, was kind of a awkward misfit type but he loved to play...and we all did. In the fog, rain, sun, wind and even during full moons a few hours before work started. If you lost a ball anywhere it was a stroke. We played PB like it was our local muni, and for free.


 It's truly a shame that most people play Pebble only once...as a bucket list item. I was truly fortunate to get to know Pebble in all its glories.


Anyway...back to 14. The body of the hole seems much the same, but the green doesn't....especially in how it is played. It used to be a challenging risk/reward 2 shotter for me. Carve a power fade around the gently curving dogleg and the green was very reachable AND receptive in two. The front right lower green was pinnable  and challenging, being sandwiched between the high flashed left bunker and the smaller bunker to the right with live oaks growing in it. The right and left bunkers seem to have crowded the green to become little more than a false front.
The upper green was much larger and receptive. I'm guessing that from a combination of sand splash from the left bunker, improper top dressing...going around and around in a circle creating a dome effect, combined with a lot of thatch buildup...has caused the green to shrink and be less receptive to any club but high lofted ones. It seems to me that the current strategy in playing 14 is to use your first shots to get in a position to play it as a short par 3 and hope you can hold the green.


We discovered at day break, about 10 days prior to the Crosby, that a jeep had gouged out long strips of turf while cutting deep donuts in the green. 4 to 5 inches deep in places. We were shocked and worried if it would even be playable for the tournament...and it was my job to fix it as head of special projects.


Three days later, after a surgical repair that wore out a couple of filet knives, the tournament officials were OK and the green was used. The only thing that showed up from the tower were the curving slash marks from using a less fertilized/lighter green sod from our nursery green for the repairs.


My point is that the green 40 years ago was big enough for a jeep to spin donuts on it...and It sure doesn't seem like some drunk fool would be able to do that today.

[paul cowley]

...working offshore in the gulf 40 years ago was a world of strong contrasts. It was probably the most dangerous and boring work I have done...in a setting of great beauty and tranquility...but pared with nature's darker sides.


Our 14 hour days started on a crew boat at 4:30. A crew boat was about 40+ ft long with an inside that had school bus type setting in the front, and an open deck with low gunnels in the back to carry equipment and supplies. The gunnels had suspended tires on the outside so they can bump up to the rig to off load passengers.


 The oil rig field...Conoco's, was around 35 miles out...about a 1.5 hour ride. We would work until 6 and return to the dock by 7:30.


A production oil rig is about 65' high with a upper working deck, helicopter pad and a turreted crane on the top. The lower level, on the water, has two metal decks, about 10' apart in elevation, with a single stair case for access to the upper level. Both lower levels are surrounded with hanging tires so that the crew boats can bump up against them. These decks also have high school type gymnasium ropes hanging out from the rig so that in rougher seas a worker can use them to swing on and off the boat to one of the 2 lower decks...depending on the height of the seas.


Everyday I would see the sunrise and the sunset, accompanied by whatever weather nature had offered up. Either floating on the water or atop an open tower gave me a front row seat. On the way out I tried to stay outside because most of the workforce consisted of hard working, hard drinking Coonass Cajuns...a new  breed for me. There were only 9 hrs from when you last left the boat until you were back on...not a lot of time to get your drinking, eating and sleeping in. Being inside the boat was like a school bus heading for Hades...booze breath, snooring, some times puking and always farting. The trip back to port was much more tranquil.


From atop the rig the Gulf below is really amazing...crystal blue water at times and the entire food chain is on constant parade, drawn to the rig from the smallest algae up to the constantly cruising sharks. Always interesting, always changing. Sometimes during lunch break my co workers would long line for sharks to haul up on the deck to club to death. One time during break they saw me reading a paperback and thought it would be fun to throw it to the fishies and dangle my yankee ass over the rail. Although I was a longhair with a northern accent I was tolerated...I guess because I worked hard and always asked for more...but even more so I think because I was a single entity, an outsider, an oddity...and a such I was non-threatening. If I was part of a twosome or more I feel the outcome could have been quite different. To this day I still do most of my exploring alone.


I saw injuries and the first construction death of my career...and got my first lessons in working smart...stupid can get you hurt bad. In those days there was a reason why the oil companies used employment companies. Even though I worked on Conoco rigs they avoided liabilities by contracting with these companies with few assets. I had two close calls myself, and the last was why I finally left....and went west.

[Sven Nilsen]

Paul:


Keep 'em coming. 


Sven

[paul cowley]

...my last day started in the dark spitting rain. When we rounded the breakwater we were travelling dead into the wind, with about 4 to 5' seas, steep enough faces that the crew boat would ride up to the peak and then whamp down hard....then whamp again...and again. After 30 minutes you were sitting on your hands...another 30 minutes and your hands hurt to much to sit on. After 2 hours we got to the rig and between swells we all swung off to the lower deck...happy to get off the boat.


When we climbed to the upper deck the wind was gusting in the 20's and the rain started to come in light squalls. Because of the conditions we never started work, but took shelter where we could. These working rigs had storage units, mechanical rooms and an office, but our work was always open air...shelter was under or behind something.


After an hour or so we heard a chopper coming and it landed on the pad. Shortly after our boss and 2 others came out to inform us that they were leaving, but the crew boat has turned around and would  be back in 1 or 2 hours...and they took off in the chopper.


The 2 hours later turned into 4 hours while the conditions worsened (in retrospect I realize that this was a strong late season tropical depression). I took some pictures while waiting that I can't find anymore. We, the 8 or 10 of us, found a way into the office and radioed in, and were told the crew boat had to turn back. A 100' supply boat was heading our way instead and would be there in 2 hours.


The big boat finally lumbered in, and was bumping up to the downwind side of the rig. The conditions had worsened...the rain was close to horizontal with winds sustained in the 30's, and probably gusting in the 50's.
The lower of the 2 lower decks was under water. The waves were coming in sets...probably 14 to 16' seas. The crest of the waves were sweeping through the upper deck about 4 or 5' high. Not good. We watching this from the next staircase above. Our only choice was to time a run down the stairs to the upper deck after a wave had passed...grab a rope and swing out to the ship at the right time...too late and you might be left hanging out above the ships deck as it was going down. Too soon and you might end up swinging into the side of the ship as it was coming up.


I think I went second and remember letting go of the rope about 4 or 5' above the deck as the ship was going down. We all made it fortunately, and before the boat got back to harbor I knew I was done.


What's next I thought. In the 6 or 7 weeks I was there my 91 hours a week (about $360) had more than tripled the amount I started with. Whats the best golf course in the world? Pebble Beach was in my mind...so I decided to head there. I cashed out the next day, said goodbye to my friend and co worker...Jay Pisani, wherever you are...and also to the Cajun family whose doublewide restaurant was the place I ate every night. They took a dollar bill out of the register...wrote Gumbo Paul on it...and thumb tacked it to the acoustical ceiling. I drove my truck out of the State Park and jammed in Joni Mitchell's 'Free man in Paris'. Life was good.


It took me 2 or 3 days to drive to Pebble beach, and I went straight to the golf Admin office.


 Hi, I'm Paul Cowley, and I would really like to work here. "Well, we just lost someone yesterday...when could you start?" Tomorrow would be great. "Please fill out these papers and we'll see you then. We start at 5:30"


I could not believe I was going to work at Pebble beach, the best golf course in the world! Incredible.


...and Bill McBride, that's the long story of how I got there.


One thing I learned at this early age was that if I had written an application for employment from Altamont NY it would have ended In the trash bin. Working hard with multiple goals is important...but you also have to put yourself in a place where luck can find you. Not saying that it will, but it will almost never happen if you don't. I addressed this obliquely on my website answering the often asked question "how did you become a golf course architect?".



I'm writing this from Mexico...where I've stationed myself for the past 3 years after the golf economy went to hell in the States. I've added 2 new holes to our Top 100 course Diamante Dunes, and still making improvements. I project managed the new Tiger Woods course and I'm doing planning and landscape design for the resort. I still work with my crews a lot to teach and motivate. It's ironic that I'm head of Special Projects. Never in my wildest dreams as a twenty something could I have imagined I would be working on a Best in the World course of my own design and construction.


But dreams have happened...and yes, I'm still waiting for luck to find me. Again.

[Peter Pallotta]

Paul -- if there are young (or old) out there, would-be architects for example, I hope they have the sense to intuit what wonderful wisdom you just shared. In 1967, Cool Hand Luke came out. Dozens of great lines, but I'm reminded of one in particular. During the poker game, when Paul Newman bluffs his way to a big win. George Kennedy is mocking the guy he bluffed: "Nothing. A handful of nothing. You stupid mullet head. He beat you with nothing. Just like today, when he kept coming back at me, with nothing!" And Paul responds: "Yeah, well -- sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand".
Thanks. I needed that.
Peter