When brilliant players challenge magnificent courses, golf legend is made. Pebble Beach is the southern part of the Monterey Bay has created its share, while Pasatiempo, in the northern part of the Bay, recalls the heyday of amateur golf in the 1930s.
Some of the most talked about shots in golf are made at Pebble Beach. The course has been chosen three times as a host for the U.S. Open, every 10 years, with a break in the pattern for the year 2000, the 100th anniversary of the Open.
"It's going to be the 100th Open, it's going to be the year 2000 - what better place to hold it than Pebble Beach?" says USGA Director of Championships Relations Mike Davis. "If you ask golf historians to name the great U.S. Open Championships of the past, they're going to talk about the Pebble Beach Opens. The championship just always seems to be special there."
Special occasions occurred in 1972 when Jack Nicklaus made one of the most famous shots in golf history. On a windy 17th hole, he had to make a split-second adjustment with his one-iron. The resulting shot defied the wind, hit the flagstick and rolled to a stop close to the cup. A birdie clinched his win, by three strokes, over Bruce Crampton. In 1982 Nicklaus battled the 17th again and Tom Watson. The two were tied when Watson missed the 17th green completely. His next shot from the rough dropped onto the green and into the hole for a jaw-dropping birdie, a win and another legend in U.S. Open history.
Nature plays a starring role in the stories of Pebble Beach. Arnold Palmer was bested by the rocks on the 17th hole in 1963 and ’64; ending his streak of finishing in the money in 47 consecutive tournaments. During the 1967 Crosby, nature again conspired against Palmer when not one, but two, balls ricochet off the same tree and out of bounds on the 14th hole. He finished third. The tree fell in a raging storm that night.
Built by amateur golfer and architect Jack Neville, who built no other courses, and Douglas Grant, Pebble Beach’s beauty and challenge would attract more tournaments and create more legends. Lanny Wadkins won in one of the first sudden-deaths at Pebble Beach’s first PGA Championship in 1977. The U.S. Amateur, where few courses host it more than twice, just recently finished its fourth tournament here in 1999.
"There's just no golf course in the country like Pebble Beach," says Craig Smith, of the United States Association, which oversees the U.S. Amateur.
In the late ‘30s, Bing Crosby moved his pro-am tournament to Monterey, where it evolved into the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. This PGA Tour event attracts golf-loving celebrities, including Jack Lemmon (a Crosby legend himself) and the prankish Bill Murray, teamed with the pros. Look for Jimmy Connors, Bryant Gumbel, Craig T. Nelson, Orel Hershiser, Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Joe Pesci, James Woods and Randy Quaid, to name a few.
The celebrities provide the entertainment. In 1947, Roger Kelly, who enjoyed the party atmosphere, set the tone when he was paired with Sam Snead. His first move was to get sick near the 1st tee. The two went on to win, despite rejected demands by Snead for a new partner, and the two paired for many years after. In 1957, "Champagne" Tony Lema fell on the cliff near hole 9 to the sand below, but survived with only a few bruises. And Jack Lemmon quests eternally to qualify.
The pros create the myth. In 1984, Hale Irwin, trailing by one on the 18th, sent a ball off to the briny depths. It hit some rocks and bounced back to the fairway, allowing Irwin to birdie. This set Hale up for a sudden-death play off with Jim Nelford for a win. In 1994, Johnny Miller became the only golfer to win the event in three different decades (’74, ’87).
It is these legends that players think about when they tee up. It’s a sense of history of following in the footsteps of golf’s greatest players. For a close look at memorabilia of Pebble Beach, check out Jim Santy’s collection at Cambridge Golf Antiquities at the Lodge. About Pebble Beach, he says "It’s a lifetime experience where you see some of the most breathtaking vistas god ever created. It becomes emblazoned on your memory. "
Pasatiempo Golf Course in Santa Cruz, which attracts young and upcoming players (including a young Tiger Woods) at its annual Western Intercollegiate Golf Championship, has a rich history of golf.
Marion Hollins founded the course in 1929, the heyday of amateur golf. She was winner of the U.S. Women’s Amateur Championship in 1921, captain of the Curtis Cup Team and designer of the Women’s National Golf and Country Club in Glen Head, Long Island. Hollins was more than a brilliant golfer, though. She also was visionary course designer, real estate speculator and millionaire with friends in high places.
Her Monterey Bay story begins with the famed Pebble Beach as athletic director for founder Samuel Morse. There she helped design one of the most photographed holes in golf, the 16th at the exclusive Cypress Point Club Golf Course.
On a trip to Santa Cruz, she discovered the bare, wind-swept hills of Pasatiempo and dreamed of Scotland. After purchasing the land, she hired one of the greatest designers of his time, Dr. Alistar MacKenzie, to design the course which, except for the addition of a few trees, has been changed very little today.
The two shared an aesthetic vision of magnifying what nature presents, designing a championship course "matching skills to expectations, limited only by imagination," says Bob Beck, historian for Pasatiempo course.
MacKenzie lived on the course, refining it as the years went by. It opened with an exhibition match featuring Marion Hollins, Bobby Jones, Glenna Collett and Cyril Tolley. Over the next decade, Pasatiempo would continue to attract famous golf amateurs, Hollywood movie stars and the social elite, the circle in which Hollins moved.
It became the place for amateurs, the stars of the day, to sharpen their game. Sports greats Babe Didrickson Zaharias, Alice Marble, Ben Hogan, Jack Dempsey and Ken Venturi all played there.
It was also a place for locals as one of the first courses to be surrounded by homes. Hollins, who grew up the only daughter in a weathy banking family, had tremendous social standing as well as status as a player. Her guest book included the signatures of Murial Vanderbilt, Spencer Tracy, Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Claudette Colbert, Jean Harlow, Bing Crosby and Jane Fontaine.
They all played the day away and partied all night. But by 1938, the party was over for Hollins. In financial distress, she sold the course and returned to her job at Pebble Beach in 1940. She died in 1944. The course went through some low years after the Depression, but bounced back to host of the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1986 and become the annual site of the Western Intercollegiate Golf Championship.
Kay Cockerill, who learned how to play the game through her hometown Junior Golf Program in Santa Cruz, won the Amateur at Pasatiempo that year. Juli Inkster, a three-time U.S. Women’s Amateur Champion, grew up near the course and worked in the pro shop. She calls it "one of the toughest courses I"ve ever played…" She’s still a regular.
The tough course seasons up-and-coming amateurs at the Western Intercollegiate. A crucible for future champions, the list of those who’ve played the course as amateurs reads like a who’s who: Johnny Miller, Hal Sutton, Roger Maltbie, Bob Rosburg, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson, Gene Littler, Scott Simpson, Tiger Woods and Mark O’Meara are only a few.
It’s a course that historian Bob Beck says that for a golfer, "it’s like walking through Yosemite. Everything just fits and it looks more awesome than it is."