– This Thursday marks the start of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. A unique week in the PGA Tour calendar. It’s the most special course in the United States. It’s history. The cathedral. The views. The fog. The wind. The Pacific waves crashing against the shore. The cold. The seals. People strolling along the beach. The dogs. The boats. The kites. It’s all this and much more…
– The statistics accumulated year after year by the PGA Tour also highlight that it is a unique course. Let’s highlight some of them. For example, it is the shortest course on the American calendar. It doesn’t reach seven thousand yards. Yes, metre by metre, Port Royal in Bermuda or TPC River Highlands of the Travelers, measure less, but the first is a par 71 and the second a par 70, while Pebble Beach is par 72. The shortest. It’s 6,972 yards. Barely 50 metres more than Port Royal. It measures 800 yards less than the south course of Torrey Pines, last week’s course.
– At the same time, it is the course where the least average distance is achieved from the tee. It’s not a place for bombers. Not because you can’t hit the driver, but because you don’t need to. A lot of irons and 3-woods are used, so the average in 2024 was 277.4 yards, approximately 250 metres.
– Obviously, it is an ideal course for good iron players, as it is very important to be on the right green platform to make putts. Here are two more facts that reflect the essence of Pebble Beach. It is the PGA Tour course where, on average, the ball is left closest to the flag when hitting from the rough. This is for two reasons. Being a not very long course, short clubs are used and, moreover, there is little rough. There is always little rough and even more so this week to accommodate the amateurs. The average in 2024 was just under eleven metres.
– The great defence of Pebble Beach is the wind and the greens. This week it seems it won’t blow much, although the air is almost never calm in those parts. It’s impossible due to its location above the sea. At most, some days gusts of about 20 kilometres per hour are expected. This already has an impact, but it’s not hellish. As for the greens, they are very small and very undulating. It is the PGA Tour course where the least distance of putts is made each year. Firstly, because being small greens, there are really no long putts… or very few. Secondly, because it’s really not easy to make putts. In fact, it is the least rewarding for putts of 20 feet or more (six metres). Last year, only 5.34% were made from these distances.
– What can we expect this week? Well, the weather has been strange. Drier and less cold than usual at this time of year. For this reason, and as Scottie Scheffler also pointed out, the greens are going to be firmer and faster. Again, they will be the great defence. Don’t expect to see the 60 that Wyndham Clark shot in 2024 on the last day to win the tournament. It would be a big surprise.
– Finally, the AT&T Pro Am is the first major event of the year in world golf. Scottie Scheffler makes his debut in 2025 and we have 45 of the top 50 players in the world. The most notable absence is Xander Schauffele, out due to a rib problem. It is also Rory McIlroy‘s debut in the PGA Tour.
