– A Sunday of intense emotions is approaching at Pebble Beach. The outcome of this first Signature Event of the year on the PGA Tour is yet to be written, of course, but it is likely to be more uncertain than the leaderboard even suggests. For a very simple reason. The legendary course has been quite forgiving this week, but today it could show a much fiercer version, thanks to the combination of water, wind, and cold expected today in those beautiful latitudes.
– The PGA Tour, however, has tried to sensibly ease the playing conditions, as the forecast places the worst scenario of wind and rain from eleven in the morning and has arranged the tee times in groups of three and from both tees for this final round, so that the leading group formed by the leader, Akshay Bhatia (-19), Collin Morikawa (-17), and Sepp Straka (-17) will be on the course at 9:45 in the morning, local time (18:45, Spanish peninsular time). However, if the forecast is accurate, the leading group faces a long and tortuous end to the day, with a sustained south wind of between 25 and 40 kilometres per hour and gusts of over 50. A wind, by the way, coming from the south, which is crosswind on most holes…
– Bhatia is seeking his third victory on the US circuit and his first major win. Morikawa, on the other hand, hasn’t won a tournament since the end of 2023, but yesterday he got into the fight with a stellar round of ten under, which might be the start of something different. That’s what he hopes after missing the cut at the Sony Open and going unnoticed in Phoenix (he was 54th). The Californian explained yesterday after handing in his card of 62 strokes that this year he is trying to stay more patient and not start reviewing everything, touching everything, after a bad round or a bad tournament. Let the good scores fall like ripe fruit, so to speak. Morikawa believes that yesterday’s performance is the result of this new approach. And patience, a lot of patience, will be needed today in such tough playing conditions, which are not exactly the ones he is most excited about…
– Not even the unsettled day expected at Pebble seems to give any chance to the World Numbers 1 and 2, Scottie Scheffler (-11) and Rory McIlroy (-9). The Northern Irishman starts playing in the first group from the 1st tee and might take advantage of slightly more manageable conditions, but his ten-stroke disadvantage with the tournament leader seems almost insurmountable. A similar argument could be made for Scheffler, although the Texan has preferred not to rule himself out of any goal: “with crazy weather, crazy things can happen, so we’ll see what I can do,” he said yesterday. Either way, Scheffler would have to deliver something like the best card of the day, something like six or seven under, and hope that no one in the last groups could beat the course…
– Resorting to the cliché, perhaps we should be more attentive to guys like Shane Lowry (-13) and Tommy Fleetwood (-14), who will likely feel more comfortable amidst the chaos. It’s not just because of the obviousness of their passports: they’ve already shown many times that they handle these situations better than most.
– In any case, that average clearly below seventy strokes that has been recorded at Pebble Beach this week (even below 69 strokes on Thursday) could go above 72 this Sunday. It only remains to be seen if there is anyone capable of surprising from behind, taking advantage of the small hell that is forecast.
– And while we’re at it, we also need to see if Scheffler is capable of at least stringing together his eighteenth consecutive top ten (it would be 19 if we include the Hero World Challenge). He starts today in 22nd place, three strokes away from this goal. At Pebble, he missed the cut in the 2019 US Open and has two top tens in this AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Not bad numbers, but it’s still a place to conquer for the Number One, unless today he is the one to fish in troubled waters with an epic comeback… If he doesn’t put up barriers on the course, let’s not do it ourselves.
