AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach Golf Links – 2024 Preview

The PGA Tour heads north up the Pacific Coast to the Monterey Bay Peninsula for the second “Signature” event of the year featuring the iconic Pebble Beach Golf Links. And with what is a welcome change for many – the zaniness is gone. No more Bill Murray or Jason Bateman. No more six-hour rounds. No more pathetic celebrity exhibitions. This year’s event will be unlike any in recent memory thanks to drastic changes to the tournament structure.

“We’ve gone from 156 two-person teams to 80 two-person teams, we’ll play two golf courses instead of three,” pro-am tournament director Steve John said. The 54-hole cut has been removed. On Thursday and Friday, thirty-six holes will be played between Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, removing the Monterey Peninsula course altogether. The final two rounds will solely be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links.

The Pro-Am will also only feature select professional athletes including Tom Brady, Josh Allen, Larry Fitzgerald, and Pau Gasol among others. There will be no Hollywood actors or entertainers playing in this year’s event. The purse has also increased from $9.3 million to $20 million with the winner earning $3.6 million.

With both courses exposed to the Pacific coast, the weather can change quickly and influence the outcome of this tournament. Both courses share other similarities as well. Each is among the shortest courses on Tour at under 7,100 yards. Each is among the top five of smallest greens with Pebble Beach coming in at the most minuscule on Tour at an average of only 3,500 square feet. And finally, each course has the same agronomy with a blend of Poa annua and Ryegrass in the fairways and rough along with pure Poa greens.

While Spyglass Hill is scenic in its own right, Pebble Beach is the crown jewel of this tournament. The way the jagged coastline meets the cliffs is beyond words. It truly is the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf. Said Jack Nicklaus, “If I had only one more round to play, I would choose to play at Pebble Beach. I loved this course from the first time I saw it. It’s possibly the best in the world.”

Having hosted this event since 1947, past winners are a historical “who’s who” of golf including Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Billy Casper, Ken Venturi, Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Davis Love III, Vijay Singh, and Tiger Woods.

A second-shot course if there ever was one, players will be provided with a challenging test of patience, pitching wedges, and Poa putting. For those who played last week at Torrey Pines, the emphasis shifts from distance and long-iron play to short-iron precision on equally difficult greens. Since 2010, winning scores have averaged 18-under par with last year’s champion, Justin Rose, finishing at that number. With a cold and wet winter thus far, expect much softer greens and scoring conditions similar to last year.

The Field

In recent years, this tournament has struggled to attract an elite field. In fact, last year just 21 of the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking were in the field with more than half ranked outside the top 300. Between more lucrative events overseas, its place on the schedule before the popular Phoenix Open, and most golfers not wanting to play six-hour rounds with amateurs, the best players have annually skipped Pebble Beach. “For years I’d hear I’d love to come to Pebble, but it just isn’t working for me,” said John. Turning it into a “Signature” event with a huge prize pool was needed to help restore the luster of this once-beloved event.

This year, every eligible player in the top 30 of the world rankings, including the entire top 50 in the 2022-2023 FedExCup standings will be in attendance at Pebble Beach. Also playing are the top 10 finishers in the FedExCup Fall standing along with the best points earners from the last three “swing” events (Aon Swing 5).

Pebble Beach Course History

Pebble Beach Golf Links was built by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant during the golden age of golf course architecture in 1919. When it opened for play on February 22nd, it measured slightly over 6,000 yards. “The big idea was to get as many holes as possible along the bay,” Neville said. “Nature had intended it to be nothing else but a golf links.”

The San Francisco Chronicle said the course was opened “somewhat prematurely.” At a time when golf balls cost more than the greens fee, the course was deemed too difficult. The California Golf Association, however, did not believe the course suitable to host even the state amateur. Improvements were continually made over the next decade, culminating with a renovation to prepare Pebble Beach to host the 1929 U.S. Amateur, which was the first of the United States Golf Association’s major championships to be held west of the Mississippi.

Neville’s and Grant’s routing provided the framework for today’s course, but H. Chandler Egan is most responsible for how the course plays today. In 1928, he extensively revised the layout by replacing 16 of the 18 greens and completely reconfigured the bunkering on the course bringing much more strategy into play. Other architects who have helped to renovate the course in different ways include Alistair MacKenzie, Robert Hunter, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus (who created the new 5th hole in 1998).

The Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was originally called the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, and it has been held at Pebble Beach Golf Links every year since 1947. This year’s tournament notwithstanding, this event has typically had a trio of courses in play for the week. Along with Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula – Cypress Point and Poppy Hills have also been utilized in years past. Along with all of the legendary golfers who have walked its fairways, it has hosted six U.S. Opens and one PGA Championship.

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Finish Position and Strokes Gained Event History (2016-2023)

This includes the average finish position and Strokes Gained per round. Players are sorted by SG: Total. Pebble Beach Golf Links is the 17th (out of 44) most predictive annual course on Tour.