Surely millions and millions of eyes will be bleary this week after straining to take in the Super Bowl’s many delights. There’s Tom Brady’s brilliance, the Eagles’ pluck, Pink’s girl power, Bill Belichick’s condescending snarl and even commercials defending crock pots. It’s the perfect clash of sports and entertainment, sugary Americana on overdrive, and by Monday we’ll all be in need of a detox.
Advertisement
Thank goodness there are four whole days of recovery time before the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am comes into view.
Traditionally, this is a sleepy time in sports. Spring training looms later this month, and the NBA All-Star break offers a welcome reprieve even for folks like Steve Kerr, who sometimes looks as if he’s aged a year during a single game. Pebble Beach, with its alluring course along the Monterey Peninsula, is often more of an event to maybe watch after a day at Squaw, or before joining friends at an outside table in North Beach, with everyone wearing shorts. Coming on the heels of golf’s most raucous tournament, the aptly named Waste Management Phoenix Open — where streakers and well-oiled fans upstage the players — Pebble Beach seems downright quaint.
But this time it feels different. Thursday’s field has an unusual buzz, with five of the planet’s 10 best golfers competing, including the top-three ranked players in the world: Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth, the reigning Pebble Beach champion.
Spieth missed the cut in Phoenix, and he’s still steaming over the obnoxious fan who yelled just as Spieth was mid-swing on the ninth hole during Friday’s second round at TPC Scottsdale. The man shouted something about having a bet on the outcome of the putt, breaking Spieth’s concentration, his attempt from 25 feet stopping inches short and causing him to fall one shot off the cutline. (The man was escorted from the grounds, but perhaps he should have been forced to first meet a livid Spieth because imagine if every nasty fan had to come face-to-face with athletes they heckled. I reckon those big gonads would quickly shrink.)
“I haven’t been playing very well,” Spieth said. “I didn’t drive the ball very well and I didn’t putt well. I’ve just been working on some things that take time, unfortunately, in tournament rounds.”
Advertisement
There’s a reason for that, beyond annoying fans piercing the sport’s sacred wall of silence. After a brutally exhausting 2017 that saw him win three tournament titles, including the British Open, Spieth was bedridden for much of December with mononucleosis. He’s not quite 100 percent, still tiring easily and working on his golf strength. A silver lining from missing the cut for the barbarian-ish Phoenix Open, which can sap the vigor and fry the nerves of even the most fit, is Spieth has had plenty of time to languish in the cool Monterey breezes while he waits for golf’s illuminati.
Rory McIlroy will be there, now No. 8 in the rankings and making his AT&T Pro-Am debut (he played Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open, at 21, but missed the cut). It’ll be a rare West Coast appearance for McIlroy. Jason Day, No. 10 after taking last week’s PGA Tour event in San Diego, arrives in top form. Phil Mickelson, in some form, will be looking to end the longest winless drought of his career, and fans will be excused if, come Sunday, they clear their throats if he is still in the hunt — after four previous wins at this tournament. Then there’s Australian Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, making his first Pro-Am start in eight years. Globs of fans follow the Aussie the way a baby ‘roo follows its mum.
For those who will still have football on the brain, Tony Romo, now CBS’s lead NFL analyst, joins Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and (soon-to-be) Washington’s Alex Smith for a quarterback trio who surely will have some stories to tell. Justin Verlander, fresh off a World Series championship, might have a few, too.
For those who are a little bit country, the Pro-Am side is thick with musicians: Toby Keith, Jake Owen, Darius Rucker and newcomer Pat Monahan, lead singer from Train. Also: Chris Harrison of “The Bachelor,” for those who know what that is, and, of course, Bill Murray, whose quips and cutting commentary oftentimes were Pebble Beach’s greatest lure.
The course, of course, has always been the real star, its picturesque greens along the craggy Pacific coastline a visual treasure. Though the famed course was storm battered last year, Spieth still won it by four, one off the tournament record, nearly going wire-to-wire and carding 65-70 over the last two days.
Advertisement
Only six others have won Pebble Beach back to back, and Spieth is admittedly still a work in progress. But something about Carmel Bay and its healing breezes and welcoming vibe has him jazzed, more than usual.
“I just love that golf course. The weather forecast is great. And it’s totally different from here,” he said from the Phoenix Open. “There, the ball goes way shorter than you’re used to. What was really good for me last year was that I got really dialed in taking three-quarter shots because playing off that turf into those greens, a lot of times you want to take spin off.”
After overdosing on football’s screeching bravado and alfa chest bumps, it’ll be nice to hear more chatter about golf this week, wafting over from the Monterey Peninsula.
(Top photo: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports)