Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)

After just about getting his third shot out of the greenside bunker and then knocking the resultant fourth from the fringe to about six or eight feet with his putter,  I don’t think anyone who’d been watching the previous three days – or, in particular, the preceding 17 holes of his final round – were all that surprised when Graeme McDowell proceeded to drain his par putt on the 72nd hole of the Saudi International and ensure his winning margin was a full two shots. For if there was ever a final round performance that perfectly encapsulated McDowell’s strengths as a player and served as a welcome reminder for just why exactly he walked out of Pebble Beach nearly a decade ago with the U.S. Open trophy tucked neatly under his arm, it was this one.  

With extremely tough conditions and a course set up to penalise wayward shots slowly grinding the life out of the field, McDowell – when his ability to consistently find the fairway abandoned him – pretty much scrambled his way around the first 13 holes of the windswept Royal Greens Golf & Country Club and, essentially, “hung in there” with some clutch par saves as the rest of the field tried, and subsequently failed, to beat the course into submission. If the chasing pack were swinging haymakers in an effort to reel him in, however, a quick ‘1-2’ of birdies at 14 and 15 to get back to level par for the day and -12 overall, as it transpired, was enough for McDowell to fend off the late charge of Dustin Johnson, who eagled the last to get to -10, see those who’d posted -9 (Pieters, Mickelson & Green) fall just short and bring the curtain down on this year’s ‘Desert Swing’ with him being only the second person ever to hoist the Saudi International trophy aloft as champion.

As the European Tour swaps ‘desert sand’ for the ‘beach’ variety, however, in heading to the south-east coast of Australia for the ISPS Handa Vic Open, I, instead, am casting my gaze west to the Monterey Peninsula and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for this week’s slimmed down, rapid-fire preview.

Field Report

Fresh off their respective runner-up and third-place finishes in Saudi Arabia, Dustin Johnson (a two-time winner at Pebble) & the defending champion from last year, Phil Mickelson, will both be teeing it up on the Californian coast this week.

After winning this event back in 2017 by four shots, Jordan Spieth’s journey to find the game that made him near-unplayable a few years ago will pass through the Monterey Peninsula after Phoenix proved to be something of a deadend. 

In a four week spell that’s surely seen him had his fill of all things “desert golf” – after going back-to-back at Abu Dhabi and Dubai, to then playing in Phoenix – Viktor Hovland returns to the happy hunting ground that’s been the state of California after romping to the 2018 U.S. Amateur at Pebble and securing low amateur honours at last year’s U.S. Open there with a record-breaking total score for an amateur.

Having put in an impressive performance at Torrey Pines that saw him finish in a tie for 16th despite the fact he’s been struggling with his back, Jason Day will look to continue to ease his way back into the game at an event where in the last three years he’s finished T-4, T-2 and T-5.

Finally, throw in on top of all those a collection of proven winners who’ve made their names collecting cheques and silverware on the European Tour in Paul Casey, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Branden Grace, Alex Noren, Charl Schwartzel, Pádraig Harrington and, of course, Graeme McDowell, and you’ve suddenly got quite a deep field.

The Yardage Book

(i) As we all know from watching this event over the years, the first three days of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am sees the field take it in turns to play the courses of Spyglass Hill, the Shores Course at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club and Pebble Beach, before everything comes to a conclusion on the latter come Sunday.

Spyglass Hill (Par 72 – 6,953 yards): 10 Par 4’s; 4 Par 3’s; 4 Par 5’s.

Monterey Peninsula CC (Par 71 – 6,958 yards): 9 Par 4’s; 5 Par 3’s; 4 Par 5’s.

Pebble Beach Golf Links (Par 72 – 6,816 yards): 10 Par 4’s; 4 Par 3’s; 4 Par 5’s.

(ii) With the main reason why this tournament exists being the ‘Celebrity Pro-Am’ aspect of it, I’d imagine that, like the American Express three weeks ago, all three courses won’t be set up to be particularly penal as, since its inception in the days of Bing Crosby, it’s a tournament that, first and foremost, is about entertainment – and, unlike the monster in me who loves seeing tournaments boil down to pars becoming like birdies, ‘entertainment’ for the majority of people means lots of birdies. Throw in the fact that the winning scores in the last few years have floated between -17 & -19 (to even -22 when Brandt Snedeker won in 2015) and there’s a pretty good chance low scoring will be on the cards.

(iii) What could possibly stem the flow of birdies and see the winning score drop to perhaps below -15, however, is the weather. Now, unlike last year when the weather pounded the peninsula with so much rain and hail that an extra day was needed to decide that it would, indeed, be Phil Mickelson who would be crowned champion for the fifth time at the Pro-Am, the forecast is looking a lot better for this year’s event. It’ll be cool enough temperature-wise, 11℃-15℃ (which is still infinitely warmer than what it will be in Ireland, but whatever) so that might hamper the distance balls fly through the air to a degree, but it won’t be too intrusive. Plus, there’s not really any rain forecast for the week, so that’s always a help.

Where the problems might start, though, is with the wind. For the first two days, it won’t be too much of a factor, with speeds of between 7-13km/h making things a bit breezy, but nothing massively severe. Come the weekend, however, the wind is forecast to get up quite significantly, in particular on Saturday, with 11-17km/h winds expected for the morning wave and a hairy 17-24km/h possibly lying in wait for the late starters on moving day. Now, though it’ll die back a bit on Sunday for the morning starters to what they’ll have seen over the first two days, the leaders will have to really earn getting their hands on that glass trophy as they might see the wind completely switch direction and ramp up to 11-22km/h. So, who knows, come the weekend I may yet get my wish for pars to become like birdies … maybe.

The Oracles’ Fourball

After Thomas Pieters broke from the pack on Sunday to grab a tie for third in Saudi Arabia and Martin Kaymer moved through the field with an early morning 65 to finish in a tie for 13th, it ended up being a far better week for the Oracles’ Fourball than how it looked like it was going to be after Patrick Reed and Tom Lewis both missed the cut on Friday.

With my focus turning Stateside this week, however – my first such time for one of these previews – the Oracles felt it best to up both the strength of the broth and the quantity which I must drink.

Or at least that’s what I think they said … my Latin is only middling.

Dustin Johnson: It’s probably the most obvious thing in the world to think Dustin Johnson could do well at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am … but it’s hard to argue with the numbers. From just 12 appearances on the peninsula the former U.S. Open champion has racked up two wins (back-to-back in ‘09 & ‘10);  finished runner-up twice; and completed the ‘top five’ set by finishing third, fourth and fifth – which is madness when you think about it. Pair that up with his solid T-7 finish at the Sentry Tournament of Champions and his runner-up finish in Saudi Arabia at the weekend – where he, again, played solidly – and you’d have to think that, if his knee is feeling alright and the jet-lag from the flight back to the States isn’t too bad, Johnson could well be making it a hat-trick of wins come Sunday.

Viktor Hovland: The last time Viktor emerged from the mists as one of the Oracles’ Fourball, it was for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and he then proceeded to go on and miss the cut. And, again, if we look at his most recent outing at the Waste Management in Phoenix he – despite a late back 9 charge to try & prevent it – missed the cut once more. Yet, when you actually look at how Viktor has been playing, without necessarily focusing on results, you quickly see that he’s really been doing quite well. He’s very strongly placed in a lot of the stat categories (1st in ‘Approaches from 150-175’; 6th in ‘Total Putting’; 17th in ‘Strokes Gained: Approach’; 9th in ‘Strokes Gained: Off The Tee’; 15th in ‘Driving Distance’ & 3rd in ‘Total Driving’) and when he has missed the cut (3 from the 7 he’s played so far this season) it hasn’t been by a lot and it hasn’t been for a lack of making birdies.

So when I put all that together with the fact he’ll be returning to the Monterey Peninsula, a place, like I mentioned in the ‘Field Report’, where he’s had quite a bit of success, I think if he can get himself nicely placed heading into Sunday, Viktor could well be in contention to claim his first professional win.

Branden Grace: After a quiet 2018/19 season for the thirteen-time winner prompted something of a rebuild of his putting stroke, that decision, as it turns out, has proven to be worth its weight in gold – or should that be ‘silver’ – for the three-time Presidents Cup team member as he won the South African Open back in January and in his three other starts in 2020, he’s posted a T-3, T-17 and, just this past weekend in Phoenix, a T-9 finish. He’s a player who, generally, finds a lot of fairways and, given he’s currently 20th in GIR on the PGA Tour, a player who finds more than his fair share of greens. He’s got a really solid short game and, as his final round 62 in the South African Open showed, when he gets hot with the putter he can go incredibly low. So if he can get said putter warmed up early in the week, Branden might just improve upon the T-28 & T-20 finishes he’s posted at this event in the last two years.

Max Homa: In the midst of spending the last while critiquing the golf swings of us mere mortals on Twitter, Max has quietly made a solid start to his season, with a T-9 and T-6 in the last fortnight at Torrey and Phoenix possibly even going so far as to replace that above ‘solid’ with a ‘great’. Given he finished in a tie for tenth at this event last year (thanks to shooting 68-67 over the weekend) – plus, with finishes of T-20 & T-6 at the ‘19 Honda Classic and ‘15 Sony Open respectively making me think he’d be comfortable enough if the wind were to get up like it might do on Saturday and Sunday – Max, given his current form, could well make it three top 10’s in a row this week … if not adding a second trophy to his mantlepiece.

Also, though it may only have been a spectral recreation conjured by a mixture of my imagination and whatever hallucinogenic substances the Oracles lace that broth with, Max Homa said that my golf swing was, and I quote, “Both lovely and enviable.”

Which I thought was nice of him to say.

And wholly accurate.

Title Image Photo Credit (because it’s such a dinger): www.pebblebeach.com/Bart Keagy