Making New Memories at the AT&T
Feb. 18, 2015
The first time I worked the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Davis Love III was still smacking a persimmon driver. I was just the luckiest 12-year-old in the world, ditching school to man the driving range. My important job was to hand out green baskets full of fresh Titleists to players and their caddies, and to make occasional runs to collect those empty buckets – an errand that also doubled as an excuse to study pros practicing from 3 feet away.
It was golf’s version of a bat boy. I really just had this insane inside-the-ropes pass to watch professional golfers hit balls like I’d never seen before. The first time – really every time – you see the trajectory and flight of a professional perfectly sums up why they are where they are, and you are not. There’s a different sound, the ball explodes, and it never looks like it can drift offline. I still remember how flush Love struck irons off the muddy turf with his effortless swing.
Watching the way pros hit the ball, whether its sending a booming drive on a line I’ve never considered, or a 4-iron that never leaves the flag, or a wedge that hops and spins and dances around the hole, is the best part about catching PGA Tour golf live. TV can’t capture just how expertly these shots are hit, how tucked most of the flags are, and how truly frightening a slick 5-footer with two cups of break is to stand over.
That’s my favorite takeaway about watching the pros in person.
I’ve worked the AT&T ever since I was 12, walking the courses as a sign boy, even scoring a caddie gig in 2000 as a freshman in high school for Paul Spengler, the executive vice president of the Pebble Beach Co. That year we were paired up with Brian Watts, who had just finished runner-up to Mark O’Meara in a playoff at the 1998 British Open, and a 19-year-old Sergio Garcia, six months removed from his daredevil duel with Tiger at the 1999 PGA Championship.
It was my dream then to one day play in the AT&T – I guess there’s still the pro-am side – but as it became clear that my road to the PGA Tour was not a through street, my sports journalism career began to pick up speed.
So I’ve worked the AT&T in one way or another ever since I was 12, coming back in college to string for the Monterey County Herald before a full-time job brought me back in 2008. And while a media pass and sneaking an arms-length inside the ropes is a cool way to experience the tournament (especially for the Phil Mickelson-Tiger Woods pairing in 2012), the sad truth about covering golf is your won’t know what the heck is going on when the action picks up unless you plant yourself in front of a TV. (I even did this at the end of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, but unfortunately, the delayed TV feed was too close to the 18th green. Just as Tiger Woods began his backstroke over his tying birdie putt, I heard an explosion of cheering usually reserved for buzzer-beaters. It slightly spoiled what I was about to watch on TV.)
But this year was different. The luxury of working for a magazine that doesn’t publish until the end of April is no daily deadline, which meant I could enjoy the totality of tournament week, and didn’t have my head buried in a laptop until 7 p.m. trying to crank out a story.
And boy, did I pick the right weather week to spend outside! Some observations from a perfect weekend:
Friday at Spyglass Hill
I played the front nine at Spyglass Hill roughly 30 times each spring during my four years of high school golf at Stevenson. We were lucky and spoiled enough to call Spyglass our home course, and I also spent 10 summers as a caddie there. I love watching the pros play a course I know so intimately.
I took in Spyglass on Friday (the perfect day to go – it was the A-list rotation but the crowds still favor Pebble Beach) with my dad and was beyond impressed to find out that Brandt Snedeker hit all 18 greens during his 5-under 67, and Jim Furyk found all 14 fairways during his 2-under 70. I know the weather was spectacular, but for Spyglass to play to a stroke average of 71.199, including 10 holes under par, shows just how mind-bogglingly good these guys are.
We first parked ourselves on the hillside behind the 17th green (which is also right next to Stevenson) and watched pros fire wedges at the steepest putting surface on the course. As a caddie, I did anything I could to coach my players to leave their approaches on the front edge of the green, which led to a manageable uphill putt. But even after Aaron Baddeley left his approach hanging on the back fringe, he beautifully feathered a putt down the hill for a tap-in two-putt. And partner Jason Gore confidently knocked in a sliding 8-foot birdie putt that entered the cup sideways. These were two putts that any of us would gladly pick up in exchange for a two-putt. They are scary. And it was no sweat for either player.
When Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth reached us, we followed them for a couple holes. Johnson pulled out driver from the back edge of the long runway tee on No. 18, and aimed over a bench 30 yards ahead, in line with the right half of the fairway. The only thing was, his soon-to-be father-in-law Wayne Gretzky was sitting on it. Yet neither player was fazed, and Johnson smashed a draw over Gretzky’s head – sending the ball some 180 mph right at him – into flip-wedge range. I still don’t know how either player could stomach that shot. If I were Johnson, I would yank it left into the trees out of fear. And if I were Gretzky, my life would be flashing before my closed eyes and flinching body. Pros are a different breed, and Gretzky is just crazy.
We also hung out behind the first green and alternated watching third shots into the par-5 first, and tee shots into the par-3 fifth. Navy graduate Billy Hurley III lipped out a full wedge shot on the first hole to a flag that was maybe two feet from a slope that fell off the back of the green. The precision and confidence that these guys have to fire at what are essentially sucker pins is incredible. The flag on the fifth hole was tucked in the far left corner over the third bunker, yet players were routinely firing at it from more than 200 yards without blinking.
We closed out the day by following in Billy Horschel, who threw up a smooth 7-under 65. Reason No. 5,347 that pros are insanely good? The uphill 431-yard ninth hole at Spyglass played under par for the week. Horschel popped his drive 30 yards over the bunker on the right that guards the dogleg and rolled in a 15-foot birdie to finish off his bogey-free round.
Friday Night at the First Tee ParTee
While grinding away on deadline over the years, I’ve missed out on invitations to the NCGA Hall of Fame Night and California Golf Writers Dinner (ironic, right?), as well as the CBS pre-tournament party.
I had never experienced the “Clambake” side of the AT&T, which really was the foundation of this celebrity-centric event ever since Bing Crosby brought his tournament to Pebble Beach. Thankfully, that changed this year.
In a mansion off the fourth fairway of Cypress Point, Robert and Stefanie Skinner hosted the Inaugural First Tee ParTee, a fundraiser for the First Tee of Monterey County.
The party was Great Gatsby-ian. A row of Lexus SUVs was lined up past the red carpet entrance, in case one of the 550 guests made a hole-in-one on the golf simulator inside, which was set to the 17th hole at Pebble Beach. That’s where I found new Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh hanging out – one of the two best-dressed guys at the party.
Harbaugh was a hoot. He was in a great mood, and he was exactly as competitive as you’d expect. He quizzed me on what club I hit on the simulator, how far it went, and where my distance to the hole ranked on the leaderboard. He wanted to know where I went to school, and whether I played golf there. (I was flattered that he first asked if I played football at USC. I’ll take it!) He ended up pulling a 4-iron from 175 yards, but it’s tough to hit the green with your first swing of the day in a dress shirt.
The party was stocked with dishes by Chef Adam Sobel of the Mina Group, plus gourmet food stands and appetizers, and wine throughout Northern California. Music played all night, first from Alexandra Browne (small world – I’ve caddied for her father and current Champions Tour player Olin Browne at the Callaway Invitational since 2001), and eventually by Stevenson junior DJ Andrew Lucee, a world-renown Electronic Dance Music DJ. Harbaugh even jumped on stage with the Money Band.
Michael Bolton lurked in the background of a selfie, and Furyk and his wife Tabitha jumped into a photo with my wife.
Furyk was one stroke off the course record at Pebble Beach the next day, shooting a 9-under 63, so if that isn’t an endorsement for a party, I don’t know what is!
Saturday at Pebble Beach
I don’t know if there is anywhere in the world better than Pebble Beach Golf Links on a 75-degree day. Maybe we were on the wrong side of the ropes, but that is possibly the only thing I would change about Saturday of this year’s AT&T.
I went with two high school golf teammates, plus our significant others. No notebook, no recorder, no media badge. I was just there to soak in Pebble Beach on a perfect day, enjoy the celebrities, watch some golf, and experience parts of the tournament I had never seen.
We wandered along Nos. 18 and 17 before walking up Nos. 4 and 5, eventually settling at the 13th green for a dose of Bill Murray. We were about 5 feet away from our new friend Furyk when he sunk his third birdie in a row, as he drained an impossible 30-foot putt that was jammed against the collar of the rough. He must have been in some kind of zone at that point, because he just walked up to the putt and gave it a pop, sending it screaming over a knob and straight into the flagstick.
A group later, Murray sent an approach screaming over the green before it caught the cart path and hop-scotched down the hill. Excited that we could experience an interaction with the life of the tournament, we chased Murray’s moving ball until it rested against the curb of the cart path, securing prime real estate. A few minutes later, Murray arrived at the green searching for his ball, before realizing the gallery had fanned an opening for his next shot. As he made his way down the hill, I chirped, “You playing a Titleist?” Murray let out a sly smirk, briefly looked up at me, and then rolled his eyes and shook his head at the 500th thing someone had yelled at him that round. But I made him smile!
Yet, for all the circus that Murray creates and plays through, his golf game is criminally underrated. Murray took a drop in some matted-down rough where the gallery had been all day, and opened his lob wedge to hit a giant flop. I was standing about 2 feet in front of him in the first row, and quietly hid a couple people back. He was attempting to hit a shot that could go horribly wrong. Except, Murray took a big cut and pulled it off, sending a high, soft flop from 10 feet below the green onto the putting surface. I don’t think the shot made TV, but it was quite extraordinary. And he hits fairly impressive shots all time amid a flurry of distractions.
We left Murray alone with the other 5,000 people following him, and ended up gaining access to the Facebook suite by the 18th green. So this is how the other half lives?
We got a kick out of enjoying a view that wouldn’t exist two days later, because the luxury boxes would be gone, and there would be no way to float 20 feet above the ground at the edge of the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach. Pretty sweet.
Our day ended halfway down the 18th fairway with the three World Series trophies the Giants have won in the last five years. There had been a giant party during the day with a half-hour wait just to take a picture near them. But after the third round was over, a high school friend invited me over, and the trophies were passed around for anyone with open arms. All that was missing was the champagne and ski goggles.
So this is what I’ve been missing all these years?
-Kevin Merfeld
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