It’s Time For Pebble Beach To Commission A Master Plan

As the restoration movement continues to reinvigorate tired properties, the power and clarity delivered by a master plan document is often forgotten as the long term key to a healthy design.

Understandably, the excitement over better playing and looking golf holes becomes the focus after a restoration. But these projects almost never commenced without a document evaluating the original design’s evolution or the changes necessary to improve things. They also provide a fine opportunity for vital “under-the-hood” improvements required to carry a course into the future.

Countless classics were guided by these documents and now swear by them, sometimes religiously clinging to the plan without some wiggle room to make modifications. But given the history of green committees, ironclad plans prove wiser than leaving leeway for amateur architects to leave their mark.

The latest addition to Pebble Beach demonstrates, in glaring fashion, the danger of not having a master plan or a genuine grasp of the architectural high-point of a course. The planting of South African gazanias on one of golf’s most beautiful locales needing no help suggests it is time for America’s national golfing treasure to commission a serious master plan. To not recognize the architectural and landscape malpractice suggests either too many or not enough cooks are in the Pebble Beach kitchen.

There really is no shame in having reached this point, as most of the best courses in the world were driven to consider their design past and future after some sort of gaffe. Nearly in every case it was not a general realization of architectural decline, but instead something as gaudy as a goofy gazania bed.

Besides the non-native component, accentuated by seeing actual wildflowers sprouting randomly on the gorgeous cliffs of Pebble Beach, this “look at me” execution may be the most robust splash of color since Dorothy, Toto and friends were off to see the Wizard. (Only they waded through fields of poppies, the state flower in California that bloom in springtime.)

Taking a hard look at Pebble Beach’s design evolution and targeting the course at its peak would help the famed resort understand priorities in aesthetics, strategy and playability. There has been a sense that doing so would damage the grand story of amateurs Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, commissioned by Samuel Morse and concocting the masterpiece we know today. Their masterful routing will always be integral to the Pebble Beach story, however, design trends evolved over the decade following their effort and the course ultimately came together with touches from Herbert Fowler, Alister MacKenzie, and then most significantly, thanks to Chandler Egan and Robert Hunter's pre-1929 U.S. Amateur remodel. Egan reached the semi-finals of that amateur and is one of America's greatest amateur golfers.

A study of that 1929 effort would show larger and more intricate green shapes and a better attempt at injecting a sense of naturalness on a magnificent site plagued in early days by geometric and unsightly features. The old images below validate the unique qualities of the 1929 version and while the current ownership of Pebble Beach has taken the resort from hard times to grand stewardship, the golf course vision has fallen behind the clarity they've shown in maintaining the overall Pebble Beach community. It's time for the resort to consider restoration professionals who can identify the best features, understand how the course has evolved, and steer Pebble Beach in a direction that best embodies the course at its peak. Given the importance of the course, perhaps even a bake-off style process open to many architects will provide even more clarity.

From a strictly business perspective, I suspect such a plan would right the rankings ship, which has seen Pebble Beach slipping in all of the major magazine rankings. While this amazing place is not in danger of failing just because magazine panelists are giving lower golf course grades, they are sending a message: Pebble Beach is not as good as it should be.

As I argued this week on Golf Central, the design is actually underrated and should be the undisputed No. 1 course in America. Currently, it is not, and a bed of gazanias won't help make golf's most beautiful setting any prettier.  The flower bed merely highlights the need to commission a master plan.

Above the 7th hole, 1929 U.S. Amateur:

Above the 7th hole, 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am:

More scenes from the old days:

Alister Mackenzie rebuilt the 8th green at Pebble Beach in September 1926. Seen here in 1929 US Am, the right bunker pours down the cliff... pic.twitter.com/esaJfbZAMJ

— Simon Haines (@Hainesy76) October 25, 2017

Pebble Beach, 1929 US Amateur pic.twitter.com/Y7bOQdSpVH

— Simon Haines (@Hainesy76) October 24, 2017

New story dropping on Monday. “The Promise of Pebble Beach” will hopefully start some conversations about what Pebble Beach could be of it looked to its golden age past to create its future. Seen here is the 17th at Pebble during the Chandler Egan & Robert Hunter design era 1929 pic.twitter.com/t0WHTX5U9n

— Jay Revell (@JayRevell) February 2, 2018

Comments

[Zimmer]

Those flowers look awful.
Plain and simple.
A golf course is not the place for flowers.
Maybe Augusta, but Augusta features flowering trees and shrubs, not flower beds!

[Pops]

Just the worst. Like putting a nose ring on the Mona Lisa.

[FC]

Ernie Els' idea?

[option720]

A full reno would cost the resort $100,000,000 in lost revenue if shut down for a year, do the owners care about the course that much?

[Samad]

The flowers were nothing but a dreadful, tasteless bandaid that did nothing to address the underlying problems you talk about Geoff. It bothers me, and countless other fans of Pebble Beach and great golf architecture, that some obviously think this sort of thing enhances the course.
Given its location and the excellent routing Neville and Grant devised, Pebble should be top-five in the world. What a shame it's not even close.

[KLG]

What, you guys didn't like Larry the Cable Guy bounding hand in hand through the wildflowers with whatshisname? I thought is was precious.

Congratulations to young Mr. Potter, Jr! Well done!

[D. maculata]

The current owners relish the view. And they don't want some wild Indian of a golf course circa 1929 mucking it up. That it's manicured, purty and now has flower beds, pretty much settles it. What a shame.

[Chris]

The flowers would look much better along I-95 in North Carolina. They are way out-of-place at Pebble Beach. Sad and cheesy.

[ol Harv]

"But given the history of green committees, ironclad plans prove wiser than leaving leeway for amateur architects to leave their mark."

Bingo!

"To not recognize the architectural and landscape malpractice suggests either too many or not enough cooks are in the Pebble Beach kitchen."

I'm going with too many. Although I have been at clubs where one "ruler" (who was a fan of flower beds & 150 yard bushes) can single handedly destroy a place with his "vision".

[Mike]

Why is everyone saying Wayne Gretzky withdrew with a bad back? He needed to be in Edmonton Sunday for a greatest team celebration. It is quite obvious he was withdrawing whether he made the cut or not. Why not tell the truth?

[Stamen]

Had the sound off and all day I looked at the yellow blob on TV wondering what it was.

[Matt]

How many strokes was the sandbagger Larry Fitzgerald getting? I can't find a list anywhere. Good athletes can improve a ton with a few days of instruction. And I remember the year a rich Asian guy won with a bogus anti-vanity handicap despite his pro missing the cut by nine shots.

They know the pro/am portion is a joke of a competition and probably don't care. It's become an afterthought. Was Bill Murray playing this year? I don't even know. This event as a whole has lost its identity-it did years ago actually. The only reason as many names play it as they do is to pacify their money men.

[ReGripped]

After decades of watching Pebble on TV, I attended my first Pro-Am this weekend. First off, wow, the course is impressive in person. The routing, while well known, is sublime in places and the elevation changes on the backside are much more severe. Even the most well known holes, the 7th, 18th, etc. pack both spectacular scenery while asking significant questions of your game as only a top course can do.

I think Pebble has become an afterthought with the new "raw" courses being built in the last 20 years but I will have to agree with Geoff and others online that Pebble has been turfed into ugliness and that while spectacularly green, what I wouldn't give for that wild, sandy nature to come back again. Dunes are all over the Peninsula and if you could combine the new "raw" aesthetic with the fantastic routing, PB would become a powerhouse again.

[jimbo]

Geoff, thanks for showing some restraint this weekend and not creating a post inviting some of the regulars who would have certainly blindly crushed GC / CBS for their celebrity / CEO centric coverage. It simply wasn't there Fri-Sun this year, and I watched almost all of it for the three days (on DVR, skipping commercials). Overall, I thought the broadcasts were much improved. The course, well I must agree with you and most of the above comments. IMO, the course needs length or re-evaluation of par (3 iron / 6 iron on # 6 for DJ). The new flowers on 8 are inconsistent with the rest of the course and the new green on 14 seems more a response to the 8's Harrington, et al made in the 2010 open more than the need for "more hole locations". (I've play the older and new versions and prefer the challenge of the old). What I do love, and hope remain after any "master plan" changes are implemented, are the set of greens that run counter to PGA / USGA spec greens that call for flatish hole locations void of significant slope / grade within a c. 3 foot of the cup.
Pin high always wins" doesn't necessarily hold true at Pebble, and I find it refreshing watching players attempt to negotiate the small, gentle? slopes with a variety of approach shot shapes and trajectories. Even with wedges i their hands on many holes, it is still a shotmakers course. Looking forward to the 2019 Open.

[FC]

Matt, a search for the following will yield a pdf with all the handicaps.

2018 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Thursday to Saturday Pairings

[KS]

I would expect exposed sand like what is depicted in the 1929 pictures to erode significantly with the wind and rain. Maybe that's why it didn't stay?

[Matt]

Always love watching Pebble Beach tournaments, such a beautiful course. Pretty fun to see the celebs play too.
https://www.golfdiscount.com/blog/fun-facts/pebble-beach-pro-am-celebrity-golf/