Playing Pebble Friday morning with a friend, wives riding along to drink wine, take pictures and gab. Any suggestions from folks that have played before? 15 handicap so no aspirations for putting up a respectable score. Just want to have fun, make a few memories and get a few good pics.

Ha, valid question. Pebble beach.

Try to figure out how to play Spanish Bay. You have to play pebble, but if I go back and got to only play one it would be Spanish. Have fun!

Make your way into the men's champions locker room.....awesome. spend time shopping as they have tons of great golf stuff there. Great pub and win bar/ =restaurant overlooking 18. Disagree with spanish as spyglass is better imo. Enjoy.....it's awesome.

Are you related to mfbarnes?

Not sure if serious...

I would definitely buy all your best golfing buddies divot tools, shirts and maybe a dozen prov's with the lone cypress pebble beach emblem on them.

Awesome! Take pics and be sure to report back.

And skip the Pro V1s and go with golf towels.

I went last year and had a great time, although I didn't play Pebble, just Spanish Bay. Prepare for a minimum 5 hour round, possibly 6 depending on when you tee off. Spanish bay is the least expensive out of the courses there and I would recommend playing it if you get the chance. The gift shops have lots to choose from (as has been mentioned). The weather should be fantastic this time of year. Other than golf, your wives would probably enjoy the 17 mile drive around the community/golf courses. Have a great trip!

Lucky

Post what you learn when you get home. I am playing Pebble and Spyglass in August.

I hate you. That is all.






J/K, hit em straight and enjoy!

quote:

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Playing Pebble Friday morning with a friend, wives riding along to drink wine, take pictures and gab.

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T&P for the poor *******s that get paired with you.

My brother played a few weeks ago and said he was shocked how small the greens are....caddy said most people say the same thing.

Enjoy the beauty of it. Before sunset go to Spanish Bay for a drink outside. Right at sunset a guy playing bagpipes walks up from the course towards the bar outside. It is a neat deal.

greens are tiny.

It hit me just how interesting the greens there are when on #1, putting from front to back the ball appears to break up hill (R to L). You would swear it breaks toward the ocean (L to R)...

As you play the course, go to all the places where you saw historical shots and you will realize just how tough they really were. Your caddie should point them all out to you.

Nicklaus 1-iron on 17
Watson chip in on 17
Tiger famous 7i on 6
Any tee shot that stays in the fairway on 9
The fact that #2 is a par 4 for the US Open (I think)

I played there a couple of years ago. Just an awesome experience. Are you taking caddies? We walked and had caddies and they were invaluable. I really enjoyed PB, we had plenty of time to take pictures. We played Spyglass the next day, and had a great time. Finished the trip with a round at Spanish Bay, and got to see the bagpiper. Very cool. If I had to rank the 3 it would be a toss up between Pebble Beach and Spyglass, with Spanish Bay a distant third. I enjoyed SB, but the history and coolness don't compare to the other two.

Head over to Carmel after your round and take the wives to A. W. Shucks for cocktails and decent food. It's on Ocean Ave. There are also some good restaurants over in Monterey on Cannery Row, as wells the Aquarium. I can't wait to go back again. Have fun.

Back now from great vacation. Pebble was a blast and Carmel/Monterrey area in general was fun.

I was curious if the course would live up to my expectations. I do not regret dropping the $ to play, it was everything I hyped it up to be.

A friend's dad happened to be on vacation with wife in Carmel at the same time as I was so we paired up to play. We ended up getting carts because he was unsure about wearing out walking the course and it made sense with the wives riding along. I agree with the posters that suggested walking and caddies if you have no constraints...but riding didn't really take away from the experience.

We were paired with another walker who carried and a walker with a caddie. Really nice guys, enjoyed getting to know them and playing with them. One of them is on a quest to become the youngest to play the Golf Digest top 100 ranked courses; he blogs about it at breakingeighty.com. He is off to a great start at age 28, he knocked out 4 more courses last week that aren't on his blog yet.

I was glad the 4th had a caddie, I was curious how big of a difference that would make. I wasn't sure the etiquette on asking another player's caddie for advice (i have only played with caddies in scrambles). On the 4th hole, I was 260 out, straight up the hill, blind from the green with the cliff and ocean cutting into the fairway in my landing area. I was scratching my head trying to figure out what on earth I should hit and what line. Thankfully the caddie took pity on me and lined me out. After that she freely offered advice when it didn't take away from her main guy. It was a big help and I was happy to tack on to her tip at the end of the round.

A few pics....

#1 tee with proshop in the back



#3 fairway



Intimidated on #4 and caddie offering help (I ended up making 1 of 3 pars on the day thanks to her tip)



#7 green. It was foggy with the morning tee time (hurt the pics more than the view thankfully) but wind was calm. 98 yard hole with no wind...0 of 4 tee shots on the green.

I only hit one ball in the Pacific all day. 2nd shot on # 8 went over the cliff. Drop area is about 160 out and I was able to get up and down to scrounge out a memorable bogey.

This is the drop area.



sun burned off the fog and clouds a little on the back 9



#15 green. Caddie said it plays as the most difficult par 5 on tour, i believe her. We played it at 560 from the gold tees. Tiny well guarded green with lots of slope.



Standing on #18 tee was really cool. A great look at an iconic hole. None of us went in the water. I put the anti-go-left on pretty hard and bounced it off a fence to the right of the path. I was lucky that it came back in between the bunkers and left me a decent shot in.



Missed a par putt on 18 in front of "gallery" of 25 or so that came down near the green for pictures.

2 other random things....we did tour the lodge after but opted to eat at the cheaper place near the gift shop. I regretted that, I got on the breakingeighty guy's instagram the next morning to see if he posted any cool pics of the round. He ran into Steph Curry at the tap room immediately after we finished.

Wife and I did 17 mile drive afterwards. When we rounded the golf part of the drive where Cypress Point crosses the road, my wife swore she saw arnold palmer. I rolled my eyes a bit and figured she thought every octogenarian wealthy looking golfer is Jack or Arnie. We were at a wine tasting the next day and some folks mentioned they saw Arnie at dinner the previous day at a restaurant in Carmel. We looked at the picture, he was wearing the same pants and sweater as the guy my wife pointed out. For about the millionth time in our marriage I ceded that she was right and I was wrong.

That's it, memorable day. If anyone gets the chance to play, it is worth the $500.

Awesome! Thanks for the pics and trip report. Looks like a fun trip.

Nice! I've read that guy's blog before. Nice pairing.

Great review!

That's really cool you got paired with Sean, I've been reading his blog for a while now. Ran across it as I prepared for my Bandon trip. He seems like a pretty cool guy and I wish I had the foresight and wherewithal to do what he's doing. I like his product reviews too.

Jealous about the trip and playing Pebble. It's on the bucket list for me for sure.