another week bites the dust, and again a few very clever golfers managed to pick the winner. Alas none of us could manage to do it on our own and the skins jackpot up again. Gordon, Rick & myself picked up the 20 bonus points for the winner, which will go some way to helping peg back the lead that Tony has built up over the previous 5 weeks. Tony was a chance there, but Anthony Kim had a final round shocker.
Heading into Round 6, we now have a Skins Jackpot of $72 and an overall Jackpot of $48. This week we will all owe $30.
This week sees us go to the Monterey Peninsula, for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am. The tournament was originally known as the Bing Crosby National Pro Amateur and was affectionately called the Crosby Clambake. This tourney manages to attract more high profile celebrities than the Bob Hope these days, most likely due to the courses they play - especially Pebble.
While the level of celebrities is up this week, the same can't be said for the professionals. I guess most of them these days really do hate playing with amateurs - no matter how famous they are.
This is another of these pro-ams played over multiple courses - those being Pebble Beach, Poppy Hills and Spyglass Hill. The starting field consists of 180 professionals and 180 amateurs. One professional is paired with one amateur. Each day, 60 2-man teams (pro + am) will play on one of the three courses. Then on the final day, those professionals and pro-amateur teams making the 54-hole cut will play on the Pebble Beach. If you want some idea of the field strength, check out the length of your A List versus your C List in Fantasy Golf.
Again, this is another sign of today's pampered pro, as it wasn't always like this. The history of this event is pretty big and past multiple champions include Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Sam Snead and good ol' boy Mark O'Meara who won the event 5 times and is playing this week. Of the contemporary professionals, Phil Mickelson has won it three times and Davis Love III has twice put his name on the trophy. Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Payne Stewart have been victorious here a single time. These guys are all multiple major winners except for Davis Love who only has a single PGA, but probably should have won more- especially at Augusta. So why do so many top flighters stay away?
One of the reasons that many Pro's give for not coming is summed up in two words - Poppy Hills. This time of year the San Francisco area is notoriously wet, damp and cold and Poppy Hills has very poor drainage compared to the other 2 courses. This means that mud balls are very common. Also Poppy Hills is a severe dog leg on almost every hole except the par 3's which invariably sees the Long Bombers run out of room. The shorter shot-makers who can shape their drivers, find their balls plugging in the soft fairways and so they see no advantage either. In short, most of the Pro's hate Poppy Hills - something you may care to consider when deciding who to play or bench for a particular round.
The interesting thing here is that Poppy Hills wasn't part of the tournament until 1991. Prior to that, it was played at the Cypress Point Club, a very exclusive private club that is considered by many experts to be one of the finest courses in the world. Back in 1991 the PGA Tour gave an ultimatum to Cypress Point that they admit a Black member, to which Cypress Point refused, and from that point on Poppy Hills has been used in it's place.
Cypress Point Club was the scene of "The Match" in 1956. Millionaire Car Dealer Eddie Lowery made a bet with fellow millionaire and Cypress Point member, George Coleman that he had two salesmen working at one of his car dealerships, that no-one in the world could beat at 4 Ball Best Ball Match Play. Those two amateurs were Ken Venturi (who would later win a US Open and narrowly lose to Arnold Palmer at The Masters), and Harvie Ward who was the the then reigning US Amateur Champion.
George Coleman promptly took the bet and arranged to bring a team, for a game to be played at Cypress Point in a fortnights time. Coleman turned up with Ben Hogan & Byron Nelson to form his team and what transpired that day has been considered to be the greatest 4 Ball Match Play to have ever been played.
It has been immortalized by the Golf writer Mark Frost in his book "The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever". I won't ruin it for those who wish to read this great book some day. For those of you who will never be bothered to read it, and who want to know what happened, email me back and I'll let you know.
Until next week - HAPPY PICKING !!
Humpy
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