I had an opportunity to play several of the courses on the Monterey Peninsula this week. I played Pebble Beach about 20 years ago but my memory of the course had faded. Playing again on a perfect day underscored for me what a spectacular course Pebble Beach is. Wow! It is really hard to concentrate on your shots in that setting. At $500 a round, it is hard to justify the expense but if one has the opportunity to play, it is an experience you should grab. And while you are at it, take a caddy and leave the cart behind. It is cart path only 100% of the time and one will not enjoy the round trudging back and forth to the cart. September and October are usually the best months, weatherwise.
The Links at Spanish Bay is the lesser known 18 at the resort. Lot’s of shoreline holes but just no match for Pebble. Personally, the designers (RT Jones, Jr, Tom Watson, Sandy Tatum) went a bit overboard, especially with the greens. The course itself is hard enough without the severely tiered green complexes. After fitting a drive between the gorse covered dunes and playing an iron to the green with a 25 mph crosswind, it was really disheartening to face a putt up a 7-foot rise to a plateau the size of a pool table.
I was only able to see 6 of Spy Glass Hill’s 18 holes. The day we were scheduled to play had the remnants of a typhoon coming on shore. We were the only group of idiots to brave the 50 mph gusts and torrential rain that day. For safety reasons, the course management did not want us to venture into the wooded holes (7-18) so we did the seaside first 6 holes only. Spy Glass is a worthy companion to Pebble but does lack the wow-factor of its big brother.
Our first course of the trip was Del Monte. It is an inland course and a nice warm-up. If I were only able to play three courses, this one would not make the cut. It is a good course but most of us play comparable tracks in our home state.