We can’t have nice things, and the nice things that we already have must be shat upon.
Including, apparently, one of the planet’s greatest golf courses.
Pebble Beach is one of the most serene golf courses on Earth. It combines a tremendous routing with breathtaking scenery. In a game where courses routinely market themselves as “bucket list” destinations, Pebble Beach truly is a shrine, a holy site, that every golfer should play at least once.
It’s 11 out of 10. It’s a front row seat at the Elvis ’68 Comeback Special. There are few things better in golf or in life. It’s that good.
That’s not to say it’s perfect. Golf itself is a game about managing imperfection, so it makes sense that even the game’s greatest venues aren’t flawless. Pebble Beach isn’t. But it’s as close as I’ve ever seen.
Over the past few years, though, Pebble Beach has become a popular target among golf course architecture aficionados. In February 2018, Geoff Shackelford equated the planting of a flower bed to “architectural and landscape malpractice.” That same month, Jay Revell passionately advocated (not unpersuasively) for a full-blown restoration to return Pebble Beach to the rugged presentation of its early years.
Shackelford and Revell are great, and their critiques are well reasoned. Neither suggested that Pebble Beach should be bombed into the ocean. But others have come closer (Golf.com, in contrast, labeled Pebble Beach the second-most overrated course in America in 2011, and described the 17th hole — which since has been remodeled — as “the game’s single most overrated hole”).
Without faulting anyone a reasoned opinion, and without impugning the good faith of anyone who takes issue with Pebble’s imperfections, allow me a radical suggestion: it’s OK to like Pebble Beach. Even in the age of contrarianism, it’s OK to appreciate a golf course that stands as the consensus choice for America’s greatest publicly accessible venue. Even in the age of architectural minimalism, it’s OK to admire Pebble’s pristine, perfect appearance and impossibly beautiful backdrop. Even in the age of new media, it’s OK to indulge in the fawning, breathless descriptions of the mainstream golf media. This great and beautiful golf course is great and beautiful, and that’s OK.
I’ve played Pebble just once — on a cool, early April morning in 2014. I remember nearly every shot from the front nine. I birdied No. 2 from a greenside bunker; on No. 5, I shanked my tee shot into Stillwater Cove. Standing on the eighth green, looking back toward the cliff from which the approach comes in, I vividly remember thinking that there was no golf course on the planet that I’d rather be on. My wife, three months pregnant at the time, met my group on the 17th tee and walked the last two holes with us — my favorite moment on any golf course, to this day. Plenty of golf courses are enjoyable, but not many make you ache to take your children there. Pebble is one, though.
To be clear, I don’t hold Pebble blemishless. Any golf course that charges north of $500 per round is not a truly “public” venue, and it seems clear by now that the course’s caretakers use its full tee sheet as an excuse not to remedy some obvious architectural shortcomings (Shackelford’s criticisms of No. 11 and No. 12, for example, are absolutely correct). But ultimately, those are grievances against the Pebble Beach Company, not the Pebble Beach Golf Links. The golf course doesn’t set its greens fees or its maintenance schedule. The worthiness of a golf course is a judgment upon the golf course, not its owners or management company.
Perfect or not, I will fawn this week. I will adore the gratuitous ocean montages, and I will be artificially moved by Fox Sports’ soaring musical accompaniment. And the next time I’m at Pebble Beach, I will plop down my greens fee (while swallowing hard), and I will drag out every second of my six-hour round. And I will feel bad about none of it.