Daniel Berger gets even with Pebble

February 14, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — No celebrities or laughs at this AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but more than enough joy and heartbreak on a course that through the years as proved to be as much of a beast as it is a beauty.

This was golf at its purest, in a tournament going forward under Covid-19 restrictions and with none of the players currently in the world’s top 10 — golf that may have lacked star power, but certainly not drama.

Daniel Berger won it Sunday. Or did many of the others lose it? An unfair question, perhaps, because all those guys on the Tour, from first to last, are wonderfully talented. Or they wouldn’t be on Tour.

Still, it’s a sport of missed shots and bad breaks, and the guy who ends up on top often is the one who keeps his cool along with his well-practiced swing.

Which is what Berger was able to do, if a day late but not a dollar short. Well, make that $1.4 million, the prize Berger earned, shooting a 7-under 65 on Sunday for an 18-under-par 270.

Maverick McNealy, a few years out of Stanford, shot 66 for a 272, while Jordan Spieth, three and a half years without a win — he led by a shot after three rounds — had a 70 and tied Patrick Cantlay, who shot 68, for third at 273.

No less a story, and a sad one, is Nate Lashley, who was tied with Berger for the lead going into 16, had a 12-foot putt to save par but then proceeded to miss it — and the next three, four-putting for a quadruple bogey seven. He finished with 69 for 274.

They tell us golf can be a cruel game, but for the 27-year-old Berger, it was a game of response. After leaving Pebble on Saturday with that double bogey — and he didn’t drive into Carmel Bay, but out of bounds in the other direction — Berger burst out with an eagle on the second hole.

Sixteen holes later he had another eagle 3, on the famed finisher — the 18th, the same hole where he had the 7 a day earlier. Yes, he can power the ball.

On Saturday, Berger became the second person in 4,000-plus shots to drive the green of Pebble’s 403-yard, par-four fourth. Good for a one-putt eagle.

Berger is the son of Jay Berger, who played tennis well enough to reach the quarterfinals of the 1989 French Open. Daniel once swung a racket. Then he started swinging 5-irons.

The 18th at Pebble is a 540-yard par-5 with water all along the left side and a few of those elegant (and expensive) mansions along the right side, thus the OB Berger recorded on Saturday. The last time anyone eagled it in the AT&T was back in the 1980s.

“Any time you do anything historical here at Pebble Beach, you know you accomplished something special,” Berger observed after his fifth win on Tour.

“(Saturday) I just kind of flared it. Today I stepped up there, and I wanted to be as aggressive as possible, and I would rather go down swinging than making a conservative swing that doesn't end up really well.

“Today I hit one of the best 3-woods in my life. I wanted to win. I didn't want to lose it on the last.“

Spieth lost it earlier. He birdied two, then bogied three and five. The unwritten rule at Pebble is get birdies and pars on the front — then hang. Unless you’re Daniel Berger, of course.

”It was just a really poor first six holes,” said Spieth. “And out here, that's where you can score. I talked about getting off to a good start, and standing on the 7 tee it was nice to birdie that hole, but all in all, I really knew that I needed to have a couple birdies to withstand anything that could come on the back nine.

“I needed to be a couple under through 6, and I was 1-over — and really that was the difference.”

Along with Daniel Berger’s play.

In a round of wrong shots, Jordan Spieth makes the right one

February 13, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — So many shots in a round of golf, maybe 60-something or 70-something. So many chances to go wrong, particularly on a winter’s day along the central California coast when there’s morning rain and afternoon wind, and those poa annua greens have more bumps than a bad road.

So many chances to make the wrong shot. Or, in the case of Jordan Spieth, wobbling, bogeying, headed for disappointment once more, to make the right shot, the miracle shot, the shot that oh-so-suddenly changed the direction of this year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

It came on Pebble’s 16th, the hole that slopes down a slight grade full of bunkers. There’s a distant view of the water and the tee of the famous 18th. The 16th is a 403-yard, par-4 where in the 1970s, Johnny Miller shanked a ball that would turn into a win for Jack Nicklaus, back when the tournament was named the Crosby.

Miller won this tournament twice, and Spieth on Saturday put himself into position to do same when he holed his second shot on 16, an 8-iron from 158 yards that bounced, spun and dropped into the cup as an eagle two.

Spieth had bogied 10, 12 and 14. He was falling apart again on the back nine. Then, plunk, he was back together.

“It's a good lesson to learn for (Sunday),” said Spieth, “How quickly things can change out here. Make that turn on the 12th tee and you’re just trying to hold on for dear life into the wind.”

The AT&T is far from over. Spieth saved himself, shot a 1-under-par 34-37—71 for a three-day total of 203, 13 under. But he’s only two shots ahead of five others, Patrick Cantlay (71 on Saturday), Russell Knox (69), Nate Lashley (68), Tom Hoge (68) and Daniel Berger (72).

Berger had his own tales of brilliance (he became only the second golfer besides Davis Love, in more than 4,000 shots, to drive the green of the 403-yard fourth hole, making an eagle 2) and agony (tied for the lead, he drove out of bounds on 18 and had a double-bogey 7).

Indeed, anything can happen, and since Spieth won the 2017 British Open, his third major, what’s happened to him has been not been enjoyable — or satisfying. He’s gone winless. Which is why that shot, and maybe this tournament, could be momentous. As the 27-year-old Spieth concurs.

“I would say definitely more so,” he responded when asked if that eagle boosted his confidence.

“I feel that I've left quite a few shots out on the course, whether it was — not really on Thursday, but definitely Friday and (Saturday), and I'm in the position I want to be in.”

Berger, a Tour winner who is the son of tennis pro Jay Berger, has similar optimistic thoughts, despite that double-bogey on his last hole of this long day. “I mean, it's a hard day when it blows at Pebble,” said Berger, as if it doesn’t always blow at Pebble.

“So overall I'm pretty happy. Obviously I would like that swing back on the last hole, but I'm not going to let it ruin my week, for sure.”

The week has been ruined for golf fans, who through the decades of an event that was started by Bing Crosby in the 1930s were attracted by celebrity amateurs such as Dean Martin and Bill Murray. Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there were no amateurs or fans.

What there was, then, was an event packed with plenty of drama and the continuing question of when and if Jordan Spieth will again win a tournament.

“I don't really care about the timeframe stuff,” Spieth insisted. “I'm really just going to throw that out of my head because I'm finally consistently doing things over the last two weeks that I've wanted to do for a long time.

“I think, obviously the more you continue to do that, the bounces go your way, like the hole-out did today on 16. Someone may do that to me (Sunday) or come shoot a 64 or something. I mean, it's golf and it's Pebble Beach — and you can go low, and it can also be really challenging.”

Or, as indicated by that magical shot on 16, really rewarding.

Phil in the water and out of the AT&T; John Daly looking like Moses

February 12, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — So Dustin Johnson withdrew and Tiger Woods rarely enters, but let’s not dwell on the negative, which golfers and journalists seem to emphasize, even when the sun shines — which it did Friday afternoon on the Monterey Peninsula.

True, Phil Mickelson hit two balls into Carmel Bay off Pebble Beach’s 18th and another into the backyard of one of those mega-million-dollar mansions along the 14th.

And John Daly, with a long white beard that made him look like Moses, missed the cut. And first-round leader Patrick Cantlay was 11 shots higher than the first round.

But think about Jordan Spieth, out front after 36 holes and in great shape to win for the first time in three and a half years.

Or the city manager in adjacent Carmel, who will collect a $100 fine, as the signs warn, from anyone reckless enough to appear on the streets of the formerly quaint little burg without a face mask.

Yes, Covid-19 times everywhere you wanted to wander, whether to the course, where there are no amateurs, celebrity or otherwise, or to the Hog’s Breath Inn, formerly owned by Clint Eastwood, who formerly was mayor of Carmel — and before that, a movie star.

If Clint, a longtime AT&T tournament board member (and formerly an entrant) will no longer play “Misty” for us, well, the mist is supposed to return for Saturday’s third round — Crosby weather.

Unfortunately Mickelson, who won the tournament five times (as did Mark O’Meara), will not return for the third round. For what was announced as only the fifth time in 2,507 tournament rounds as a pro, Phil failed to break 80. The 80 he recorded along with his 74 on Thursday at Spyglass Hill gave him a 154. The cut was 143.

Mickelson has been doing better on the Champions Tour, guys 50 and over. Phil turned 50 in June. Daly, 54, has been on the Champions Tour full time, even after being diagnosed for bladder cancer.

“I’m not shaving until I’m cured,” said a courageous Daly. Against the younger guys here at Pebble and Spyglass, Daly shot 80-77 — 157.

That was one stroke lower than Kamaiu Johnson, 27, who was playing in a Tour event for the first time. Johnson was found outside a course in Tallahassee, Fla., swinging a stick, invited to take lessons and won on the Advocates Tour. Johnson next will play in the Honda.

The Tour can be difficult, even when you’re a champion. Spieth won the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015, other events including the 2017 AT&T and then in July 2017 the British Open at Royal Birkdale.

But nothing since, and so he’s been asked again and again when the drought will end. He shot a 61 in last weekend’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, and even if he did not win — Brooks Koepka did — Spieth was satisfied.

As he was on Saturday after a 67 at Spyglass for 132. Daniel Berger, a winner on Tour, shot 66 at Pebble for 133. Henrik Norlander was at 64-70—134, while Cantlay, starting off the 10 at Spyglass with a lost ball and a bogey, had a 73 — compared to his 62 Thursday at Pebble.

“I'm in great position after the midway point,” said Spieth. “So I feel a little bit improved, getting better each day. Yeah, I made a ton of longer putts, like in order to be in the lead like normal, which is probably a really good sign that I'm keeping the ball in front of me and striking it really nicely, and a couple mistakes here or there. Other than that, it was really clean.”

Said Cantlay: “It wasn't that bad after that first tee shot. I didn't make very many putts, hit a lot of good putts, and the greens, like always, are just bumpy and I wasn't able to get many to go in. But all in all, I played pretty good today.

“Just obviously two shots worse, just not finding the golf ball.”

Not all golfers emphasize the negative — unlike all journalists.

Cantlay takes advantage of Pebble: 10 birdies, no bogies

February 11, 2021 by Art Spander in golf, articles

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — This was a day to play Pebble Beach, a day, gray and quiet, for tourists to wrap themselves in sweaters and dreams, a day for a golfer to go after a course that without the elements virtually begged you to make birdies.

Which on Thursday, in the opening round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, is what Patrick Cantlay did. Not that he was alone.

Cantlay is one of those guys just on the fringe of fame, and this week on the fringe of the world’s top 10 — he’s No. 11, the highest ranked player in the field and, after 18 holes, the highest placed player on the scoreboard.

Ten birdies and no bogies for Cantlay, which of course is 10 under par at a course that through the ages has become as famous for wind and rain — and gallows humor — as for the people who have won here.

People named Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods, Mickelson and, way back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Hogan, Snead and Demaret. First names are not needed for those guys, although everyone knows Woods by his adopted first name, Tiger. And someday, a first name may not be required for Cantlay.

In the last two tournaments he’s entered, Cantlay has a 61, 11 under, in the American Express down in Palm Desert and then, 400 miles north and a couple of weeks apart, the 62 at Pebble.

“Yeah, especially a continuation of the desert on the weekend,” said Cantlay of his golf Thursday along Carmel Bay. “My swing feels really good right now. The ball's starting on the line that I'm seeing, and then my distance control has been really good, which is key out here.”

Cantlay was two shots ahead of Akshay Bhatia and Henrik Norlander. Another shot back at 7-under 65 were Nate Lashley, who you may not have heard of, and Jordan Spieth — who you also may not have heard of lately other than for his struggles.

Which finally may be over.

When it comes to overcoming struggles, the 28-year-old Cantlay is the unfortunate poster boy. Ten years ago, at UCLA, he was the nation’s top college player and for more than a year the No. 1 amateur in the world.

But he incurred a stress fracture in his back and couldn’t play for months.

Then, after he recovered, in February 2016, he watched from a nearby curb as his caddy and pal from high school in Anaheim, Chris Roth, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Newport Beach.

Cantlay was so shaken he couldn’t play. “For a while, I couldn’t care less about everything,” he said at the time. “Not just golf. Everything that happened in my life for a couple months didn’t feel important. Nothing felt like it mattered.”

The healing process took weeks. Cantlay returned, with a boom. He won the 2019 Memorial and then, near the end of 2020, the Zozo at Sherwood in southern California, about a hundred miles from where he grew up. Now two scintillating rounds in his home state.

“I always like being up here in Monterey,” he said. “Even though it’s cold this time of year, I like playing Pebble Beach. I like Spyglass (where he and Spieth play Friday).

“So I’m excited for this year. It looks like we’re going to get some rain, which isn’t uncommon, but I always like being here, and I like the golf courses and I like the California golf.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there are no amateurs this year in the AT&T. No spectators either for an event as well known for celebrities such as Bill Murray and for the fans who tend to be as excited to watch them as, say, Patrick Cantlay.

“Yeah, we did play a lot quicker, which is nice,” said Cantlay. “Anytime you play this tournament and get finished under five hours, it's a good day.”

Anytime you shoot 10-under at Pebble, believed to tie the course record for a round in the AT&T, it’s a great day.

Kamaiu Johnson at Pebble: A Hollywood story

February 10, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The shame is none of those high-powered Hollywood types who usually fill the amateur slots will be playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. They’d love the Kamaiu Johnson story.

Then again, who wouldn’t?

It seems more fiction than fact, a kid from nothing, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, starts swinging a stick near a golf course in Tallahassee, Florida, catches the eye of the course general manager and works and putts his way to the big time.

Kamaiu is 27, an African-American who — could this be any more perfect? — in Black History Month will make his own history when he tees off Thursday in the AT&T.

All that beauty and wealth of Pebble, where it costs just to get through the gates, where the waves crash and seagulls sweep. And where Johnson will make his first start on the PGA Tour.

Is it redundant to say he came up the hard way, winning an event on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, a circuit created to “bring greater diversity to the game by developing African Americans and other minorities for careers in golf”?

Sure, there’s Tiger Woods, who remains the face of the game if at age 35 he doesn’t remain atop the standings. Harold Varner III, Joseph Bramlett and Sacramento’s Cameron Champ — who won the Safeway a couple of years ago — are the other black golfers on Tour.

None came up the way Kamaiu Johnson did — or overcame the same obstacles.

“Golf saved me,” Johnson told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest.

Johnson was an athlete, a baseball player, but as one of four children in a fatherless family, he couldn’t afford to play on a club team. So there he was taking big swipes with a branch outside Halman Golf Club in Tallahassee when Jan Augur, the GM, invited him inside to hit balls on the range with a real club.

Obviously he had talent. And finally he had an opportunity. There were lessons. And there was progress. He won the Advocates, and that gained him a place in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of January. But he was never able to enter, withdrawing due to a positive Covid-19 test.

But he had come too far to be discouraged or depressed, even with his mother in the hospital in Orlando because of breathing difficulties. Word traveled. Johnson was invited both to the AT&T and, a couple weeks from now, the Honda Classic in his home state.

“I thought I was going to get my first PGA Tour event this week,” he told USA Today’s Steve DiMeglio, before the Farmers. “But God had other plans for me.

“I’m just so thankful for the support I’ve gotten over the way I was treated. I’m thankful to the AT&T and Farmers and Honda for all they’ve been doing for me. It’s been amazing how many people reached out to me.”

Johnson had to quarantine outside San Diego. He’s now cleared, of course. His mother has improved.

“I feel absolutely back to normal. I tried to stay active.”

Staying active is not staying in the groove, however. And even when a golfer is prepared, those Monterey Peninsula courses — Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill this year; no amateurs, no need for Monterey Peninsula — can intimidate.

Even veterans know the tales of grief, balls in the water on so many of Pebble’s holes, balls in the bunkers at Spyglass — so a first-timer will have to be particularly defensive.

Then again, after what he’s gone through to get here, no golf course, no matter its reputation, should worry Kamaiu Johnson. When you begin by swinging a stick, the rest is a joy.

At Pebble, a Pro-Am without any “ams,” including Bill Murray

January 14, 2021 by Art Spander in articles, golf

By Art Spander

It was created by a man who could swing a 5-iron as impressively as he could hold a musical note. In time, his tournament, the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, became the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. What didn’t change was the last part of the label, “Am.”

The pros, from Snead and Hogan to Palmer, Nicklaus and Woods, had their place and their victories, but what made the Pro-Am special were the amateurs: entertainers, athletes and politicians as eager to compete and as we were to watch them.

Now the event, a mid-winter festival on the Monterey Peninsula, has fallen victim to Covid-19, as have so many other attractions. They’ll hold the AT&T in February, as always, but not like before.

According to a release from the PGA Tour, the AT&T will be played “without the traditional multi-day format,” which means it won’t be the traditional Crosby/AT&T.

Inevitable, perhaps, the way the virus has surged, chasing the 49ers and the Sharks to Arizona and forcing the suspension of so many NBA and college basketball games, but still disappointing.

The courses are the same, although only Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill will be used, Monterey Peninsula Country Club unneeded for a greatly reduced field.

The charity beneficiary is the same, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which Crosby told me in the early 1970s, when some of the pros didn’t like the format, was the only reason he didn’t withdraw his support.

The threat of inclement weather will be the same, although the Pacific storms are as unreliable as were Jack Lemmon’s tee shots.

Lemmon, of course, was a regular, a good guy if not a good golfer, who tried for years without success to make the cut but even in his unfulfilled attempts made us appreciate his persistence and sense of humor.

Sure, we were thrilled by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, but we were no less enthralled by Huey Lewis — who might break out in song at every tee box — or Tom Brady.

Back in the ’50s, when the world was naïve, the guy who kept us attuned and laughing was Phil Harris, who had a ton of one-liners and also more than a minimum of one-putts.

In one rainy Crosby, he slopped off the inundated 17th green at Pebble and told the press, “I can’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.” If you’ve heard that before, well, jokes survive.

The routines by Harris, Dean Martin and even Crosby himself have been taken over by Bill Murray, who has done everything from pull a female spectator into a bunker to hurl a frozen fish at spectators.

If the tournament occasionally resembled a variety show, well, how many times could you remind the audience that every putt breaks toward Carmel Bay?

Murray was a player as well as a comedian. He grew up near Chicago, caddying with his brothers, and in the 2011 AT&T he teamed with D.A. Points, who won the pro section. Murray won the pro-am.

On the 16th in the final round at Pebble, Points, getting into the spirit of things, yelled at Murray loud enough to he heard, “It would help if you made a putt.” Which Murray then did. “His being funny helped relax me,” said Murray, who hardly needs help at relaxing.

No Murray this winter. No quarterbacks — Tony Romo has been a consistent entrant, and Peyton Manning an occasional one — no wisecracks, no entrants sitting near the 17th tee being interviewed by Jim Nantz.

No crowd at the 15th tee, “Club 15” the description, chanting before the golfers hit their tee balls.

There will be golf played at Pebble next month, but not the golf we’ve come to expect. How can it be a pro-am without the “ams”?

Phil implied there would be trouble — and there was

September 17, 2020 by Art Spander in articles, golf