Pebble Beach - August 28, 2005

This is my first trip here, and although it's beautiful, magnificent, almost too magical for words, it will likely be my only. Getting here - and paying for it all - make Pebble Beach for many a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The golf course is memorable. We've seen it on TV for U.S. Opens and AT&T Tour events so many times, we all practically know it...the way we know Augusta National. Here's the 18th green, for instance:

Walking this course it's so very hard to focus on the shots you need to hit because you're looking out at the seals playing in the cove or up at the mountains in the distance or over at the lone pine tree between the sixth green and seventh tee... You just do the best you can, hit the few good shots, and move on. At least that was my experience.

Getting here from back east was an all-day trip. We departed Charleston on a 6:10a Eastern flight on Saturday, August 27, and pulled off 17 Mile Drive and into the resort at Pebble Beach around 2:30p Pacific. That's almost 12 hours. Fortunately, we didn't schedule golf for that day, but on the next day, Sunday, our time was 8:10. It couldn't have been a prettier morning. A low fog over the water, the sun coming up over the trees, the first tee area abuzz with activity...

My round got off to a decent start: I bogeyed the first, then had 8 feet or so for eagle on 2 (tapped in for birdie), but I couldn't sustain it. By the time I hooked two tee balls into the rocks at 18, I was beaten in golf, but captivated by the beauty of everything that is, I guess, Pebble Beach.

I'd love a chance to play the golf course in competition, when the camera isn't in the bag, when the group ahead and behind are just as intent on the golf as on getting their caddie to snap this husband and wife team in front of Bing Crosby's former residence...

Maybe I will come back. But in the meantime, we play Spyglass today (August 29) and Cypress Point tomorrow.