Golf, Golf Courses, and Pebble Beach

Monterey, CA

Since the park where we are staying is located in the middle of a golf course and both Larry and John are golfers (or to be more precise, they play the game), it was inevitable that they would end up on the course.  So at 7:30 Tuesday morning they were on the first tee, Larry riding in a power cart and John walking with his trusted caddy (guess who!).

Larry played very well, posting a score of 80, an excellent score anytime but really good considering he had never played the course.  John shot a score just a bit higher but still in double digits.  But he had a great time walking the course with his beautiful and talented caddy.

The next day we had some repair work to do on the motorhome so we didn’t get started playing tourist until the afternoon.  We took the car and drove what is known as the 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach.

Pebble Beach is a private community along the Pacific coast just to the south of Monterey.  It contains eight public and private golf courses, including the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Links.   Visitors pay a ten dollar fee to drive through the community and view the many large homes, golf courses, and beautiful views along the ocean.

One of the first interesting stops along the coast included the rock outcropping pictured below.  It looked to be covered with many birds, but a closer view revealed the noisy residents.

Hundreds of seals call the rock home.  How they climbed all the way to the top is a mystery to us.

Next to the parking area where we watched the seals was one hole from one of the many golf courses in the area.  It looked fairly benign during our visit but must be a very challenging hole when the wind is blowing strongly off the ocean.

Along the drive is a parking area used to see what is the most famous view in Pebble Beach, the Lone Cypress.

Pebble Beach Golf Links is one of the most famous golf courses in the world.  It is a public course so anyone can play it, but at over five hundred dollars a round (plus cart or caddy) we decided to postpone making a tee time until another visit.  The course has been the site of the U.S. Open five times and every February is home of the AT&T Pro-Am Tournament.  A plaque behind the first tee lists the past winners of that tournament.

Since the course is open to the public you can walk around wherever you like.  We took time to visit the first tee and the eighteenth hole.

The putting green behind the first tee

The first tee box (blue tees)

The eighteenth hole is one of the prettiest in golf as it runs right along the ocean.  A sand trap runs along the cliff for most of the hole to help keep balls from going down on to the beach.

The eighteenth hole – the green on the right

The long sand trap along the eighteenth looking back from the green

The clubhouse looking from behind the eighteenth green

Pebble Beach provides some great scenery and has beautiful golf courses, but the weather for our visit was cold and overcast, which is the way it is near the coast most days of the year.  So we decided to withdraw our bid on a house along the coast, cancel our tee time and dinner reservations, and return to life in our motorhome.