The 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is already over.
Despite initially postponing the final round of the $20 million Signature Event to Monday due to inclement weather, the PGA Tour made an about-face late Sunday night and said “out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all constituents” play would be canceled Monday. The tournament results through 54 holes are now final.
The Pebble Beach area is under Shelter in Place order by Monterey County until early Monday and after consulting with county emergency authorities, the PGA Tour announced the cancelation of the final round in a statement Sunday night.
You can read the PGA Tour’s statement in full below:
“The storm affecting the Monterey Peninsula throughout the day Sunday is forecast to continue into the early hours of Monday with very strong winds. Although conditions are forecast to improve through the morning Monday, after consultation with Monterey County emergency authorities, who have implemented a Shelter in Place order until early tomorrow morning for the greater Pebble Beach community, and out of an abundance of caution for the safety of all constituents, there will be no play on Monday. Therefore, in accordance with the PGA TOUR Regulations the tournament results will be final through the conclusion of 54 holes.”
Shortening the tournament to 54 holes means Wyndham Clark, who started the third round six back of the lead and fired a 60 Saturday to jump into the lead by one over Ludvig Aberg, picks up his third PGA Tour title.
The tournament had been plagued by poor weather all week. The grounds were closed to the public for Wednesday’s practice round and the entire tournament was played under preferred lies after heavy rains saturated the course.
More rain came Saturday night and into Sunday, but the real damage from the storm came from strong winds, some reported gusts over 60 mph, that battered California’s central coast all day. Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported Sunday afternoon that there was “extensive damage” to the golf course from falling trees, camera towers and hospitality tents.
The main road in and out of Pebble Beach, 17 Mile Drive, was still closed due to high winds Sunday night.
It’s the first 54-hole event on the PGA Tour since the 2016 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The Pebble event was shortened six times since 1974 before this week, the last coming in 2009 when Dustin Johnson won.
Knowing the forecast, many players said they had to play the third round with the idea that it could potentially be the final round.
“I definitely thought about it last night and this morning with everyone saying how bad the weather’s going to be,” Clark said Saturday night. “All right, well, you’ve got to have that mentality that today’s the last day so try to go for broke.”
He went out in 28, tying the course front nine record and then finished with a 60, breaking the course record by a shot.
Last year’s U.S. Open winner had an eagle putt for 59 on the 18th green, but it stopped just 7 inches short of the cup. He told CBS afterward that he didn’t want to risk three-putting, knowing he was in contention.
“To shoot 59 would have been amazing, but I also know the tournament is on the line, so I wanted to make sure I had good speed,” Clark said. “But to have a tap-in birdie was pretty special too.”
When Aberg missed his eagle try about an hour and a half later, that gave Clark the one-shot lead that eventually would be the difference.
Six days ago, Wyndham Clark’s head wasn’t on 60, the number he shot Saturday, a record at one of the country’s most celebrated tracks, Pebble Beach. Nor was it on a lead, the position he held through three rounds at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, an event now deemed to be “signature” by the PGA Tour. His thoughts were far from the nearly 200 feet worth of putts he dropped.
Nah, last Sunday, on a Pebble practice green, with some guy he just met, Clark was just staring at nine putters. Wondering.
He’d broken through last year. A victory at the Wells Fargo. A month later, he won the U.S. Open. There, he sliced and diced L.A. Country Club. But then he dipped. He said his team expected a letdown. You start to think, though.
Would the slump stay? Would he bounce back?
Why weren’t these freaking putts dropping?
Irritating. A real golf tee in his saddle. He flew in early for this week’s event, though. His team hooked him up with a new putting guru. The thought was a check-in. A word or two. They worked for three or so hours. Ideas were tossed out. Why not switch up the putting style? Go cross-handed? He’d given that a go in December, at the Hero World Challenge. He went with it again.
Why not try that no-line putter? It was sitting among the aforementioned nine. They were positioned kinda like a putter version of the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows.
Clark asked it out.
Ooh, that’s different, he thought. Nothing revolutionary, of course. But the ball was rolling. Things clicked. Odyssey’s no-line Ai-One Jailbird was in the bag.
“A lot of big changes,” Clark said, “but when you were as — when you’re in a spot where I was mentally in putting, you kind of needed a change, just something totally different so you couldn’t complain or have those same feels that I had in previous tournaments.
Source: Golf.com
