Pebble Beach – The PGA’s Smallest Greens
The PGA Tour is the golfing world’s biggest event, which takes place in the United States. The PGA takes place over the length of golf season, ending with the PGA Championship in mid-August, just before Labour Day. The event itself is set over eight weeks, starting in June, and has some of the worlds best golfers fighting for the top spot right from the start of the tour.
The PGA Tour has changed dramatically over the years, often integrating new courses, new trophies, and new events, usually in response to previous tours that, while popular, may have not lived up to certain expectations. The PGA players compete on some of the world’s most impressive courses, with some of them being massive, and others being extremely tiny. The smallest of these is Pebble Beach, a small greens found along the coast in California.
Pebble Beach has become one of the PGA’s favourite venues among both fans and players; not just due to its small size, but also thanks to the amount of skill players need to invest to adjust to the size and difficulty of the course. There have been considerations to make the Pebble Beach event more popular, and a bigger event in the PGA Tour. This will not only make it better for those participating, but for anyone with an interest in PGA events, or even in https://onlinebetting.nz/, the small course has made big waves in recent years.
The Difficulty of The Course
For professional golfers that are used to long and sprawling greens, Pebble Beach offers a unique and intimidating challenge. The small greens means having to make tighter, more controlled shots. Many believed that one of the best ways to test a golfer’s skill was to put them into small greens with long irons – which is exactly what the architects of Pebble Beach had in mind when they were designing it.
The average green on the course is roughly 3500 square feet, making them the smallest in the tour. Surrounded by 118 bunkers and with an average green depth of 26 paces, it’s little wonder as to why the course has become legendary among PGA Tour players and followers. It’s so small, in fact, that four Pebble Beach greens could fit into just one St. Andrews greens, which sits at 36000 square feet in total.
The Smallest Greens on The Course
The two most notorious greens in Pebble Beach are No. 8 and No. 9. Both these greens are situated on small cliffs, making them the two most intimating shots for anyone attempting them. No. 14 is also infamous among the PGA circles thanks to how it sits next to a bunker. While the greens of No. 14 are just 25 paces deep, the large, gaping bunker creates a false front that has been the ire of many golfers that have attempted it over the years.
Tiger Woods was one of the few that managed to get through Pebble Beach with relative ease thanks to his skill with uphill putts, giving him a distinct advantage against his competitors.
With the 2018 PGA Tour not too far off, once again a plethora of pros will face Pebble Beach, hoping to beat the smallest greens on the tour.
