The turning of the year is a time of anticipation and new possibilities, as we look forward to the events to come in the new year. For golf in the Bay Area/Central Coast region, we have two notable professional golf tournaments to look forward to in 2012: the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, and the 2012 United States Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco in June.
A welcome annual event, the AT&T Pro-Am is a great opportunity for the Monterey Peninsula area to show off its amazing natural beauty, and the beauty of the world-class golf courses to be found there. The best known of the three courses in the tournament’s rotation is, of course, Pebble Beach. Its spectacular seaside location is a television director’s dream, and each year viewers around the country are treated to “beauty shots” of bright blue Pacific waters, spectacular surf (if the wind is up…), seals basking on the rocks – and even the occasional humpback whale passing by on its way to Baja California. The other attraction, for the many non-golfing viewers, is the bevy of stars of the sports and entertainment worlds who partner up with the professional golfers for the Pro-Am portion of the tournament.
For 2012 there will be an additional attraction at the AT&T, for golf fans and celebrity watchers alike – Tiger Woods has announced that he will be playing the AT&T Pro-Am, for the first time since 2002. Ticket sales are expected to soar, as they did for last September’s Frys.com Open when Tiger announced his entry for the Fall Series event at the South Bay’s Cordevalle Resort, so if you were planning to attend and haven’t bought tickets yet, you would do well to do it soon—and to be prepared for record crowds at the already well-attended event. Purchase tickets online at http://www.attpbgolf.com/tournament/tickets.php.
In a more serious vein, the premier golf event on the USGA schedule, the United States Open Golf Tournament, returns to the Lake Course at San Francisco’s Olympic Club June 14 – 17, 2012. The Olympic Club has hosted the U.S. Open on four previous occasions – 1955, 1966, 1987, and 1998 – and has gained a reputation for upset champions. In 1955 Ben Hogan was upset in an 18-hole playoff by relative unknown Jack Fleck; 1966 saw Billy Casper downing favored contender Arnold Palmer in another playoff; in the 1987 event Scott Simpson held on to a 1-stroke lead after 54 holes to prevail over Tom Watson by 1 at the end of regulation play; and in 1998 Payne Stewart fell victim to the slick undulating greens of Olympic’s U.S. Open setup, dropping 6 strokes in the final round to lose to Lee Janzen by 1.
While it is too early in the season to take a guess at who will contend at the 2012 U.S. Open, it is likely to be an exciting event. 2011 U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy will certainly be anxious to reprise last summer’s dominating performance, though he might find the narrow, tree-lined fairways and small, well-bunkered greens of the Lake Course a more challenging test than rain-softened Congressional presented last summer. The return to full-time Tour play by 3-time U.S. Open champion Tiger Woods this season has increased interest in golf among the general (non-golfing) public and is certain to add to the buzz when the event returns to San Francisco for the first time in fourteen years. Tiger will be looking to add to his major count with a victory at the Olympic Club in 2012, of course, an geography is on his side. Two of Woods’ U.S. Open wins have come at California venues – his dominating 2000 performance at Pebble Beach and his gutsy 2008 win, on an injured leg, at Torrey Pines. Tickets for the event, which is sure to be one of the highlights of the 2012 PGA Tour season, are available online athttps://tickets.usga.org/2012WinterTicketOffer/tac.aspx.
Comments