Blustery winds and intermittent light rain brought fears of an onset of “Crosby weather” to Pebble Beach Golf Links today, but did little to dampen the enthusiasm of the golfers, spectators, and sports media people gathered for the 2012 edition of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
Practice rounds got underway yesterday at Pebble Beach and the two nearby courses that are part of the three-course rotation over which the tournament will be contested this week: Spyglass Hill, and Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course. The events of the week got off to a bang yesterday when Swedish pro Daniel Chopra carded not one, but two aces (an ace is a hole-in-one) during a practice round at Pebble Beach Golf Links. The odds of a PGA Tour pro scoring a hole-in-one are calculated at about 3,000:1, according the the National Hole-In-One Registry; the odds of two aces in a single round are estimated to be 67 million to one. Chopra’s aces came at the most storied par-3s on the course – the iconic 7th hole, where wind conditions can dictate club selections ranging from wedge to 5-iron, and the 17th, where Tom Watson scored an improbable chip-in birdie which led to his upset victory over Jack Nicklaus in the 1982 U. S. Open.
The main event in today’s activities was the Charity Challenge shoot-out, which pitted current and former members of the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco 49ers organizations in a charity golf match which was worth $100,000 for charity. Notable moments in the match were a 330-yard drive by Giants pitcher Matt Cain on the coast-hugging 543-yard par-5 18th hole, and the match-winning putt, a 2-footer sunk by former 49er great Dwight Clark on the 18th green.
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