The Week: Storming the Beach

Pebble will be the latest battleground in the scoring wars

By Alan Shipnuck

Unprecedented driving distances will test the defenses of Pebble Beach, which is a mere 6,816 yards. John Burgess GOLF PLUS EXTRA Big Play: Rick Grayson Teeing Off: Hootie's Secret Plan TRUST ME Ernie Els is going to do the previously unthinkable -- challenge Tiger Woods's 3 1/2-year reign atop the World Ranking. With his victory last week in Australia, Els has closed the gap by nearly 25% in one month's time. A win at the Masters would give Els the momentum to reach No. 1 NEXT UP PGA: AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am Champions: Royal Caribbean Golf Classic European: ANZ Championship INSTANT POLL Which 2003 major was the best? The Masters The U.S. Open The British Open The PGA View Results

Pray for Pebble Beach. America's greatest course -- as much a shrine as Wrigley Field or Carnegie Hall -- is in the path of a hurricane. No, we're not talking about Crosby Weather; the forecast for this week's Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is clear skies and moderate temperatures. For the last two seasons there has been a gathering storm on the PGA Tour as longer, stronger players have threatened to destroy every course in their path. Now, just a month into the new year, the apocalypse is upon us.

SI has crunched the numbers, and they are startling. In the first four events of this year, average driving distance is up an unprecedented nine yards (from 280.2 to 289.0) compared with the same opening quartet in 2002. More mind-blowing is the average drive of the four winners -- 311.2 yards, compared with 288.3 last year. The winners' scoring average is 65.65 a round, down more than a stroke from 2002. Mostly perfect weather and dry, fast tracks have been a factor, but so too have hot new drivers and the second generation of solid-core balls, which are bordering on atomic.

Clearly we have come to expect low scores at the Sony Open, the Phoenix Open and the Bob Hope Classic, where last week three 61s were shot, along with a quartet of 62s. But if the pros tear up venerable Pebble Beach and its once fearsome neighbor, Spyglass Hill, a trend will have become an epidemic.

Despite the churning Pacific that makes so many holes visually intimidating, Pebble is extremely vulnerable without the kind of stiff breeze that slowed the scoring during the final round of the Hope. (Mike Weir, a precise plodder, matched the low score of the day, a 67, to prevail at 30 under in the 90-hole event.) At 6,816 yards Pebble is one of the shortest courses in championship golf and, with its generous fairways, has always rewarded a power game. The great equalizer has been Pebble's tiny greens, which are surrounded by peril. Even this defense falls away if players are hitting wedges into every famous par-4. The two short par-5s on the front nine have always been tantalizing scoring opportunities, but if eagle putts become commonplace on the 573-yard 14th and the once formidable 543-yard 18th, then expect the course record of 62 to fall this week, as well as the tournament scoring record of 20 under. (Poppy Hills, the third host course, has five par-5s and will be an eagle bonanza.)

As pro golf storms into this new era, it has found an unlikely poster boy in Jay Haas, 49, one of the players who rang up a 61 at the Hope last week. For the first time in his career Haas reached in two the 543-yard 11th hole at La Quinta Country Club. "Years ago the mind-set was, Make the cut first and then try to make a little move," Haas says. "Now it's, Hair on fire, let's rip it up."

This week Pebble Beach will be in the eye of the storm. How the course fares will go a long way toward determining if the game has changed irrevocably or if a month of wild scoring is merely a tempest in a teapot.

O.B.