Over the years, Pebble Beach has seen millions of golf shots. Millions. But somewhere in the mix of those millions of shots, someone had to have the best one.
Did it come from Tiger Woods in the midst of his overpowering U.S. Open victory in 2000? How about Gary Woodland in 2019? Was it one of the hundreds of aces made by golfers on Pebble’s par-3s?
The answer, according to Steve Elkington, involves neither a professional golfer nor a hole-in-one. Rather, as he explained on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar, the best shot in Pebble Beach history came from a junior golfer on a par-5.
The story begins with Elkington participating in the Nature Valley First Tee Open (now the Pure Insurance Championship), a Champions Tour pro-am at Pebble.
“I was lucky enough to play with this young girl at the Nature Valley,” Elkington said. “We were off the back nine at Pebble Beach on the last round and we had a great round, finish on the 9th hole. We were told that we think we’ve won the tournament.”
Quickly, Elkington and his playing partner were ushered off to the 18th green, where they would be anointed champions after the final groups finished play.
“So we’re all the way back to the 18th hole,” Elkington said. “John Cook was leading the tournament, and we were in the grandstands behind 18 waiting for Cook to finish. We thought we had won the tournament. “
As Elkington remembers, suddenly there was a commotion.
“Well, one of the young junior players that was playing in Cook’s group hooked his drive into the water on 18, hit a rock, bounced back out into the fairway — we didn’t see this of course — but then we saw a ball land on the green and go into the hole,” he said. “We thought, that’s the coolest eagle we’ve ever seen, and then someone said, no, that’s a guy that’s made a double-eagle.”
The one-time major championship winner quickly realized he’d found himself on the wrong end of a historic albatross.
“That was to beat us in the Nature Valley senior tour event,” Elkington said. “It’s the only double-eagle in the history of Pebble Beach on the last hole to win a tournament.”
That’s right, the only albatross on the 18th hole in Pebble Beach history — a shot that perhaps should have wound up in the Pacific Ocean. Soon, any astonishment vanished in the place of comforting his playing partner.
“I spent the next two hours with the young girl,” he said. “Telling her, ‘it’s okay, it’s okay, we finished second!’”
To hear the rest of Elkington’s Subpar interview, check out the video below or subscribe to GOLF’s Subpar wherever podcasts are found.
