The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Round suspended with 3 tied for lead
Spieth a stroke back as even big hitters struggle in wind.
Jordan Spieth could barely stand up and worried his hat would fly off in the middle of his swing.
From 176 yards downhill to the par-3 11th green at Monterey Peninsula, he ripped a 4-iron and hoped for the best. When he saw it land about 6 feet from the flag, he declared to anyone within earshot, “That’s the best shot I’ve ever hit.”
This was a snapshot of the nasty side of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Thursday, with severe conditions that once led to the term “Crosby weather” from the days when Bing Crosby was the host and Pebble could be a blend of beauty and beast.
The PGA Tour moved up tee times by an hour to try to beat the storms, but it wasn’t enough. Already saturated, the greens on all three courses began holding enough water that play had to be suspended.
Seung-Yul Noh, Joel Dahmen and Rick Lamb each shot a 4-under 68 at Spyglass Hill to share the lead, and more important, they were among the 75 players who finished. The rest had to return early today — with lingering rain in the forecast — to finish the round before moving on to another course.
Spyglass has the most shelter from the wind. Mark Hubbard had a 3-under 69 at Pebble Beach, which is exposed along the coast.
Only three players reached the green on Pebble Beach’s par-4 ninth hole into the wind. Hubbard finished his round there with a bogey and treated it like a par. “It played more like a par 5 than any of the actual par 5s,” he said.
Spieth, even though he missed four putts inside 6 feet on the bumpy greens, was at 3 under with two holes to play on the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula. And as he walked in the final two holes in the rain, tilting his umbrella to fight the wind and rain, he was quite pleased.
“We thought it would be this way, but just rain,” he said. “We didn’t expect that.”
The “that” was what amounted to a four-club wind that tested even Dustin Johnson, the U.S. Open champion and among golf ’s most powerful players.
Johnson could barely hold up his umbrella in the wind when he stepped out from under it and smashed his drive on the 599-yard 12th hole. From the first cut of rough, he then hit a full 3-wood. And for his third shot, he had 4-iron into the green. And he was still short.
Asked if that ever happened to him on a par 5, Johnson didn’t blink before saying, “Never.”
On the next hole, typically tame at 434 yards, Johnson hit driver and had 190 yards left. He hit a 3-iron — he normally hits 7-iron from that distance — to the back pin to about 5 feet and made it for birdie. “Eagle,” Johnson said as he walked off the green. It was like that all over. Hubbard started on the back nine at Pebble, before the strongest of the wind and the rain arrived. He made three short birdie putts, made the turn and then holed a 15-foot eagle putt on the par-5 second hole to reach 5 under. And then it was time to hang on.
“At that point, I was glad I had a cushion,” he said.
Europe/Asia: Marc Warren overcame a missed cut last week to shoot a 9-under 63 for a two-stroke lead in the Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Scotsman, a threetime winner on the European Tour, nearly lost his playing card last year but a fifth-place finish at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship set up a strong finish to 2016.
Thai teenager Phachara Khongwatmai was in second place after a 65, one stroke ahead of a group of six that included Masters champion Danny Willett, Peter Uihlein and local favorite Arie Irawan.