Timberlake steals the spotlight from Rose
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Justin Rose, a U.S. Open champion and the No. 7 player in the world, shot a 6-under 66 his first time playing Spyglass Hill and spent a gorgeous day listening to fans call his name. Except they weren’t calling for him, and he knew it.
His partner in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is Memphis native Justin Timberlake.
“I’ve never seen a demographic like that on a golf course where you’re sort of running the gauntlet from one tee to the other. Everyone was under 21 and 80 percent female,” Rose said. “I said, ‘OK, that moved the needle a little bit there.’ ”
Rose did OK himself Thursday
He got off to a strong start is his debut at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where Chez Reavie had the low score at a tournament that needs three days to sort out because of the variety of courses.
Reavie made an eagle on the 16th hole and shot 8-under 63 at Monterey Peninsula, which played just more than 1½ strokes under par and was the easiest of the three courses. Freddie Jacobson made five birdies in a six-hole stretch and shot 7-under 65 at Pebble Beach, the only course to play over par (72.06) on Thursday.
Cameron Smith of Australia and Bronson Burgoon each had a 7-under 64 at Monterey Peninsula.
Rose is among six players here from the top 10 in the world, and he was the only one to break 70.
Rose strung together seven birdies, holing out from the bunker on No. 10 and ending his round with a 50-foot birdie putt that banged into the back of the cup. He played Pebble Beach and Monterey Peninsula for his practice rounds and realized he should have been at Spyglass “because it’s a pretty tough course.”
Timberlake didn’t contribute any shots to their pro-am score, but Rose said the highlight was on the 16th tee when Timberlake grabbed a guitar for an im- promptu performance, with actor Alfonso Ribeiro chipping in.
“That was a cool moment,” Rose said. “Not many people saw it, because there was only like 20 people back there. That’s obviously when you really appreciate how someone can grab a guitar, go a cappella and sound so awesome. You have a better appreciation. You see him hit not maybe so many great golf shots, but then you realize, ‘Ah, that’s pretty damn special right there.’ So we all have our own skill set.”
Some of the biggest stars had to settle for enjoying the weather.
Jordan Spieth, the No. 1 player in the world, with a 71 at Spyglass, along with PGA cham- pion Jason Day. Dustin Johnson had a 70 at Spyglass, and Bubba Watson had a 73. Patrick Reed had a 72.
All of them are among the top 10 in the world.
Phil Mickelson had a 68 at Spyglass while playing with a different setup in his driver.
“Like an idiot, I switched drivers,” Mickelson said.
He said his driver has weight ports that can be adjusted to affect the spin rate and he didn’t think he was getting as much as he wanted last week in Phoenix. So he made an adjustment and “hit some shots I didn’t care for today.”
“So I’ll go back to my other driver,” he said.