Course Review - Spyglass Hill, Monterey Peninsula and Pebble Beach

After adverse weather conditions disrupted play on both golf Tours last week, let’s hope normal service will be resumed this week in Dubai and Pebble Beach. Tiger Woods will make his much-anticipated US PGA Tour season debut when he joins celebrities including Bill Murray, Huey Lewis, Andy Garcia and Kenny G for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. The event takes place on California’s Monterey Peninsula, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful settings imaginable for a golf tournament, and at three glorious golf clubs, Spyglass Hill, Monterey Peninsula Country Club and Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Nestled on land adjacent to famed Cypress Point, Spyglass Hill was designed by the iconic architect Robert Trent Jones and opened for play in 1966. The course’s name is due to the legend that Robert Louis Stevenson roamed these hills and dunes whilst seeking inspiration for his classic novel, Treasure Island. Host course is Pebble Beach Golf Links, the monumental legacy of two amateur designers, Jack Neville and Douglas Grant. Volumes have been written about this stunning layout, but the most apt and enduring comes from landscape painter Francis McComas who called Pebble Beach “the greatest meeting of land and sea”. Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s largely unheralded but picturesque Shore Course completes the rotation.

The final leg of the Gulf Swing on the European PGA Tour brings a stop in the United Arab Emirates for the Omega Dubai Desert Classic hosted at the Emirates Golf Club, 15 kilometres south west of the Dubai City Centre. The tournament is being played on the 6680m par 72 Majlis Course – the name means meeting place – designed in 1988 by American Karl Litten. This challenging layout is framed by several salt and freshwater lakes and was the first grass golf course in the Middle East. Formerly ranked in the world Top 100 Courses, the Majlis has a good mix of risk and reward holes, with reachable par 5’s and a driveable par 4. The signature hole is the 18th, a majestic par 5 played to a kidney shaped green fronted by a huge lake.

Golfweather Editorial