Daniel Berger — Sports Commentary

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — No celebrities or laughs at this AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, but more than enough joy and heartbreak on a course that through the years as proved to be as much of a beast as it is a beauty.

This was golf at its purest, in a tournament going forward under Covid-19 restrictions and with none of the players currently in the world’s top 10 — golf that may have lacked star power, but certainly not drama.

Daniel Berger won it Sunday. Or did many of the others lose it? An unfair question, perhaps, because all those guys on the Tour, from first to last, are wonderfully talented. Or they wouldn’t be on Tour.

Still, it’s a sport of missed shots and bad breaks, and the guy who ends up on top often is the one who keeps his cool along with his well-practiced swing.

Which is what Berger was able to do, if a day late but not a dollar short. Well, make that $1.4 million, the prize Berger earned, shooting a 7-under 65 on Sunday for an 18-under-par 270.

Maverick McNealy, a few years out of Stanford, shot 66 for a 272, while Jordan Spieth, three and a half years without a win — he led by a shot after three rounds — had a 70 and tied Patrick Cantlay, who shot 68, for third at 273.

No less a story, and a sad one, is Nate Lashley, who was tied with Berger for the lead going into 16, had a 12-foot putt to save par but then proceeded to miss it — and the next three, four-putting for a quadruple bogey seven. He finished with 69 for 274.

They tell us golf can be a cruel game, but for the 27-year-old Berger, it was a game of response. After leaving Pebble on Saturday with that double bogey — and he didn’t drive into Carmel Bay, but out of bounds in the other direction — Berger burst out with an eagle on the second hole.

Sixteen holes later he had another eagle 3, on the famed finisher — the 18th, the same hole where he had the 7 a day earlier. Yes, he can power the ball.

On Saturday, Berger became the second person in 4,000-plus shots to drive the green of Pebble’s 403-yard, par-four fourth. Good for a one-putt eagle.

Berger is the son of Jay Berger, who played tennis well enough to reach the quarterfinals of the 1989 French Open. Daniel once swung a racket. Then he started swinging 5-irons.

The 18th at Pebble is a 540-yard par-5 with water all along the left side and a few of those elegant (and expensive) mansions along the right side, thus the OB Berger recorded on Saturday. The last time anyone eagled it in the AT&T was back in the 1980s.

“Any time you do anything historical here at Pebble Beach, you know you accomplished something special,” Berger observed after his fifth win on Tour.

“(Saturday) I just kind of flared it. Today I stepped up there, and I wanted to be as aggressive as possible, and I would rather go down swinging than making a conservative swing that doesn't end up really well.

“Today I hit one of the best 3-woods in my life. I wanted to win. I didn't want to lose it on the last.“

Spieth lost it earlier. He birdied two, then bogied three and five. The unwritten rule at Pebble is get birdies and pars on the front — then hang. Unless you’re Daniel Berger, of course.

”It was just a really poor first six holes,” said Spieth. “And out here, that's where you can score. I talked about getting off to a good start, and standing on the 7 tee it was nice to birdie that hole, but all in all, I really knew that I needed to have a couple birdies to withstand anything that could come on the back nine.

“I needed to be a couple under through 6, and I was 1-over — and really that was the difference.”

Along with Daniel Berger’s play.