Cantlay takes advantage of Pebble: 10 birdies, no bogies

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — This was a day to play Pebble Beach, a day, gray and quiet, for tourists to wrap themselves in sweaters and dreams, a day for a golfer to go after a course that without the elements virtually begged you to make birdies.

Which on Thursday, in the opening round of the 2021 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, is what Patrick Cantlay did. Not that he was alone.

Cantlay is one of those guys just on the fringe of fame, and this week on the fringe of the world’s top 10 — he’s No. 11, the highest ranked player in the field and, after 18 holes, the highest placed player on the scoreboard.

Ten birdies and no bogies for Cantlay, which of course is 10 under par at a course that through the ages has become as famous for wind and rain — and gallows humor — as for the people who have won here.

People named Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods, Mickelson and, way back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, Hogan, Snead and Demaret. First names are not needed for those guys, although everyone knows Woods by his adopted first name, Tiger. And someday, a first name may not be required for Cantlay.

In the last two tournaments he’s entered, Cantlay has a 61, 11 under, in the American Express down in Palm Desert and then, 400 miles north and a couple of weeks apart, the 62 at Pebble.

“Yeah, especially a continuation of the desert on the weekend,” said Cantlay of his golf Thursday along Carmel Bay. “My swing feels really good right now. The ball's starting on the line that I'm seeing, and then my distance control has been really good, which is key out here.”

Cantlay was two shots ahead of Akshay Bhatia and Henrik Norlander. Another shot back at 7-under 65 were Nate Lashley, who you may not have heard of, and Jordan Spieth — who you also may not have heard of lately other than for his struggles.

Which finally may be over.

When it comes to overcoming struggles, the 28-year-old Cantlay is the unfortunate poster boy. Ten years ago, at UCLA, he was the nation’s top college player and for more than a year the No. 1 amateur in the world.

But he incurred a stress fracture in his back and couldn’t play for months.

Then, after he recovered, in February 2016, he watched from a nearby curb as his caddy and pal from high school in Anaheim, Chris Roth, was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Newport Beach.

Cantlay was so shaken he couldn’t play. “For a while, I couldn’t care less about everything,” he said at the time. “Not just golf. Everything that happened in my life for a couple months didn’t feel important. Nothing felt like it mattered.”

The healing process took weeks. Cantlay returned, with a boom. He won the 2019 Memorial and then, near the end of 2020, the Zozo at Sherwood in southern California, about a hundred miles from where he grew up. Now two scintillating rounds in his home state.

“I always like being up here in Monterey,” he said. “Even though it’s cold this time of year, I like playing Pebble Beach. I like Spyglass (where he and Spieth play Friday).

“So I’m excited for this year. It looks like we’re going to get some rain, which isn’t uncommon, but I always like being here, and I like the golf courses and I like the California golf.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions, there are no amateurs this year in the AT&T. No spectators either for an event as well known for celebrities such as Bill Murray and for the fans who tend to be as excited to watch them as, say, Patrick Cantlay.

“Yeah, we did play a lot quicker, which is nice,” said Cantlay. “Anytime you play this tournament and get finished under five hours, it's a good day.”

Anytime you shoot 10-under at Pebble, believed to tie the course record for a round in the AT&T, it’s a great day.

Kamaiu Johnson at Pebble: A Hollywood story

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By Art Spander

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The shame is none of those high-powered Hollywood types who usually fill the amateur slots will be playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. They’d love the Kamaiu Johnson story.

Then again, who wouldn’t?

It seems more fiction than fact, a kid from nothing, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, starts swinging a stick near a golf course in Tallahassee, Florida, catches the eye of the course general manager and works and putts his way to the big time.

Kamaiu is 27, an African-American who — could this be any more perfect? — in Black History Month will make his own history when he tees off Thursday in the AT&T.

All that beauty and wealth of Pebble, where it costs just to get through the gates, where the waves crash and seagulls sweep. And where Johnson will make his first start on the PGA Tour.

Is it redundant to say he came up the hard way, winning an event on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, a circuit created to “bring greater diversity to the game by developing African Americans and other minorities for careers in golf”?

Sure, there’s Tiger Woods, who remains the face of the game if at age 35 he doesn’t remain atop the standings. Harold Varner III, Joseph Bramlett and Sacramento’s Cameron Champ — who won the Safeway a couple of years ago — are the other black golfers on Tour.

None came up the way Kamaiu Johnson did — or overcame the same obstacles.

“Golf saved me,” Johnson told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest.

Johnson was an athlete, a baseball player, but as one of four children in a fatherless family, he couldn’t afford to play on a club team. So there he was taking big swipes with a branch outside Halman Golf Club in Tallahassee when Jan Augur, the GM, invited him inside to hit balls on the range with a real club.

Obviously he had talent. And finally he had an opportunity. There were lessons. And there was progress. He won the Advocates, and that gained him a place in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of January. But he was never able to enter, withdrawing due to a positive Covid-19 test.

But he had come too far to be discouraged or depressed, even with his mother in the hospital in Orlando because of breathing difficulties. Word traveled. Johnson was invited both to the AT&T and, a couple weeks from now, the Honda Classic in his home state.

“I thought I was going to get my first PGA Tour event this week,” he told USA Today’s Steve DiMeglio, before the Farmers. “But God had other plans for me.

“I’m just so thankful for the support I’ve gotten over the way I was treated. I’m thankful to the AT&T and Farmers and Honda for all they’ve been doing for me. It’s been amazing how many people reached out to me.”

Johnson had to quarantine outside San Diego. He’s now cleared, of course. His mother has improved.

“I feel absolutely back to normal. I tried to stay active.”

Staying active is not staying in the groove, however. And even when a golfer is prepared, those Monterey Peninsula courses — Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill this year; no amateurs, no need for Monterey Peninsula — can intimidate.

Even veterans know the tales of grief, balls in the water on so many of Pebble’s holes, balls in the bunkers at Spyglass — so a first-timer will have to be particularly defensive.

Then again, after what he’s gone through to get here, no golf course, no matter its reputation, should worry Kamaiu Johnson. When you begin by swinging a stick, the rest is a joy.

At Pebble, a Pro-Am without any “ams,” including Bill Murray

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By Art Spander

It was created by a man who could swing a 5-iron as impressively as he could hold a musical note. In time, his tournament, the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, became the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. What didn’t change was the last part of the label, “Am.”

The pros, from Snead and Hogan to Palmer, Nicklaus and Woods, had their place and their victories, but what made the Pro-Am special were the amateurs: entertainers, athletes and politicians as eager to compete and as we were to watch them. 

Now the event, a mid-winter festival on the Monterey Peninsula, has fallen victim to Covid-19, as have so many other attractions. They’ll hold the AT&T in February, as always, but not like before.

According to a release from the PGA Tour, the AT&T will be played “without the traditional multi-day format,” which means it won’t be the traditional Crosby/AT&T.

Inevitable, perhaps, the way the virus has surged, chasing the 49ers and the Sharks to Arizona and forcing the suspension of so many NBA and college basketball games, but still disappointing.

The courses are the same, although only Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill will be used, Monterey Peninsula Country Club unneeded for a greatly reduced field.

The charity beneficiary is the same, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which Crosby told me in the early 1970s, when some of the pros didn’t like the format, was the only reason he didn’t withdraw his support.

The threat of inclement weather will be the same, although the Pacific storms are as unreliable as were Jack Lemmon’s tee shots.

Lemmon, of course, was a regular, a good guy if not a good golfer, who tried for years without success to make the cut but even in his unfulfilled attempts made us appreciate his persistence and sense of humor.

Sure, we were thrilled by Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson, but we were no less enthralled by Huey Lewis — who might break out in song at every tee box — or Tom Brady.

Back in the ’50s, when the world was naïve, the guy who kept us attuned and laughing was Phil Harris, who had a ton of one-liners and also more than a minimum of one-putts.

In one rainy Crosby, he slopped off the inundated 17th green at Pebble and told the press, “I can’t wait to get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.” If you’ve heard that before, well, jokes survive.

The routines by Harris, Dean Martin and even Crosby himself have been taken over by Bill Murray, who has done everything from pull a female spectator into a bunker to hurl a frozen fish at spectators.

If the tournament occasionally resembled a variety show, well, how many times could you remind the audience that every putt breaks toward Carmel Bay?

Murray was a player as well as a comedian. He grew up near Chicago, caddying with his brothers, and in the 2011 AT&T he teamed with D.A. Points, who won the pro section. Murray won the pro-am.

On the 16th in the final round at Pebble, Points, getting into the spirit of things, yelled at Murray loud enough to he heard, “It would help if you made a putt.” Which Murray then did. “His being funny helped relax me,” said Murray, who hardly needs help at relaxing.

No Murray this winter. No quarterbacks — Tony Romo has been a consistent entrant, and Peyton Manning an occasional one — no wisecracks, no entrants sitting near the 17th tee being interviewed by Jim Nantz.

No crowd at the 15th tee, “Club 15” the description, chanting before the golfers hit their tee balls.

There will be golf played at Pebble next month, but not the golf we’ve come to expect. How can it be a pro-am without the “ams”?

Phil implied there would be trouble — and there was

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

Golf is different. In team sports, when those in charge no longer believe you are ineffective, that you’re too old, they put you on waivers or drop you — as the San Francisco Giants did recently with longtime favorites Hunter Pence and Pablo Sandoval.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2020, The Maven

Tiger, Phil, Peyton, Tom: $20 million and a ton of rain

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By Art Spander

“Like throwing a little swing pass to the running back.” That was Phil Mickelson, coach Phil, giving advice to partner Tom Brady, before Brady had a little chip shot only a few people not named Phil Mickelson could hope to execute.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2020, The Maven

The return of sports? Not so fast

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By Art Spander

The Masters was supposed to begin Thursday. But you knew that. You also knew it has been shifted to a weekend in November, one of the few apparent certainties we’ve been offered in sport.

Otherwise, it’s a series of possibilities and wishes. And worries.

We keep hearing there will be improvement, the coronavirus will be limited if not controlled, and life and sport will return to normal — schedules full of games, stands full of fans.

People would be in church on Easter, we were promised. The country would be open. The only masks needed would be worn by catchers.

Then another medical person told us in so many words, “Not so fast, folks.” Never mind searching for a place in the bleachers or lower boxes while epidemiologists still are searching for a vaccine. And before you even think of selling tickets for an NFL game, you’d better sell the players on the idea there’s no danger coming together in a huddle or the locker room.

Only the other day, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, the Santa Clara County executive officer, said he didn’t expect sports until Thanksgiving. “And we’d be lucky to have them then,” he added.

Thanksgiving, when high school football usually concludes. When college football often plays its traditionals. When the NFL — and the 49ers are based in Santa Clara, of course — would be three-quarters of the way into the schedule.

Baseball? Basketball? They’ve almost reached a point of desperation. Or resignation.

By the time the NBA figures how and when to resume a season that never made it past the halfway mark, it will be time to start the next season. Major League Baseball have a bizarre scheme to play every game, all 30 teams, in Arizona, without fans. That doesn’t work.

It can be done. But it shouldn’t be done. Our sports are more than digital matchups among distant athletes. We need people in the seats, behind the ropes, as well as people inside the lines.

Sport is not silence. Sport is huge galleries lining the fairways at Augusta National. Sport is obsessed fans tailgating in the parking lots before Auburn-Alabama. Sport is parents and kids unloading at the 161st Street station in the Bronx to see the Yankees play the Red Sox.

Sport is jerseys and T-shirts, golf hats and baseball caps, anticipation and excitement.

But before any of that, we need a go-ahead from those best qualified to judge our health and safety. Not politicians or football coaches or businessmen who want the economy to rebound and our entertainment to return. But from medical professionals.

The numbers of those stricken by the virus, those who have died from the virus, ought to be warnings not to take chances, not to allow, say, a Warriors-Lakers game to take place until all doubts are eliminated. Sure, we want to see Steph or LeBron, but what we don’t need to see is one more victim.

Impatience? Indeed. Would you expect another response? The head football coach at Oklahoma State, Mike Gundy — remember how he challenged the media a few years back? — insisted his team is getting back to business on May 1. “We’ve got to get these guys back in here,” he said.

Back in where, the locker room? Or since they are student-athletes, the classroom? Most schools around the country have been shut down because of the contagion. And if Oklahoma State hasn’t, the guess is at least the schools of some opponents have.

“From what I read,” said Gundy on a teleconference, “the healthy people can fight this ... we all need to go back to work.”

Until, if we’re callous, careless, the healthy people become infected. As has been the case virtually everywhere.

The future is a question. If it is not safe enough to hold a 49ers game or a Cal or Stanford — or De La Salle — game in September, will it be safe enough to hold the PGA Championship in early August at San Francisco’s Harding Park?

With luck, and maybe a vaccine, the threat of the virus may be diminished to the point where a golf tournament or football game will return to being the attractions and joy that sports are meant to be.

We hardly can wait. But wait we must.