Watching Pebble Beach on TV means going back in time — and forward, too

It’s Thursday morning and the golf is on.

There’s all the time golf to placed on, today. The DP World Tour was on Golf Channel early this morning, beaming in from Denmark. The PGA Tour was on a couple of hours after that, cameras in Illinois streaming the motion to your iPads through ESPN+ and finally on Golf Channel, too. Tomorrow you’ll be able to add LIV Golf to your listings, on the CW. The golf is on in all places.

Each week there’s a hierarchy of occasions, ordered unofficially by you, first to final, by the quantity they matter. Your hierarchy could also be totally different than mine (completely happy 4th, let’s have fun our freedoms) however this week I’ve received a transparent No. 1, as a result of I’ve been keen to observe the U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach because it was introduced. The largest occasion within the girls’s recreation is made greater by this week’s venue, which has by no means hosted a girls’s main however has hosted the lads seven instances, plus the PGA Tour yearly. Ought to it have taken this lengthy to get feminine execs on property? After all not! But it surely’s good to be right here.

The occasion is made better by a golf course, which I — like Nelly Korda — received to know from tv and from Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005, although I’m undecided which got here first. It’s made better by the cash, too. Money isn’t the one factor that signifies import nor significance in skilled golf, however the latter definitely appears to observe the previous, so it’s important that the USGA is doling out $11 million this 12 months, up from $10m final 12 months.

The 2022 champ, Minjee Lee, stated on the champions dinner on Tuesday night time that attendees had been evaluating notes on first-place checks. Fifty years in the past the first-place test exceeded $5,000 for the primary time. Forty years in the past the winner cracked $25,000. Thirty years in the past they’d climbed over $100,000. The primary time Annika Sorenstam (who’s on this week’s discipline) gained was in 1995; she earned $175,000. The final Aussie to win, Karrie Webb, took residence $500,000 in her maiden victory in 2000. Lee? She took residence $1.8 million final summer season.

For me, it’s the music. The importance, that’s — it begins with the music. “In Celebration of Man,” the brilliant, regal theme of USGA occasions on NBC properties, returned to the occasion in 2020 when the USGA returned to NBC after the occasion’s half-decade underneath the Fox umbrella. The theme originates with Yanni, the mononymous Greek composer, and because it kicks off protection I I can really feel it in my soul that that is necessary. The trumpets have instructed me so. The theme connects me to U.S. Opens passed by, to TV intros watched from the ground of my grandparents’ front room, to childhood mornings spent tiptoeing to the basement to flip on the Open Championship at 6 a.m. I’m pretty positive Yanni’s theme wasn’t even on The Open intros then, however once I revisit that scene in my thoughts’s eye, that’s the music that performs. I’m a sucker for each branding and nostalgia, so I hear the music and recollections come flooding again and easy joys do, too.

Peacock didn’t exist then, nor did the Hearth TV stick. However now the latter has introduced the previous onto my tv in remarkably excessive definition. Yanni’s there, too, ushering within the morning’s featured group. It’s a proud manufacturing. The golfers, although, are struggling.

Jin Younger Ko is No. 1 on the planet and among the many event favorites. However she simply bogeyed No. 10 and No. 12 and No. 14 and No. 16, a neat every-other sample on her scorecard however a decidedly disappointing set of numbers to file. A double-cross results in double bogey at 17, ruining the sample and worsening the numbers, too. The announcers maintain saying issues like, “and Jin Younger Ko is at the moment beating simply one participant.” That is stunning and it’s not good.

Nelly Korda is No. 2 on the planet, additionally among the many event favorites and in addition struggling. She’s a Florida woman by nurture and nature and admittedly averse to the chilly. It’s chilly this morning and she or he begins chilly, lacking huge proper together with her tee shot at No. 10 and opening with double bogey. She bogeys the odd holes — 13, 15, 17 — trying colder with every missed par putt. A formidable up-and-down for birdie at No. 18 stops the bleeding and salvages a four-over-par first 9. The following 9 goes higher, which suggests 4 over can be the place she’ll end the day, simply inside the highest 100.

One of the best of the group is the least heralded: Lexi Thompson. It’s odd to confer with her as least heralded as a result of for thus a few years she was entrance and heart, at this occasion and lots of others. However she hasn’t cracked the highest 20 in 5 LPGA begins this season, which suggests the sportsbooks don’t suppose a lot of her probabilities. She’s not quick on expertise, although: Thompson is simply 28 however that is someway her seventeenth of those. In these first 16 she’s logged eight prime 10s and two podium finishes — simply no wins as of but.

Thompson doesn’t look wholly comfy with lengthy drives nor with quick putts however her baseline of golf remains to be so excessive that she’s hanging powerful, yielding to a bogey however bouncing again with a birdie and so forth. A plugged lie results in double at No. 1. Agh. A sensational second results in a five-footer for eagle at No. 6. Ooh. She misses that, settling for birdie. Agh, once more. She shoots two-over 74, a quantity that’ll nonetheless show higher than discipline common.

The greens seems agency. They appear inexperienced, too, however undoubtedly agency. In consequence they’re tough to carry, so a number of the world’s finest golfers maintain hitting approaches that land on however scoot off. Even wedges from the golf green skip ahead after which trickle to a cease; there’s little or no signal of balls screeching to a halt, the way in which they may elsewhere. This makes a number of the small greens play even smaller. Miss the golf green? Good luck holding something. Even par looks like it’ll be a great rating all week.

Elsewhere on the course it’s Xiyu “Janet” Lin who posts 68, even with a bogey at her last gap. Irish newbie Áine Donegan is correct behind her at 69, thanks to 5 birdies and an eagle. USA Community picks up the motion, which requires a bit deft button-pushing on the Hearth Stick. I’m as much as the problem.

The published is a mixture of beginnings and endings. It’s a celebration of what’s been and what would possibly but be. There’s Sorenstam, whose 80 was only a shot behind the World No. 1 however forward of fewer golfers than she’d wished. Michelle Wie West is enjoying her last occasion and celebrating the ninth anniversary of her lone main win. However a snowman 8 on the par-5 18th undoes her; she shoots 79 by means of “actually silly, rusty bogeys.” She’s been scooping too many gimmes in observe, she admits. Placing ’em all out is decidedly disagreeable. She hits it properly, by her description, and shoots 79. Out right here, discomfort is doom.

It’s afternoon now, and the golf is on. I simply talked about some endings however there are beginnings, too, not only for Donegan however for Rose Zhang, who’s enjoying her first Ladies’s Open as knowledgeable. Expectations are foolish excessive after a win and a major-championship prime 10 in her first two skilled begins; she’s the betting favourite. Possibly she needs to be — she does personal the course file right here, in any case.

Zhang birdies No. 3 after which No. 4, too, and issues start to look quite simple. They appear out of the blue extra advanced for her enjoying companion Lydia Ko, who was No. 1 on the planet only a few months in the past however hasn’t quite been herself of late. She’s one underneath par by means of 4 however out of the blue smother-hooks an iron means left at No. 5 — like, 40 or 50 yards left — and struggles her technique to a quadruple-bogey 7. She birdies the following, naturally.

Hyo Joo Kim comes on display and her golf swing seems prefer it might by no means produce an off-line tee shot, besides then it does, as a result of that’s what golf swings do. Zhang, too, proves fallible, dropping a ball down the cliff at No. 8 en path to double.

There’s a fist pump, out of the blue, from Emilia Migliaccio, who cans a 20-footer for birdie putt at No. 11. She’s a Wake Forest grad doing unbelievable double duty this week; she walked with the morning trio of Ko, Korda and Thompson and teed it up simply after they completed their rounds. Good work, if you will get it.

Aussie Hannah Inexperienced throws an Airpod in, sliding seamlessly into interview mode whereas strolling the par-4 ninth and chatting to the printed crew. She’ll make bogey there, an affordable feat contemplating it’s enjoying because the second-toughest gap of the day, averaging over 4.4 strokes. These distant walk-and-talks would have been unthinkable a couple of years in the past. They’re commonplace fare now. Hearth Sticks are, too.

I’d deliberate to be there in individual, to cowl the occasion dwell, to see Pebble and these golfers on it. Earlier this 12 months I spoke with LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan about her imaginative and prescient for ladies’s occasions; she talked about them feeling huge. How would that appear and feel? I received sick; I couldn’t go. So right here I’m, watching from my sofa. I’m realizing it’s not a nasty spot to be.

We’ve entered primetime viewing again on the East Coast by now. The published cuts to a scenic aerial after which a take a look at the leaderboard, blue towards the inexperienced backdrop. In Celebration of Man trumpets by means of the TV audio system. It’s a great night time for the golf to be on.

It feels huge.

The creator (cautiously) welcomes your feedback at dylan_dethier@golf.com.

Dylan Dethier

Golf.com Editor

Dylan Dethier is a senior author for GOLF Journal/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams School, the place he majored in English, and he’s the creator of 18 in Americawhich particulars the 12 months he spent as an 18-year-old dwelling from his automobile and enjoying a spherical of golf in each state.