Pebble Beach's Secrets: The Course Built Without Paying Designers a Dime

Pebble Beach Links, located in Pebble Beach, California, is called "the course God made." The Pacific Ocean rolls alongside it, and every hole boasts stunning scenery. Along with nearby Spyglass Hill and Spanish Bay Links, it ranks among the courses golfers worldwide dream of visiting at least once in their lifetime. Pebble Beach Links will host the PGA Tour AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for four days starting February 12.

Pebble Beach Links opened in 1919. Though now world-famous, the course was originally built merely as a means to sell land. In 1880, Pacific Improvement Company (PIC) built the Del Monte resort hotel on this site. When all four founding owners died, their descendants decided to sell company assets and go their separate ways. They hired Samuel Finley Brown Morse, a real estate developer and relative of Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code. Morse tried to sell the hotel and surrounding land but managed to sell only one coastal lot. He then decided to build a golf course to make the area more attractive. That's how Pebble Beach Links was born.

Pebble Beach Links is not the work of a famous designer. Two amateur golfers with zero design experience—Jack Neville and Douglas Grant—created it. Neville later recalled: "We made as many holes as possible along the bay. All we needed was a little imagination. We just removed trees and planted grass seed." This is why Pebble Beach is called "the course God made."

Though Pebble Beach Links is now considered immensely valuable, Neville and Grant received not a single penny in design fees. At the time, course designers who accepted payment were considered professional golfers, and they chose to remain amateurs.

The name Pebble Beach derives from the abundant pebbles on the shore. Spyglass Hill takes its name from the highest hill on the treasure-burying island in the novel "Treasure Island." Author Robert Louis Stevenson frequently visited this area. Spanish Bay commemorates Spanish explorers who camped here in 1769 while searching for Monterey Bay. The tree in the Pebble Beach logo is "The Lone Cypress," an iconic tree along the 17-Mile Drive, a scenic toll road circling the Pebble Beach area. Its solitary stance on a seaside rock is striking.

Since the 1850s, Chinese immigrants formed fishing villages around Pebble Beach. One family ran a stand selling abalone where the 18th hole now sits. When U.S. President Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president, visited in 1891, he tried to pay for abalone with a $10 bill—rare at the time and worth about $300 today. The owner reportedly said, "No fake money! Pay with real money!" Among U.S. presidents, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump have participated in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. President Trump recorded a hole-in-one on the 12th hole at Spyglass Hill in 1993.

Bagpipe performances take place every evening on Spanish Bay Beach. This tradition began after Tom Watson, who helped design Spanish Bay Links, remarked that the beach "looks so much like Scotland that I can almost hear the bagpipes."

The 18th hole at Pebble Beach Links was originally a par-4 when the course opened. In 1922, British course designer Herbert Fowler suggested finishing with a par-5, and the change was made. The most famous hole at Pebble Beach is the par-3 7th. Though only 106 yards, the spectacular sight of massive Pacific waves crashing into white foam behind the green is breathtaking. It consistently appears on lists of the world's greatest par-3 holes.

Yet the 7th hole nearly disappeared. Designer Fowler opined: "I admit the scenery is beautiful, but going down and back up is too much. Finding another location wouldn't be difficult." Pebble Beach rejected the suggestion. That decision proved correct.