David Cannon

By Tod Leonard
If those who lead the USGA needed any reminding about why they have returned to the Pebble Beach Golf Links with their championships so frequently over the past 93 years, they only needed to look out the window on Wednesday for their big announcement on the seaside grounds. Before they were bright blue skies with wispy white clouds and the sun shimmering off Stillwater Cove beyond the most famous finishing hole in golf. On its finest days, Pebble Beach is heaven on Earth, and the USGA knows it has a great thing going there. “Arguably, the greatest walk in golf,” mused John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer.

There are USGA championship sites that fall in and out of favour, become obsolete or lose their lustre. Pebble Beach never has and seemingly never will, and now it has the largest commitment yet from the organisation that seems to cherish it the most.

At a news conference, the USGA announced its single-largest package of championships yet for Pebble. Beyond the already slated 2023 U.S. Women’s Open and 2027 U.S. Open, six more events were added to the calendar that will take Pebble Beach’s association with national championships into the 2040s.

The U.S. Opens are scheduled for 2032, 2037 and 2044. The U.S. Women’s Opens will be played in 2035, 2040 and 2048. The latter of those championships will be played nearly 120 years after the U.S. Amateur, the first USGA event at Pebble, was contested in 1929.

“John [Bodenhamer] has promised that I can be a marshal on the 18th hole in 2044, so I’m pretty excited about that,” joked David Stivers, CEO of the Pebble Beach Company.

Pebble Beach is one of the USGA’s most iconic venues, having hosted 13 championships, including six U.S. Opens. Some past champions are among the game’s greatest: Jack Nickalus in 1972, Tom Watson in ’82 and Tiger Woods in 2000. In 2019, Gary Woodland joined the winners’ group that includes Tom Kite and Graeme McDowell with a three-stroke victory over Brooks Koepka.

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