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By Lauren Deason
PGATOUR.com Editorial Coordinator

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Since Bing Crosby's first pro-am on the Monterey Peninsula in 1947, the celebrities have been coming, PGA TOUR pros have been winning and, naturally, the tradition and lore has been building at Pebble Beach.

Peter Jacobsen has two wins at Pebble Beach (WireImage)

And who better to share some of the infamous stories but Peter Jacobsen and Tom Watson, two guys who have both played in the tournament 27 times, competed in a combined 192 rounds during the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and earned victories in this hallowed spot.

Jacobsen, the 1985 champion, first came for the 1977 tournament, then named the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, and has made 21 cuts. He's made even more memories, though, having played with the likes of good friend Jack Lemmon and Clint Eastwood. In fact, one of his favorites involves those two actors.

Greg Norman and Jacobsen were playing with Eastwood and Lemmon at Cypress Point, where Lemmon hit a shot on the 16th that landed in some ice plant hanging precariously over a cliff. With a crowd of several thousand watching, Lemmon did the unthinkable: he tried to hit it.

At first, "(Lemmon) walked over and said 'I'm going to let that go.' Eastwood said, 'You've got to hit that ball,'" said Jacobsen, imitating the two actors' voices as well as he impersonates the golf swings of his fellow TOUR pros. Lemmon took his wedge and started creeping over the edge, which Jacobsen said had an "about 80 foot drop to the rocks below."

Not wanting to see his friend go off the side, Eastwood offered to hold the back of his belt. "I said, 'Oh great, two American film icons going to go down in the rocks'. So I grabbed Clint by his belt, Greg Norman grabbed me by my belt and Pete Bender, his caddy, grabbed him," Jacobsen recalled. Amazingly, Lemmon hit the shot perfectly out of the ice plant, but unfortunately shanked his next into the ocean and made the harrowing cliff shot an unnecessary risk.

Memories like those, coupled with the relaxed and fun atmosphere, keeps Jacobsen coming back.

"This event is so important to the legacy that is the PGA TOUR, going back to Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and Andy Williams and Glen Campbell and Sammy Davis, Jr.," he said. "All these people, all the celebrities here represent that genre, that area of the people that we try to get into the game, and it's important. It's very important we continue with that tradition."

Watson is the stuff of legend at Pebble Beach, where he won the 1977 and '78 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am but is best known for winning the 1982 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by beating Jack Nicklaus with a miraculous chip-in birdie on the 17th hole. He'd been coming to the course, one of the most famous in golf history, long before that shot, though.

"There is quite a bit of history between this area and myself. If you look down in the brass awards down there, underneath the first tee, you will see there is one for 1941 for a guy by the name of Ray Watson and Leonard Dodson," he said. "Ray Watson happened to be my father and he and Leonard won the pro-am division in 1941 at Rancho Santa Fe, a long time ago."

Now Watson will play this week with his own son, 24-year-old Michael, and will try to recapture some of the magic at the breathtakingly beautiful Pebble Beach courses.

Both Watson and Jacobsen spend most of their time on the Champions Tour now and get to come back to this spot for the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach each year. Two other Champions Tour players are in the field for the PGA TOUR event this week, Scott Simpson and Lon Hinkle, as well as the sons of Champions Tour players Jose Maria Canizares (Alejandro), Craig Stadler (Kevin) and Raymond Floyd (Robert).

Notably absent is five-time AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am winner Mark O'Meara, who opted to miss the tournament to prepare for his Champions Tour debut next week at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am.

Simpson, winner of the Wal-Mart First Tee Open in 2006, typically plays with pal Bill Murray in both the Champions Tour and PGA TOUR events at Pebble Beach. Murray and Simpson are quite the pair, with Simpson capturing laughs with his spot-on impression of Murray and the comedian entertaining the crowd with his playful and goofy antics. This year, they will be in a foursome with Jeff Sluman, who will make his Champions Tour debut upon turning 50 in September.

Tom Watson has two wins at Pebble Beach. (WireImage)

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• Check it out:  Watson forever linked with Pebble Beach

This week, the Champions Tour players will test their mettle against the young guns on the PGA TOUR. The guys who made the history get another chance to write a chapter in the record books.

As with much of history, though, sometimes things are just better left in the past to remain an untarnished part of the lore of Pebble Beach. For instance, after dinner and champagne one night, Watson and friends tried unsuccessfully to reenact his self-described "lucky" chip-in from the rough on the 17th hole that earned him his only U.S. Open title and one of eight major victories.

His son even attempted that shot this week and found it easier than Dad had expected.

"He tried it on Monday," Watson said. "He asked me where was the ball and I still don't know exactly where it was, but somewhere in between the two back left bunkers there. I put the ball where I thought the pin was, pretty close, he almost hit it three times out of three shots."

With Watson teeing it up with his son this week and Jacobsen playing with rocker Huey Lewis, it's time for the veterans to show a new generation and some new celebrities just how history is made at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

As Watson put it, "a lot of good years, a lot of good memories, now it's time to introduce a new generation to it, my son."