Old days at Pebble Beach about having fun as much as golf

text size

It's always felt like one of those larger than life events. A week where the stars come out and the weather takes charge; a week where high-profile -- and often high-handicap -- amateurs blend some questionable swings with a little business, a lot of fun and life in a very different spotlight.

Related

Hauser's Quick 18
Rankings: Pebble Beach
Celeb list: Who's playing?
Inside the field
Inside the courses

A week we grew up thinking of as the Clambake or the Crosby or just simply Pebble.

The black-and-white shots of Bing Crosby taking golf on a reality version of one of his "Road" movies. The stars like Dean Martin and Bob Hope and Phil Harris who were never in short supply, often with libations in hand and always in full voice -- all night somewhere on the Monterey Peninsula.

You didn't have to go to what's now known as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am to experience it. You just had to turn on your TV and watch Jack Lemmon lash at the golf ball or Der Bingle chat up a star -- either of the big screen or the PGA TOUR. Better yet, you could listen to Jimmy Demaret tell stories -- and not just that famous one about waking up after a very long night of partying, opening the curtains in his room at The Lodge and finding Pebble covered with snow.

"I knew I got loaded last night,'' Demaret said, "but how did I wind up at Squaw Valley?"

Those were the days. Days when Harris sank a bomb on the 18th after a long night and declared, "Ain't this a helluva blow to clean living?" Days like the first Clambake on the Peninsula in 1948 when Lloyd Mangrum turned a couple of long nights at local clubs into a five-shot win over Stan Leonard. Days when the wind blew and the rain came down so hard they wondered what season would come next.

The Crosby was made for guys like Mangrum and Demaret. Players with Hall of Fame games who lived large and loved to rub elbows with Hollywood and just about anyone else that dropped by. They made the best stories and always wound up telling them on themselves. What made it better was they laughed sometimes harder than they played.

Which brings us to a moment almost two decades ago when I boarded a small plane for the hop from Los Angeles to Monterey and found Lemmon seated across the aisle. My thoughts flashed to those iconic roles in Mr. Roberts, Some Like It Hot and The Odd Couple. His thoughts? He was telling us that he was ready. This was going to the year he'd make the cut at Pebble.

Of course, he didn't.

These days the storylines are definitely more PG and the celebrity field tends toward prime time.

The week's superstars are Got Milk guys like Phil Mickelson, Padraig Harrington, Jim Furyk and Luke Donald who may share a spiffy fashion sense with Demaret and Mangrum, but not much else.

The celebrities are athletes like Tony Romo, Kelly Slater and Tom Brady and actors like Chris O'Donnell, Jeffrey Donovan, Thomas Gibson and Don Cheadle. All take the game way more seriously than Bing and Dean and don't laugh nearly as often.

Bill Murray is about as close as it comes to Lemmon, who was everyone's favorite. But Murray is a whole lot edgier -- think pulling people into bunkers -- and he makes the cut.

As for fun? Murray and Ray Romano provide most of it, but the same year I flew in with Lemmon, I was walking at Poppy Hills when I was almost bowled over by a short scruffy-looking bearded guy who was grumbling his way to the next tee. Did a double take before realizing it was Joe Pesci, whose look was for a movie he was shooting. I think he was playing with buddy Billy Andrade, but I do know he was having a blast.

Talk this week will be on the usual subjects -- grooves and Tiger Woods' potential return -- but taking center stage will be Pebble's narrow fairways and even more dangerous-than-usual coastline shots that come with the prep for this summer's U.S. Open. Not far behind? The newest course in the rota -- Monterey Peninsula CC's Shore Course.

For once, the weather might take a back seat. But you honestly, never know. Looks like a little chilly in the mornings, a little rain. By Pebble standards, perfect.

No 50 mile-an-hour gales like the one Porky Oliver took on when he was playing the 16th at Cypress Point in 1953. No snow. No Clambake -- lore says Bing hosted one, history's not so sure. No all-night parties -- at least for the players.

But Pebble is still Pebble. The stars still come out and amateurs like Augusta National chairman Billy Payne and investment czar Charles Schwab are as in-demand lunch partners as Murray. Maybe more so.

As for the old days? We've got the photographs, we've got the stories. Even though both have faded with age.

What we do remember is Demaret, who won the tournament in 1952 and was runner-up twice, telling those old stories. Which brings us to something Ben Hogan once said about his old friend:

"If Jimmy had concentrated on golf as much as laughing and making people laugh, he might have won more tournaments. Of course, I wouldn't have liked him as much.''

The same goes for those old days at Pebble.

Melanie Hauser is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.