Notes: Sabbatini notches third top-10 finish of 2006

By Joan Alexander
PGA TOUR staff
 

Rory Sabbatini, who finished alone in second, recorded his third top-10 of the season in just five starts, including his second runner-up effort (T2 at Sony Open in Hawaii). His only other top-10 finish at Pebble Beach was a tie for 10th at the 2003 event.

• Jonathan Byrd, who finished tied for seventh last week at the FBR Open, records his second straight top-10 with his tie for third at Pebble Beach on Sunday. It is Byrd's best effort since he finished tied for third at the 2004 84 LUMBER Classic.

• Mike Weir, by finishing tied for third, has now posted six top-10s in nine starts at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, including six in seven years. Weir looks for a third victory next week at the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club.

• Craig Barlow recorded his first top-10 of the 2006 season with his tie for fifth on Sunday, giving him 13 career top-10s. It is his best finish since an eighth-place finish at the 2005 Buick Open. It is also his second top-10 at Pebble Beach, having finished tied for sixth in the 2001 event.

• Vijay Singh, who missed the cut last year as a defending champion, managed to sneak into the top-10 with his closing 4-under 68 on Sunday. Singh collects his third top-10 of the season with his tie for seventh on Sunday. Making his 12th appearance at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Singh now has six top-10 finishes at the AT&T, all six of those in the last eight years.

• Tom Lehman collected his sixth top-10 at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with his tie for seventh.

• Fresno's Nick Watney (T7) posted his first top-10 of the season to earn a spot in next week's Nissan Open.

• After an opening career-best 10-under 62 at Spyglass Hill Golf Club, first round leader Luke Donald closed with rounds of 72-71-74 to finish just inside of the top-10 with a tie for seventh.

• Arron Oberholser won by five strokes over Rory Sabbatini and joins four players who have won by five strokes at the event. The four other players who have won by five strokes at Pebble Beach: Lloyd Mangrum (1948), Cary Middlecoff (1956), Jack Nicklaus (1967) and Fuzzy Zoeller (1986).

• With the $972,000 paycheck, Arron Oberholser cracks $1 million in career money at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am with $1,385,341. Vijay Singh moves to the top position with $2, 2,142,815. There are nine players who have earned more than $1 million at Pebble Beach: Vijay Singh ($2,142,815), Phil Mickelson ($2,079,620), Davis Love III ($2,081,836), Mike Weir ($1,636,356), Arron Oberholser ($1,385,341), Mark O'Meara ($1,206,435), Matt Gogel ($1,114,205), Tiger Woods ($1,045,991), Tom Lehman ($1,068,788).

• The eighth hole at Pebble Beach is one of the most unique par 4s on the PGA TOUR. The average tee shot this week has been 240.2 yards (because the fairway runs out) leaving the average player with approximately 190 yards for the approach shot. Driving accuracy this week on the 8th was 91.1 percent but the greens in regulation percentage was just 42.9 percent with the average second shot finishing 45 feet from the hole. If you are one of the many players to miss this small green, getting up-and-down is not an easy task with the scrambling rate this week at only 52.5 percent.

• Only five players since 1970 have earned their first TOUR victory at Pebble Beach: John Cook (1981), Steve Jones (1988), Brett Ogle (1993), Matt Gogel (2002) and Arron Oberholser (2006).

• Arron Oberholser's Pro-Am partner Michael McCallister shared the amateur title with Alan Heuer and Hunter Mahan. Five times the professional winner has also won the Pro-Am portion of the event. Fuzzy Zoeller in 1986 was the last AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am winner to also collect the Pro-Am Title. The others include Johnny Miller (1974), Johnny Potts (1968), Art Wall (1959) and Sam Snead (1937).

• Jim Furyk posted the only bogey-free round over the final 36 holes of the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Scoring average for the week on three courses:

 Course                     Round 1  Round 2   Round 3   Round 4 
 Pebble Beach Golf Links    71.133   72.300    72.817    73.567 
 Spyglass Hill              70.483   72.467    73.103 
 Poppy Hills                70.983   72.492    73.433    

• Oberholser's victory is worth 100 points in the West Coast Swing presented by Allianz and he currently has 105.0 points nine-tournament series. Chad Campbell currently leads the competition with 165 points. The winner of the competition, which will end the last week of February at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Chrysler Classic of Tucson, will receive $500,000. The runner-up earns $300,000 and the third-place finisher gets $200,000.

• The eligible players for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship will be finalized Monday morning when the updated Official World Golf Ranking is released. The top 64 eligible players in the Official World Golf Ranking will compete for the top prize of $1.35 million over five days (Feb. 22-26) of match play with David Toms serving as the defending champion. This week's champion Arron Oberholser moves into the top-64 with his victory on Sunday.