Power Rankings: PURE Insurance Championship

With six events remaining to determine the Charles Schwab Cup champion five players have now separated themselves as three time champions this season.

Steve Stricker completed the quintet last week at the Sanford International as he picked up the trophy for the fifth time on the season and second time in three events. Stricker will be helping Davis Love III and the United States team this week at the Presidents Cup in Charlotte and will not play.

The PURE Insurance Championship returns to Pebble Beach Golf Links (host) since its debut in 2004. With THREE tournaments running concurrently (more on that later) this week the tournament will take place on two courses. Spyglass Hill will make its second appearance in this event after debuting in 2021.

The field of 79 will compete for a purse of $2.2 million with the winner taking home $330k.

Just Missed: Kent Jones, Paul Stankowski, Ken Duke and Brandt Jobe.

Pebble Beach Golf Links will host the 54 hole event involving three concurrent tournaments.

The field of 79 will be paired with a junior amateur and two amateurs. Each pro and their teams will play one round at Pebble Beach and one round at Spyglass Hill.

The field will be cut after 36 holes with the top 50 professionals (plus ties), low 23 pro-junior teams and 10 low amateur teams. Everyone making the cut will play Sunday at Pebble Beach.

Got it?

The 2020 edition, won by Jim Furyk, was played entirely on Pebble Beach without JUNIOR amateurs due to the pandemic. From 2014 to 2019 Poppy Hills completed the rota.

Last year KJ Choi had to navigate Spyglass Hill to pick up his first PGA TOUR Champions victory. He posted the best round of the week, 67, at the Robert Trent Jones layout on his way to victory. Spyglass is one of the tightest driving challenges on any TOUR with just 24 acres of fairways to target. Four water penalty areas also bring in doubt and decision making. Poa annua greens are below size in average (5,000 square feet) but not nearly as tiny as the ones at Pebble Beach (3,000 square feet).

Both courses play to a stock Par 72 and won't be terribly challenging in the distance department. Pebble Beach checks in at 6,816 yards while Spyglass has just a bit more meat at 7,035. When Pro-Ams are taking place the rough will not be at championship levels. Neither will the pin placements or Stimpmeter. The only water penalty area on Pebble Beach is the Pacific Ocean.

The only player to break 200 here is the ageless Bernhard Langer as he posted 198 in 2017 for his first and only win here. The Pebble Beach course record for this event is 63 (-9) set by Langer in 2013 and equaled by Scott McCarron in 2017.

Kirk Triplett and Jeff Sluman have each won this event three times. Both players are the only two to have defended as well.

Mark O'Meara, the Prince of Pebble Beach, won the National Pro-Am five times on the PGA TOUR.

Only John Cook (1981, 2014) has won on BOTH TOURS here.

The forecast again for this event appears to be perfect. No wonder why the play it in September! The coolest tournament day is Friday with sunshine and 68. Saturday and Sunday barely climb into the 70s but the sunshine and lack of wind, less than 10 mph, follows.

Just Missed: Bernhard Langer - T21, Alex Cejka - T16, Scott Parel - T28, Tim Herron - T52, Tim Petrovic - T52 and Mario Tiziani - T38.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out through Twitter or email me mikeglasscott@gmail.com.