Pebble’s Seventh Hole — Here’s A Blast From The Past

It’s one of the most famous holes in American golf.

It’s also one of the shortest, perhaps the shortest on the PGA Tour.

The seventh hole at Pebble Beach sits on a point, overlooking Monterrey Bay.  It’s only about 100 yards long, can probably play as far back as 115, as short as 90 yards or less.

It’s still devilish.  If the wind comes roaring in your face, it can be a six-iron.  For most it’s a sand wedge,  perhaps a lob wedge.

You may have seen Geoff Shackelford on The Golf Channel.  He’s a journalist but also happens to be a golf course design geek.  He’s a student of architecture and famous architects.  He really gets excited by that stuff.

Shackelford recently dug out an old photo of the seventh at Pebble, taken back in 1929.  It’s been enhanced with color and is shown above.

It was a more rugged, natural design.

There’s a big return to that in a number of new courses — Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore are big proponents.  They restored Pinehurst No. 2 to the way it was originally designed by Donald Ross.  They resurrected the sand areas, an easy task in an area called The Sand Hills of North Carolina.

With this old picture of the seventh at Pebble, there’s more than a whisper that it should go back to how it looked in 1929.

Sometimes older does look cooler.