Pebble Beach Court

Pebble Beach Court is another of the golf-themed street names in the Links subdivision of Bell Block. 

Pebble Beach Golf Links is a public course on California’s Monterey Peninsula and has long been considered one of the best and most spectacular in the world. It was designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant and opened on 22 February 1919. 

The course is one of three that hosts the annual AT & T Pro-Am, a tournament on the PGA tour with two rounds played at Pebble Beach (always the last round) and two at other courses. 

As might be expected of such a prestigious club it has hosted the US Open six times, the first in 1972. One of the most extraordinary wins was that of Tiger Woods in 2000. In a remarkable display he finished 15 shots ahead of the next best in the field. This remains a record margin in any of golf’s four majors. 

Another golfer who, like Tiger Woods, has been credited with changing the golf landscape is Arnold Palmer. Palmer (1929-2016) had a charismatic personality with a golf game to match and did much to popularise the sport in the 1960s. 

Palmer too had a close link with Pebble Beach Golf Club, serving for nearly 20 years on the board of directors of the company that purchased the course in 1999. He also worked alongside course designers in making key changes to the course ahead of the 2010 US Open. 

Palmer never won a tournament at Pebble Beach, but he did win the Masters four times. Curiously, the putter he used when he won the Masters for the fourth time made its way to New Plymouth Golf Club next to the Links. 

The story goes that club member Mike Brooke rang Palmer asking for memorabilia to promote junior golf. Instead of the expected glove or cap, an autographed putter turned up. 

After nearly forty years being used as a junior golf team trophy, the putter was put up for sale in 2017 at Christie’s auction house in London. Despite being described as “a bit of a grotty old putter” by Brooke, Palmer’s gift fetched NZ$140,000 for the club.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.