U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach is small golf step toward equality
Pebble Beach is one of only a handful of golf courses in the world that most golfers would love to play. That’s true of amateur golfers and professional golfers as well.
The list of players who have won a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach is truly staggering, from Jack Nicklaus to Tom Watson to Tom Kite to Tiger Woods, who produced perhaps the most remarkable win of his career with a 15-shot victory in the 2000 U.S. Open.
But no woman has ever won a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach because the fabled course has never hosted the Women’s Open.
Until this week, that is.
More: What if PGA Tour/PIF deal to restructure pro golf is blocked by the government
For all the strong golf courses that have been added to women’s golf majors in the last few years in an effort to give women the same showcases as men golfers, nothing has quite measured up to Pebble Beach hosting the U.S. Women’s Open this week. Okay, Augusta National hosts the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, but that’s for amateur players, not the pros.
Yes, the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship was just held on the Lower Course at Baltusrol, where Phil Mickelson and Jimmy Walker won their PGA Championships. And courses like Pinehurst No. 2 and Oakmont have hosted women’s Opens as well as men’s Opens.
But Pebble Beach is different, both in spirit and in competitiveness. Sometimes called Augusta for the rest of us, Pebble Beach is one of those few courses where golfers already know the holes practically by heart. That wasn’t true at the North Course at Los Angeles Country Club, which just hosted the men’s Open last month, or at Baltusrol for the recent women’s major there.
Well-known major courses are important
It was true for the LPGA major championship played at Mission Hills Country Club for 51 years, with golfers and viewers knowing the island green on the 18th hole, the tricky green on the par-3 17th and the serpentine fairway on the par-4 sixth hole. But the LPGA left that course after 2022 and lost some recognition of a major championship course with the move to Houston.
That’s not a problem at Pebble Beach, where everyone knows the demanding uphill shot to the green on the par-5 sixth, the short and majestic par-3 seventh, the cavernous cliffs and ocean on the second shot of the eighth hole, the ninth and 10th holes running along the beach, and of course the closing holes at 17 and 18 that are as well known as any holes in the country.
Why this is important is a Pebble Beach Open is a step toward equality for women’s golf. The United States Golf Association, the PGA of America and the R and A have worked hard to take the women’s major championships they conduct to the same courses that men play. No, the courses don’t set up the same in yardage or perhaps even the conditions of the golf courses. But they are the same courses. So the winner of the Women’s Open this week will be able to say she won an Open on the same course as Woods and Nicklaus.
The R and A has perhaps done a better job of this that anyone, hosting the AEG Women’s Open at courses like Royal Liverpool, St. Andrews, Royal Troon and Carnoustie, among others, in the last decade. The USGA hosted a Women’s Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco just two years ago.
Those three governing organizations have the ability to do what the LPGA alone can’t do, and that’s put the women on the same course as men for the game’s most important events. Yes, women have played Pebble Beach before in the old invitational that featured men and women more than a decade ago.
But this is the U.S. Women’s Open, a national championship on a course that the USGA thinks so highly of it returns time and time again for the men’s Open, sometimes twice inside of 10 years. Pebble Beach will host four men’s Opens in the next 21 years.
It would be nice if the women professional golfers could get the same kind of return engagements at Pebble Beach, Olympic Club and other traditional Open courses.
Larry Bohannan is the golf writer for The Desert Sun. You can contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Follow him on Facebook or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Sun.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: U.S. Women's Open at Pebble Beach is small golf step toward equality
