Pebble Beach has spectacular closing holes

If all the changes made to Pebble Beach in the 81 years since it first opened for play, none was more drastic than W. Herbert Fowler extending the most famous closing hole in golf by 170 yards and making it a par 5.

Perhaps it's time to change back.

For sheer beauty, the 535-yard 18th hole at Pebble Beach is unmatched.

From start to finish, the hole runs along the rugged coast of Carmel Bay, waves either gently lapping at the shore or pounding the rocks hard enough to spray salt water across the fairway.

For degree of difficulty, it can leave a lot to be desired.

"You can hit 3-iron, 5-iron, 9-iron. How hard is that?" Paul Azinger said. "It's not that hard of a hole -- as long as you're two shots ahead."

Players must decide how much of the Pacific Ocean -- if any -- they want to carry off the tee to a fairway that bends slightly to the left and is marked by two trees in the middle.

Every now and then, the trees can be a problem.

"I remember Payne Stewart hitting an iron at the Crosby. I think it's a 2-iron," Tom Watson recalled. "And I said, 'That's the wrong club.' And he knocks it right up the base of the tree. Very unlucky."

The second shot -- and this is the problem with the par 5 as a finishing hole -- is almost always a layup.

Tiger Woods reached the green in two during the 1997 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, but only because he was able to place the ball in the first cut of rough and had a slightly southerly breeze behind him.

"Can I reach it? Yeah," Woods said today, two days before the start of the 100th U.S. Open. "I almost went for it yesterday, but I was underneath the second little tree. If you have the right wind, you can get there. The north wind, you have no chance."

With conditions hard and fast in June, there might be a few players who are willing to give it a try, but not many. And that eliminates the risk-reward that accompanies most par-5 holes.

The layup is no bargain.

A bunker runs down the left side of the hole for the final 180 yards, and a tree that looms right of the green puts a greater premium on position.

"You have to be very conscious of where you hit it," David Duval said.

Still, most of the time the third shot is a wedge or a short iron to one of the larger green on Pebble Beach. The most demanding closing holes in championship golf should demand much more than that.

For unforgettable holes, look no farther than the 18th green at Pebble Beach.

"It's spectacular," Watson said. "The beauty of this place is not surpassed by hardly any other place in the world."

Looking for drama? Go back another hole, to the par-3 17th, where Jack Nicklaus hit the flag with his 1-iron to clinch the 1972 U.S. Open, and where Watson chipped in for birdie 10 years later to deny Nicklaus an unprecedented fifth U.S. Open title.

Unforgettable finishes are rare on the 18th at Pebble Beach in a major championship.

Nicklaus made a bogey on the 18th in 1972, but he had a four-stroke lead and three-putted from 20 feet. Watson made birdie, but his '82 Open victory was essentially in the bag as soon as he hit the 18th green -- 3-wood off the tee, 7-iron layup, 9-iron to 15 feet.

Ditto for Tom Kite, who took a two-stroke lead into the closing hole in 1992, hit the 18th green with a wedge and two-putted for par.

Riveting stuff.

Why not return the 18th to a par 4? The USGA already converted the par-5 second hole to a 484-yard par 4, although that was predicated by the loss of a tree down the left side that altered the nature of the hole.

There is more history behind making the 18th a par-4.

According to "Pebble Beach Golf Links: The Official History," the 18th was originally a 325-yard hole that drew sharp criticism from the California Golf Association following the 1920 state amateur as a "woefully poor finishing hole."

Arthur Rose Vincent, a wealthy amateur, determined that enough fill could be laid over the rocks behind the 17th tee to build a new tee, which added 35 yards to the hole.

That still didn't completely satisfy the CGA, so Pebble Beach chairman Samuel Morse invited Fowler in 1921 to devise a solution. Fowler moved enough dirt to push the green back 170 yards. The 18th hole became a par 5 by the summer of '22.

And that's where it remains today -- the final stop on the most spectacular finishing hole in golf, even if it remains the most anticlimactic.

Perhaps that will change this year. Then, the most famous finishing hole in golf might be remembered in U.S. Open history for more than the breathtaking view it provides.