Padraig Harrington with caddie Ronan Flood in 2010
The scene of Graeme McDowell's historic win at the US Open last year in California is the location for the latest PGA Tour event as Pebble Beach hosts the AT&T National Pro Am early in the week with the event proper starting on Thursday.
Padraig Harrington is the sole Irish entry and teed off in the Pro Am with JP McManus on Monday. Hollywood actors Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia and Kurt Russell amongst the many celebrities also taking part.
Actor, Bill Murray, has become synonymous with the event and also plays this week.
Sergio Garcia joins the action after an encouraging 9th place finish at the Commercialbank Qatar Masters last week with opening rounds of 73 and finishing with a 69 -68.
This week the players are three different courses the first three days before all remaining players finish at Pebble Beach on Sunday. Spyglass Hill, Pebble’s equally breathtaking neighbour, is a Robert Trent Jones design that plays at just over 6,800 yards. The third course, Monterey Peninsula Shore, is a par 70 that plays at about the same yardage as the other two courses but features 5 par 3s and just 3 par 5s.
The winner this week will find a way to navigate three very different layouts over the course of four days.
Wind can always be a factor at all three of these places but it doesn’t take too much searching to find guys in the field who have played well consistently in this tournament in the past and at Pebble Beach in general in their careers.
Course conditions at Pebble Beach will not be as wicked as they were for the U.S. Open in June, when McDowell won at even-par as the fairways have been widened since then, though those along the ocean holes - holes 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 18 - are closer to the water than they have been for past AT&Ts.
The idea is to make the ocean a genuine hazard.
"It's not shaved as tight as it was for the Open, but the fairways are pushed toward the water," Pebble superintendent Chris Dalhamer said.
The forecast calls for sunny skies through Saturday, with temperatures in the low 60s, and a slight chance of rain for Sunday's final round.
International Players
Argentina - Andres Romero, Fabian Gomez
Australia - Steven Bowditch, Marc Leishman, Aron Price, Aaron Baddeley, Jarrod Lyle, Matt Jones, Geoff Ogilvy, Nathan Green, Stuart Appleby, Nick O'Hern, Steve Elkington
Brazil - Alexandre Rocha
Canada - Chris Baryla, Matt McQuillan, David Hearn, Mike Weir, Matt Hill
England - Brian Davis
Fiji - Vijay Singh
Germany - Alex Cejka
India - Arjun Atwal
Ireland - Padraig Harrington
Korea - Charlie Wi, K.J. Choi
South Africa - Trevor Immelman, Garth Mulroy, Rory Sabbatini, Tim Clark, Bio Kim, Sunghoon Kang
Spain - Sergio Garcia
Sweden - Richard S. Johnson, Jesper Parnevik
Zimbabwe - Brendon de Jonge
