The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is a slog. Two PGA Tour pros pair up with two amateur partners and get spread around three courses on the Monterey Peninsula to play six-hour rounds.
It may come as a surprise — but it probably shouldn’t — that Phil Mickelson thrives in these conditions. The affable left-hander gets to yuck it up with celebrities and titans of industry in his home state around some of the most scenic terrain the country has to offer.
On Thursday, playing at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, Mickelson did something that he believed he had never done in a PGA Tour event: he hit every fairway on the golf course.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this morning as I was buttoning up my button-down Mizzen+Main shirt, I could sense something magical was about to happen today, and indeed, history was made,” Mickelson said in a social media post. “Not the 6-under par round — no, I’ve done that a number of times — but hitting 14 of 14 fairways, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve never done that in my career. Today, it happened… it happened. You witnessed it.
“History was made.”
Mickelson actually only hit 13 fairways — MPCC has five par-3s — but you can forgive his mistake. The other big mistake he made? This isn’t the first time he’s accomplished the feat. In 1998, Mickelson hit every fairway at Torrey Pines en route to a 1-over par round of 73.
Hitting fairways is overrated.
His 6-under par put him one shot back of first-round co-leaders Brian Gay and Scott Langley, both of whom also played MPCC.
The players will rotate between MPCC, Spyglass Hill and Pebble Beach Golf Links over the next two days in hopes of making the 54-hole cut. The final round will be played on Sunday at Pebble Beach.
