Sunny Forecast for Pebble Beach Makes His Day

Introducing the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, and a word you don’t hear around here too much: sunshine.

Clint Eastwood, chairman of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, says he has another job this week.

“I’m in charge of good weather,” Eastwood said. “And we’re going to have good weather this week.”

Why did that almost sound like a threat?

Anyway, four days of golf without one moment of sideways rain and flagstick-bending wind isn’t what most people are used to, but that might be what’s on tap.

“This is different,” said Matt Gogel, who won by three shots last year.

There isn’t supposed to be any rain for the tournament that starts today at Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills ... no water-filled bunkers, no lakes on greens, no soggy fairways, no mud-caked shoes.

As a result, Paul Azinger figures he’s only going to have to put about half the stuff he usually does in his bag -- minus the dozen towels, the foul-weather gear, the umbrella and the snorkel that are always packed for Pebble weather.

Even if they’re wrong and you do see rain this week, there’s something you definitely won’t see: Tiger Woods.

Woods, who had played here every year since he turned pro in 1996, still is recovering from the knee surgery that he had in December. Chances are he’ll be back next week at Torrey Pines, but he has until Friday to commit to that tournament.

So time is running out for the other players to take advantage of Tiger’s absence. There is an alternate view, however. In fact, Vijay Singh actually went so far as to suggest that time is running out on Tiger.

“Tiger has had a great run and everything comes to some sort of stop sooner or later, you know,” said Singh, who won two weeks ago at Phoenix.

“The guys are catching up. I mean, I’m hitting the ball much longer now than I did four years ago. Tiger was hitting the longest when he came out on tour, so I’m catching up.

“Ernie [Els] is no slouch with the driver, either. So I think it all depends on how determined a player really is. We can’t just sit back and just let everybody kind of run over you, you know.”

Meanwhile, there is the “good weather” issue, which doesn’t happen much at this place. You have to forgive the players if they are a little shocked at having to wear sunglasses on the golf course.

Normally, rain dominates the proceedings. In 1996, the tournament was washed out completely, canceled after 18 holes because it wouldn’t stop raining. Two holes at Spyglass were under water. It was the first time a PGA Tour event could not be completed since the 1949 Colonial.

In 1998, the last round of the AT&T; was played Aug. 17, six months and 20 days after the tournament began. Only 36 holes were played by Sunday and with more rain in the forecast, the decision was made to make it a 54-hole event and play the last round the Monday after the PGA Championship at Sahalee.

After a practice round at Pebble Beach, Singh was amazed at the dry course.

“It’s a totally different golf course,” he said. “It was playing so much shorter. I didn’t really need any long irons for any hole, but [also] the greens are so firm that you really don’t know how the ball is going to bounce.”

Pebble Beach is in such a different condition than normal -- call it dry -- that the greens might be the only defense the course can offer.

“The fairways, if they had U.S. Open fairways, they would have been narrower so they would have been the defense, but now the fairways are pretty wide and pretty much no rough at all,” Singh said. “So if the guys can handle the greens, you can shoot a low number.”