Design Disasters: The New Fifth Hole at Pebble Beach

I know, I know. We’ve been tough on Pebble lately. We gave it a one-Egg rating (which, I remind you, is quite high in our system!), and I’m about to take a dump on the fifth hole. So let me be clear: I love this place.

For five years I lived a mile from the first tee. I have many fond memories of family walks along Stillwater Cove and Carmel Beach. I played the course twice, and I count Nos. 6, 10, and 18 among my favorite holes on earth. Pebble Beach Golf Links is amazing, one of a kind. I look forward to seeing it this week on TV.

Have I been effusive enough?

Okay, the Jack Nicklaus-designed fifth hole at Pebble Beach is a dud. Let’s dig in.

The backstory

Initially Samuel F.B. Morse planned to devote his Pebble Beach property to real estate. When he decided to turn it into a golf course, he had to buy back a number of lots. One owner wouldn’t budge. So when Douglas Grant and Jack Neville routed the course, they had to work around a particular stretch along Stillwater Cove. That’s why their fifth hole veered inland from the fourth green.

The property that the new fifth hole at Pebble Beach occupies, as it appeared in the 1920s. I wouldn't have sold it, either. Photo: Julian P. Graham

Uphill and mostly blind, the par 3 traveled through a tunnel of trees to a green with a nasty back-to-front tilt. It was never a well-regarded hole.

The old par-3 fifth hole at Pebble Beach

So when Charles Schwab purchased the holdout’s property in 1995 and offered to sell the coastal portion of it, the Pebble Beach Company jumped at the chance. Jack Nicklaus designed the new hole, a seaside par 3 that measured 195 yards. It made its tournament debut at the 1999 Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Aside from some gripes about its toughness, the reviews were glowing.

“I was really impressed,” said Phil Mickelson. “I thought it looked like it had been there since the course was created back in the early 1900s. It’s just an amazing hole.”

Phil, I respectfully disagree.

Problem no. 1—a lack of options

The magic of the ocean holes at Pebble Beach isn’t just that they’re on the cliffs. It’s that they use the cliffs for strategic purposes. The 10th hole, for instance, tempts you to place your tee shot as close to the bluffs as possible in order to gain a less scary angle into the green. If you bail out to the left, the precipice along the right side of the green becomes more of an issue on your second shot.

Pebble’s best holes provide options and use magnificent natural hazards to lend stakes and consequences to each decision you make.

The 10th hole at Pebble Beach

On Jack Nicklaus’s No. 5, the coastline plays no such role. It’s simply scenery. (Excellent scenery, to be fair.) And there’s just one valid way to play the hole.

The green sits at a left-to-right angle. After a false front, the putting surface runs away from the player and to the right. There are bunkers front right, back right, and back left. The left side of the hole, up to the back portion of the green, is more or less open. Long left is dead, but short to mid-green left is all right.

The new fifth hole at Pebble Beach

So imagine standing on the 195 tee and choosing a line. Do you have any reason not to aim short and left of the pin and, if you’re able, work your ball a little left to right? If you miss non-drastically short and left, you’ll have a quick but not super difficult chip. If you hit your window and carry the false front, the slope of the green will filter your ball toward the hole.

Near perfection from @ATTProAm defending champ @HogeGolf 🤌 pic.twitter.com/lBKyWOoRB7

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 2, 2023

Nobody is going directly at a pin on the right half of this green from 195 yards. Come up short and you’re short-sided in the front bunker. Go long and you’re in the rough or back bunkers. Miss right and you’re on the beach—and that, by the way, is the cliffs’ only contribution to this hole. They make an already inadvisable play less advisable.

This is a single-option par 3, and not nearly as exciting as the one you’ll play in about 20 minutes.

If you were to flip the orientation of the green—from a left-to-right diagonal to a right-to-left diagonal—you’d instantly have a more compelling hole. Now the bail-out fairway would be close to the bluffs, so aiming at it would come with some risk. The artist’s play would be a sweeping right-to-left shot over Stillwater Cove. How fun does that sound? And yes, you could hedge away from the ocean, but the green would be guarded by bunkers and its own slope over there.

This concept is a more Pebble Beach-ian, I think. There are options, but they all feel risky in their own ways.

If you want a par 3 that rewards a right-hander’s draw, though, you don’t hire an architect with a well-known affinity for green complexes that fit a right-hander’s fade.

I suspect that Jack Nicklaus also likes holes that allow him to start his ball away from a hazard. “Don’t ever aim the ball at trouble,” he said to Nick Faldo during a fascinating segment of last year’s Memorial telecast. “Don’t ever aim the ball out of bounds. Don’t ever aim the ball at a lake. You always aim away from it. And if you have to play back towards it, make sure that you can’t hook it enough to get there or make sure you can’t fade it enough to get to it.”

This mindset suits No. 5 at Pebble Beach to a T. Aim left, away from trouble, and let your ball fall back toward the heart of the green.

So Nicklaus created a par 3 that matches his preferred shot shape and shot-shaping strategy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take advantage of its natural setting.

Problem no. 2—routing

The old fifth hole at Pebble Beach may have been unexceptional, but it had one major virtue: it connected the fourth green to the sixth tee.

Here’s why that was important. The fourth hole is a relatively quiet introduction to Pebble’s seaside stretch. The bluffs above Stillwater Cover are serene and beautiful but, compared to the stunning landforms of Nos. 6-10, small potatoes. From the fourth green, you can see some of what’s coming but not all of it. The original routing gave you that glimpse then turned you inland and took you up a hill, through a tunnel of trees. After you finished the par 3, you rounded a corner and boom—one of the most thrilling views in golf.

The sixth hole at Pebble Beach, circa 1929. Photo: Julian P. Graham

So although Grant and Neville’s fifth hole may have been mediocre, it set up an extraordinary reveal.

That moment is missing from today’s course. When you step off the current fifth green, the sixth fairway is right there. Look to the right and you can see the massive crag you’re about to play over. But then you have to turn around and walk away from it! You need to trudge 150 to 200 yards uphill to get to the sixth tee. It’s annoying. It makes no emotional sense. If the golf course weren’t there, you’d never traverse the property in this way.

The fourth hole at Pebble Beach, with the fifth top right. The corridor of the old No. 5 is visible top middle.

So what used to be a satisfying sequence of anticipation and payoff—contraction followed by expansion—is now a bit of a muddle.

* * *

When the Pebble Beach Company and Jack Nicklaus moved No. 5 to the cliffs, they probably assumed that the improvement would be automatic. The more ocean frontage, the better, right?

The thing is, Pebble Beach isn’t great because it has a lot of holes on the coast. It’s great because those holes use the land in ingenious ways, engage the player in strategic decision-making, and work together to form a coherent, exciting journey.

The new fifth falls short on all counts. It’s a design disaster.