1 overdue test looms over a loaded Pebble Beach Sunday

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The vision the PGA Tour has sought for three years finally arrived at the 7th tee box at Pebble Beach shortly before noon on Saturday.

And it looked dreadful.

The leaders arrived at the tee box as endless sheets of white rainfall and deafening wind pelted the coast, their bodies angled against the gusts like pilings against the tide. After a week in the low-50s, the temperature out on the point had dipped into the 30s, prompting CBS on-course reporter Dottie Pepper to wonder if last week’s international ski competition was warmer. The few fans who bothered to stick around on the 7th until Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and Rasmus Hojgaard arrived were no longer diehards, they were fools. And if they stayed out in the cold any longer, they’d be lucky if stupidity was their only affliction.

Why has the PGA Tour spent the last three years chasing this? In warm living rooms and on comfortable couches throughout the United States, the rest of the golf world knew the answer.

For the first time in three years, the PGA Tour’s Signature (nee Designated, Elevated) Events had delivered a bonafide blockbuster. Eighty of the PGA Tour’s best players filled a field at one of the world’s greatest golf courses, and through 45ish holes, the cream of the crop had sifted to the top of the leaderboard.

Now, on the 7th tee box, three of the contenders were about to hit their tee shots on one of the most famous golf holes in the world. The pipsqueak par-3 seventh was playing extra short on Saturday, less than 100 yards, but the conditions turned a flipped wedge into a buzzsaw. McIlroy went first, blasting his tee shot long and left of the green, nearly carrying his ball all the way to the 8th tee box. Then came Morikawa, who dumped his approach short and right into a bunker. Finally, Hojgaard played Goldilocks, finding the putting surface and leaving a testy two-putt to save par. Back near the 18th green, the CBS broadcast took in the scene with glee, and for what felt like the first time in 2025, the fans at home responded in kind.

Last year, Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley invoked the Mona Lisa while describing his club’s most famous par-3, the 12th. This brutish, rain-drenched moment on Saturday at the 7th? That was a masterpiece unto itself. Jay Monahan must have been dreaming of Jackson Pollock.

When Monahan’s Tour envisaged the Signature Events series that now occupies eight weeks of the pro golf season, they imagined a scene like Saturday: with the best players in the world under one roof, at a legendary golf course, contending before a national television audience. The good vibes were only helped by a zippy telecast — which, aided by players going out in threes off the front and back nines, finished 17 minutes early.

To date, the Signature Events have largely failed to capture this spirit, hampered by some combination of lackluster leaderboard, subpar venue or untenable weather. But on Saturday, at least, McIlroy was among the golfers feeling the familiar tingle of a weekend in contention at a tournament that matters.

“Yeah, look, I think really good venues are a big part of the storyline,” he said. “When we go to major championships, especially a U.S. Open and an Open Championship, I always feel like the golf course is a big part of the storyline heading into Thursday. Sometimes on the PGA Tour that isn’t the case, because whether you play a run of the mill TPC or whatever it is, it just isn’t that interesting.”

“If everything’s on the table for whatever this new look PGA Tour’s going to be,” McIlroy said. “I think venues are going to be a big part of it.”

McIlroy was far from the only player to arrive in Pebble this week with change on the mind. He, Jordan Spieth and Scottie Scheffler were just some of the stars who spoke openly about the need for the Tour to keep modernizing in order to deliver a more compelling entertainment “product.” That edict dovetailed with a PGA Tour announcement of several changes to broadcasts and pace of play initiatives to boost fan interest. Interestingly, all three players intimated that the Tour was closer to salvation than the latest flurry of changes suggested. The biggest key, they all agreed, was compelling competition.

“The reason why I always watched sports is to see the competition,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “When I think about something that would be good for the game of golf, I think the more we can get back in the competition of things, I think that’s what’s best.”

On Saturday at Pebble Beach, at least, the golf world has gotten exactly that. Scheffler is one of a half-dozen bonafide stars who enters Sunday’s final round in striking distance of the 54-hole leader, Sepp Straka. McIlroy is the closest of the bunch, entering Sunday one shot off the lead and paired in the final grouping with Ryder Cup buddy Shane Lowry.

The stage is set for the most memorable Sunday afternoon in Signature Event history, broadcast live to the world in primetime, with no football competition. This is the moment the golf world has been waiting for — the celestial alignment that has proved so elusive for the PGA Tour.

The golf world got the story it wanted. Now only one critical question remains.

Will they watch the ending?