Pros can often be a little hesitant to admit they played a fairway wood into a par-3.
Justin Rose had no problem revealing his club selection on No. 9 at Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore Course.
“I hit a 5-wood, miraculously, to three feet right before they blew the horn,” Rose said of how he played the 223-yard hole. “Like back foot, trapped as low as I could. 4-iron wasn’t going to cut it. I didn’t like 3-wood. I heard that Harry Hall actually hit driver there on Thursday when we had that squall come through.
“Some crazy stuff. Yeah, that’s kind of links golf, right, sort of what it’s meant to be.”
Wicked winds suspend Pebble Beach Pro-Am, set up Monday finish
“The horn,” of course, was for the stoppage of play Saturday due to high winds. Play was actually stopped at Monterey Peninsula before the other two golf courses (Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill) because of unplayable conditions on that same 9th green Rose was on.
Turns out, Rose’s ball even contributed to the decision to stop play.
“As I was going to mark my ball it blew seven feet down the green,” he said after completing the third round Sunday morning. “There was [an offcial] there because they had been having trouble with that hole. As soon as he saw the ball gusting down the green— he hung with us a bit.”
The PGA Tour didn’t have a wind meter at MPCC, but 32 mph hour gusts were recorded at Pebble Beach, which is only about a mile away, but on the opposite side of the Monterey Peninsula.
Throughout the stoppage of play, tournament officials were spraying water on the 9th green at MPCC in an effort to get balls to hold their spot on the surface.
Ultimately, play was suspended for the rest of the day and instead of getting to sleep on a 3-footer to play the next morning, Rose slept on a 7-footer for birdie.
“So I kind of faced that 7-footer overnight in my mind,” he said. “Kind of one of those moments you come out in the morning, you make the putt and the momentum was up and running.”
Shortly after play resumed at 8:01 a.m. Sunday, Rose drained the putt to finish his front nine at one under for the round and seven under for the tournament. He did get the momentum boost he was looking for too as he birdied 10 as well.
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But then mother nature came back.
“Then the hail storm came,” he said. “I don’t know if you guys had it here. That was like, what is going on? Just as we were kind of got— like what more can they throw at us this week?”
The restart was plagued by rain for the first two hours, or so, even causing a 13-minute stoppage of play only at Pebble Beach because of wet course conditions.
But finally, the skies eventually cleared and Rose said it was even “pleasant” for the remainder of the round.
And if the weather was pleasant, Rose’s back nine Sunday morning was electric. He added birdies on 13 and 18 as well as an eagle on 16 to jump into the solo 54-hole lead at 12 under after a 65.
“We caught a huge break, no doubt,” he said. “The westerly please breeze playing Monterey Peninsula the last back nine is a huge advantage to that southerly breeze that the guys faced yesterday. Didn’t make it easy, obviously, but made it more playable. The putter got hot there for a while. It was fun to take advantage.”
Rose is seeking his first PGA Tour win since the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open when he was the No. 1 player in the world.
He’ll tee off for the start of the final round Sunday at 2:32 p.m. PST in the final grouping. The round is expected to be completed on Monday morning.