Pebble Beach’s iconic seventh hole has been the site of some crazy things through the years, from Justin Timberlake just missing a hole-in-one to Dwyane Wade making his first ace to Wayne Gretzky holing a bunker shot during the old Golf Digest Challenge. And those are just the celebrities.
Golf fans are well aware of how much weather can be a factor at the storied venue, and we saw some random golfer hit one to gimme range on the downhill, 97-metre, par 3 a couple of years ago using a driver. But seeing a PGA Tour star pull off something similar ahead of this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was even more stunning. Especially when you see how hard he hit the shot.
Weather.com had a wind warning in effect with gusts up to 55 miles per hour during the final practice round for this PGA Tour signature event, and, boy, that was not an exaggeration. Check out this video of Tony Finau taking the big dog out on the smallest hole on tour – and barely hitting it off the back:
It’s pure carnage at Pebble Beach and the Golf Twitter feeds are clogged with private equity valuations.
So here’s a palate cleanser: Tony Finau casually hitting driver on No. 7 (thank you Boyd Summerhays for this gem). pic.twitter.com/snZGXxBqrr
— Gabby Herzig (@GabbyHerzig) January 31, 2024
Again, this is a downhill hole that’s not even 100 metres. And Finau barely put it off the back with a shot that his TrackMan registered as having 172mph ball speed and carrying 234 metres. Now obviously, Finau is capable of hitting a golf ball much further than that, but that still means the wind took off some 135 metres!
In calm conditions, Finau hits lob wedge there, but on Wednesday (US time) he hit driver. In other words, that means he was playing in a 12-club wind!
Not surprisingly, Finau wasn’t the only person videoed under the difficult conditions on Wednesday. Here’s Justin Thomas needing 4-iron from 164 yards on 17:
The good news for the players is that despite rain being in the forecast, the next three days are supposed to be calmer in regards to wind. And this year’s pro-am portion wraps up on Friday so there won’t be celebs getting in the way on the weekend.
The bad news? Sunday looks like it might be even worse than Wednesday. Godspeed to all the players – and caddies – this weekend.
