While Pebble Beach is a bucket list course – even for professionals – Spyglass Hill has a reputation.

Nick Taylor is more charitable than many when he speaks of Spyglass Hill Golf Course.

“It’s a clever design, the doglegs are subtle,” says the 2020 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am champion. He speaks of the 1st hole, which forces golfers to target an unseen patch of fairway from the tee and then taunts them with a slope down to the green. “There are just a lot of subtleties you don’t see a lot these days.”

While new technology – clubs with greater striking power and precision, balls that fly further – have clipped the talons of many seminal courses, Spyglass Hill remains a threat. True, the course can appear playful. Many of its holes bear names drawn from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, such as Billy Bones or Black Dog (the author wrote about roaming the area’s woods and dunes). It is also visually compelling, opening to the Pacific Ocean and winding through the Del Monte Forest.

But the subtleties have given Spyglass a reputation, one summed up by ScHoolboy Q on a blustery day in 2023 – the last Pro-Am involving celebrities before the format changed to attract the top tour professionals. As he took stock of the situation, the rap star shook his head ruefully. “Pray for me, bro,” he said.

BY THE NUMBERS, SPYGLASS HILL is on terms with any other championship course. Average scores from amateur tournaments played there suggest that it dings golfers by just a single stroke compared to Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Statistics compiled by Data Golf specifically from PGA Tour events since 2015 paint Spyglass as comparatively meek. Tour pros recorded an average score to par of -1.27 to Pebble’s -0.66. Both look mild against the windswept Torrey Pines South course outside of San Diego (+2.57) or England’s fearsome Royal Troon (+3.01).

How that can look in reality is quite different. For example, after Friday rounds wrapped up during the 2024 edition of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Mathieu Pavon was the only golfer who tested Spyglass to land in the top five on the leaderboard – and he was clinging to a tie for fifth.

“They’re entirely different golf courses,” explains John Sawin, senior vice president of golf for the Pebble Beach Company. The famed links course hugs the coast, making it more exposed to the whims of weather, but it also offers golfers some respite. Spyglass features almost relentless elevation changes.

Information from Data Golf also reveals some of the demands placed on the professionals. For instance, golfers achieved an impressive drive accuracy rate of 68.8 percent on the golf links. Only 56.1 percent of shots off the tee found their mark at Spyglass – a figure closer to Royal Troon’s 55 percent.

“Pebble Beach is a U.S. Open golf course – it’s not an easy course,” Sawin continues. “Spyglass Hill is just a little less forgiving. At Spyglass you need to be more precise.”

“I would say it’s probably tighter off the tee,” Taylor says in agreement. He points out that even a tee shot that finds the fairway does not let golfers off the hook.

After firing a respectable 4-under 68 at the course a year ago, Maverick McNealy summed up his round as a series of almosts, as in “Almost made birdie on 11,” “almost holed the approach shot on 13,” “almost birdied 16… ”

The course can be confounding, even under good conditions. Last year Russell Henley scorched Spyglass to take the opening round lead and eventual 2025 Pro-Am winner Rory McIlroy notched a hole-in-one on the par-3 15th. On Friday’s round, Tony Finau gained 6 strokes in his first 10 holes.

On the other hand, when the course played host to the U.S. Amateur championship in 1999, the overall scoring average was almost 8 over par. No golfer broke 70 on the par 72 track.

Benign data conceals what is essentially a deceptive course. Although just over 100 yards longer than Pebble Beach, the elevation changes force players to think and rethink. The 2nd hole, for example, tends to play one club longer than its actual distance. The slope on number 6 turns routine 9-iron approach shots into 7-iron doozies.

According to Sawin, statistics insist that the 8th is Spyglass’s most difficult challenge. It’s a climb up to a green that is crowned. Wags insist it’s the world’s longest hole of less than 400 yards.

“But the holes along the coast – 3-4-5, right out of the gate – set the tone for the round. They are very small targets, but they are critical for building momentum for the round.”

The genius of Spyglass is in its design. Like a siren, it tempts golfers into mistakes. The par-5 7th hole is reachable in two strokes. But a pond loops from the front of the green around the left. And the green drops toward the hazard.

“I’ve gone for the 7th hole a couple of times,” Taylor says. “It’s an enticing one to go for. It’s bitten me before. I’ve made eagle there, but I’ve hit it in the water.”

FAMED DESIGNER ROBERT TRENT JONES SR. laid out the course in 1966. He set it up at the behest of the Northern California Golf Association as a destination for championship play. And from the start, people recognized its qualities.

When the noted Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray covered the Pro-Am a year later, he left a vivid description of Spyglass. “It’s a 300-acre unplayable lie,” he wrote. “If it were human, Spyglass would have a knife in its teeth, a patch on its eye, a ring in its ear, tobacco in its beard and a blunderbuss in its hand” – and this even while professing to admire the place.

However, Sawin cautions that “harder doesn’t necessarily make a course better.” Over the decades, Pebble Beach Company has made a few amendments to the design that soften the blow, especially for resort guests who descend on the area the rest of the year.

“There were some bunkers that were hard to get your body out of, let alone the ball,” he adds.

The 15th hole is the shortest trek on the course and likely its friendliest, although playing the 17th is straightforward for those not afraid of blind landing areas. But even when Spyglass relaxes, it keeps a wary eye open. The 15th green is defended by bunkers and a pond. Lay up its front fringe and expect a splash. Veer to the left and the ball will roll away from the pin.

Even as the course releases golfers on 18, it does so with a sneer. The tee box aims directly at a fairway bunker while the green rides a difficult ridge.

“It was built to be a championship golf course,” Sawin says. Indeed, when it opened 60 years ago, Sports Illustrated characterized Spyglass’ design as one meant to “bring Arnold Palmer to his knees.”

Sawin just smiles at the hyperbole. The place offers challenges and forces golfers into decisions with consequences. He points out, however, that there would be no value in a layout that sends resort guests home vowing never to set themselves up for such humiliation again.

In other words, it is just a good, solid test for golfers.

IN THE PRO-AM’S PGA TOUR signature event format, amateurs and professionals team up for the first two rounds, played at both Pebble Beach and Spyglass. On Saturday and Sunday, amateurs drop from the field and the pros take on Pebble Beach, leaving Spyglass and its reputation behind.

That reputation has been around from opening day. It is said that Bing Crosby himself, the famed crooner and founder of the Pro-Am, was so impressed by the course when it opened in 1966 that he threw down a gauntlet. Jack Nicklaus, he said, would not break par – going so far as to bet Nicklaus on the matter.

Already becoming a golf legend, Nicklaus accepted, recording a 70 on his first round, 2 under par. He framed the $5 bill Crosby handed over. 🏌