PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Justin Rose, a U.S. Open champion and the No. 7 player in the world, shot a 6-under 66 in his first time playing Spyglass Hill and spent a gorgeous day listening to the fans call out his name. Except they weren’t calling for him, and he knew it.
His partner in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is Justin Timberlake.
“I’ve never seen a demographic like that on a golf course where you’re sort of running the gauntlet from one tee to the other. Everyone was under 21 and 80 percent female,” Rose said. “I said, ‘OK, that moved the needle a little bit there.”‘
Rose did OK himself Thursday.
He got off to a strong start in his debut at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where Chez Reavie had the low score at a tournament that needs three days to sort out because of the variety of courses.
Reavie made an eagle on the 16th hole and shot 8-under 63 at Monterey Peninsula, which played just more than 11/2 strokes under par and was the easiest of the three courses. Freddie Jacobson made five birdies in a six-hole stretch and shot 7-under 65 at Pebble Beach, the only course to play over par (72.06) on Thursday.
Cameron Smith of Australia and Bronson Burgoon each had a 7-under 64 at Monterey Peninsula.
Rose is among six players from the top 10 in the world, and the only one of them to break 70. He is playing the Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the first time partly because he chose not to play in the Middle East swing on the European Tour, and partly because of a partner (Timberlake) that he has come to know over the years.
Both did well at their crafts.
Rose strung together seven birdies, holing out from the bunker on No. 10 and ending his round with a 50-foot birdie putt that banged into the back of the cup. He played Pebble Beach and Monterey Peninsula for his practice rounds and realized he should have been at Spyglass “because it’s a pretty tough course.”
“There’s some strong holes on it,” Rose said. “And I heard some strange reports about Spyglass, like the first few holes are great, then it disappears into the hills and it’s not that good. That’s not what I saw. That’s a pretty stellar golf course to me and really enjoyed playing it.”
Timberlake played too – the guitar.
He didn’t contribute any shots to their pro-am score, but Rose said the highlight was on the 16th tee when Timberlake grabbed a guitar for an impromptu performance, with Alfonso Ribeiro chipping in.
“That was a cool moment,” Rose said. “Not many people saw it, because there was only like 20 people back there. That’s obviously when you really appreciate how someone can grab a guitar, go a cappella and sound so awesome. You have a better appreciation. You see him hit not maybe so many great golf shots, but then you realize, ‘Ah, that’s pretty damn special right there.’ So we all have our own skill set.”
Reavie enjoyed the pure weather almost as much as he enjoyed watching putts go in. Golf has been a grind for Reavie since he missed nearly all of 2014 because of surgery on his left wrist and had to return to the Web.com Tour Finals last year just to get his PGA Tour card back.
“Even on days I putt well, I still don’t make as many putts as I made today,” Reavie said.
Some of the biggest stars had to settle for enjoying the weather.
Jordan Spieth, the No. 1 player in the world, chipped poorly by his standards and three times failed to get up-and-down for birdies on the par 5s at Spyglass Hill. He opened with a 71, along with PGA champion Jason Day. Dustin Johnson had a 70 at Spyglass, while Bubba Watson had a 73. Patrick Reed had a 72.
EUROPEAN TOUR: Justin Harding fired a 7-under 63 to take a one-shot lead after the first round of the Tshwane Open in South Africa.
Harding’s round featured eight birdies and a single bogey as only 22 players managed to go under par at Pretoria Country Club.
n The tour says its new Pace of Play policy has helped reduce average round times and may result in an increased size of fields for tournaments.
The tour is attempting to combat the issue of slow play by introducing monitoring penalties that could lead to players getting fined.
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