Wednesday's news made it official: The Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club will join the rotation for next year's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. This will give the tournament a marquee lineup of Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and the Shore Course -- all prestigious tracks, all with an oceanfront flavor, all members of Golf Digest's list of America's 100 greatest courses.
Now, the big question sure to dangle for the next eight months: Will Tiger play?
Tiger Woods last played in the AT&T in 2002. Then he vanished, not at all interested in Northern California's sketchy winter weather, six-hour rounds and soggy, bumpy greens. Those are among the main reasons the tournament has struggled to attract a strong field in recent years.
But next year's convergence of events makes it likely many top players, maybe even Woods, will show up in February. The addition of the Shore Course will help -- Poppy Hills was not popular among tour pros -- but so will the U.S. Open's return to Pebble Beach in 2010 (a sneak preview never hurts) and the PGA Tour's reshuffled West Coast schedule.
Next year, partly because of conflicts with NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, the tour re-arranged the order of events on its West Coast swing. That worked out well for the AT&T, because it will take place two weeks after the European Tour's event in Dubai and only one week before the Match Play Championship in Arizona.
Dubai is usually held one week before Pebble Beach, making it impractical for Woods and top Europeans to play in both events. (Woods likes the hefty appearance fee he earns in Dubai.) Plus, the Europeans headed to Match Play now can add the AT&T with little hassle.
As for Woods, it's worth remembering what Mark O'Meara said during a 2006 interview with The Chronicle. O'Meara spoke of Woods' reaction to a missed putt in '02, saying, "Tiger had about a 1 1/2-footer at Poppy Hills, a pretty straight-in putt. He hit it right in the middle of the face and the ball didn't even hit the hole. He said, 'You know, that's it. I don't need this.'"
Granted, the greens at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill are often just as unpredictable as those at Poppy, and the Shore Course is not immune even with upgraded drainage. But it's safe to say Woods will be intrigued by next year's tournament, especially given his twin wins at Pebble in 2000 -- his rousing comeback victory in the AT&T and historic romp in the Open four months later.
(E-mail Ron Kroichick at rkroichick(at)sfchronicle.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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