EXCLUSIVE: Playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am

Pat Hamill

Above, ACE HIGH: My hole-in-one on No. 5 during last year's practice round at Pebble.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Eight-handicap Pat Hamill—the founder and CEO of Oakwood Homes and founder of the Colorado Open Golf Foundation and The First Tee of Green Valley Ranch—is playing in his seventh AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am this week. Each day he will share with Contributing Editor Ted Johnson his insights into playing in the most prominent pro-am tournament in America—if not the world.

We arrived on Sunday, and I know a few people so they reserved me a table at The Tap Room so we could watch the Super Bowl. Well, it turned out not to be such a great game, but with Charlie Soule, my caddie for the tournament [and head instructor at Green Valley Golf Academy], we had a great time.

The first thing you do on Monday is check into the hospitality tent for the swag bag. My god. Two pairs of shoes; Callaway Gore-Tex™ outer wear, weather shirt and pants; Waterford crystal; hats and golf balls; a digital device that is a tracking system for your golf game, a Samsung digital tablet and a boombox, which I love because I listen to music when I play golf. It’s crazy, just keeps getting more and more every year.

We played Spyglass today and I met three great guys. That’s why you play in this – the contacts are amazing.  And Spyglass was as good as I’ve ever seen it [no doubt due to low rain totals in Northern California].

Last year, No. 9 at Spyglass was the scene of one of my proudest golf achievements.

It was our final hole on Saturday, a tough par-4. The cut is usually around 20-under, and we’re right there. My pro, Matt Every, says, “This is my hole,” and then duck-hooks his tee shot. I hit it in the fairway and then got my approach just short of the greenside bunker. I got it on and had about a 12-foot par putt for net-birdie.

All the caddies and players in the group knew what I was playing for, so they all took a look at the putt. I made it, and we got to play on Sunday.

That’s what everyone wants – the umbrella. The one that says, “I made the cut at the AT&T.”

My practice round on Tuesday will be at Pebble Beach. Last year in a practice round, I made a hole-in-one on the par-3 fifth. Afterwards, we went to Clint Eastwood’s party at his Mission Ranch Inn. As a tradition, he takes the microphone and makes some introductions and then announces that someone made an ace. He called me up, and that’s when Peter Ueberroth [like Eastwood, a co-owner of the Pebble Beach Company] presented me with a bill for $83,000—the cost of the party. Ha ha.

ACE LOW: Shortly before I was facetiously presented with a $83,000 tab for drinks at the Mission Ranch Inn.