Pebble Beach’s Cliffs of Over? Not for Phil Mickelson

From Pebble Beach — They call the stretch of holes from No. 8 through 10 at Pebble Beach the Cliffs of Doom. Golfers call it names not nearly that nice.

Take Dr. Gil Morgan, for example.

He led the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble by seven shots on Saturday, and had reached a tournament-record 12 under par through the first seven holes. He was hitting everything perfectly. Life was good. The Cliffs beckoned and Morgan smiled. Then he went double-bogey, bogey, double-bogey, disintegrated to four under by the end of his round and shot a closing 81 on Sunday. Tom Kite won a major championship that had been a lock for Morgan just 36 hours earlier.

What Morgan probably called the Cliffs of Doom wouldn’t be printable in a family newspaper.

Late Friday afternoon, during the fifth return of the U.S. Open to these fabled grounds along the rugged coast of Northern California, Phil Mickelson needed to run the gantlet of the Cliffs of Doom. Mickelson was on a Gil-Morgan-like run. For the first seven holes, his card read 4-3-3-3-3-4-3. Most people who play golf can’t do that at the local entertainment center’s pitch-and-putt.

No. 7 at Pebble is like the Sirens of Greek mythology. It is a mere 109 yards, plays downhill to a pretty ocean-cliff green and is fairly hittable for the world’s greatest players, who kind of half-swing a sand wedge and hope to make their remaining 15-foot birdie putt. It lulls them with charm and ease.

Then they walk 20 feet to the eighth tee and look into the mouth of the demons, all par fours that ought to be par 6s.

No. 8 plays 428 yards, up a hill and over a chasm of rocks and ocean that is about 240 yards from the tee and drops 200 feet. The players don’t dare hit a driver, and their passageway around the chasm and down to the green is about 15 feet wide, from the edge to the spectator ropes.

No. 9 plays 505 yards and has a fairway about 20 yards wide that leans to the right, toward the ocean and also severely downhill after about 230 yards. If you play it safe by hitting it left, you are in heavy rough, from which only weightlifters and Barry Bonds can get home in two. And if you try anyway and fall short, you land in a trap left of the green that presents a 90-degree bunker face to clear.

No. 10 is much easier. It plays 495 yards and the ocean cliffs to the right are not as steep, but they still gather drives faded to the right and kick them to the sandy beach below. The obvious aim, left of center on the fairway, is not good, either, because some spoilsport put giant bunkers there, well within range, and planted strings of grass around them that rise as high as four feet.

For sightseers, this is heaven. Below the cliffs, there are rock formations, crashing waves, flying seagulls and drifting paddleboats.

For the golfers, it is hell, a murderers’ row.

Commentator Johnny Miller talks about this stretch, as well as Nos. 12 through 14: “You get through those with pars, you can go to the next tee and do a little dance.”

Volunteer official Norm Hebert stands on No. 9, some 200 yards from the green and in the rough, and points to the dreaded trap. “They’ve been hitting line drives from here into that all week and I don’t know how they get out.”

The golfers move past slowly. Alex Cejka wears a winter stocking cap on a late-spring day in California. The trio of John Rollins, Marc Leishman and Rafa Echenique trudges next to a scoreboard that says they are, in order, eight, nine and 12 over par. Their body language is that of dead men walking. The cliffs, shrouded in overcast and mist, are calling.

When Mickelson gets there, he immediately flirts with disaster. On No. 8, he hits his iron tee shot to the edge of the chasm, right near the sign that says “Danger, Deep Cliff” and also, in smaller letters, “No Diving.” Perhaps the latter part was put there for Dr. Gil.

But Mickelson strokes a second shot to 15 feet and makes his birdie. The amazing run continues.

Can not even the Cliffs stop him?

Ah, but on No. 9, he drives into the rough where volunteer Norm had stood earlier and pointed to the danger of the bunker below. Sure enough, Mickelson’s iron shot lands in that trap and, even though his sand wedge gets him out and onto the green, he two-putts for his first bogey of the day.

The Cliffs had called.

On No. 10, Mickelson drives it nicely and hits his approach to 15 feet, but misses the birdie putt and looks perturbed.

Still, he had gotten through Pebble’s version of Amen Corner in 3-5-4, even par and five shots better than Morgan’s landmark 6-5-6 blowup. Mickelson finishes with a 66, leaving him two shots off the lead halfway through the Open. On this day, the Ghost of Dr. Gil has been partially exorcised.

But the Cliffs will still be there Saturday and Sunday. And for as long as Pebble is Pebble.

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