Pebble Beach revives signature feature on its fabled 18th hole

A new tree was planted to replace one lost in 2014.Pebble Beach Resorts

If a tree falls on the fairway of a famous golf hole, does anybody notice? They sure do.

They also notice when it gets replaced.

On Thursday, Pebble Beach Golf Links posted photos of a fresh addition to its 18th hole, where a second cypress tree has been planted, replacing one that toppled during a Dec. 11, 2014 winter storm. The work restores a feature that had long complicated tee shots and layups on the fabled par-5 finisher.

The replacement tree came from the 17th hole at nearby Spyglass Hill. It now stands in the same spot once occupied by the storm-felled tree, roughly 30 yards closer to the green than its companion pine.

Ranked 15th on GOLF’s list of Top 100 Courses in the World, Pebble Beach opened in 1919 and has evolved over more than a century of life, undergoing tweaks both subtle and significant. In 1997, for instance, Jack Nicklaus was hired to build a new par-3 5th hole, a change that brought the hole to the edge of the bluffs overlooking Stillwater Cove.

Since 2010 alone, the course has undergone a slew of additional refinements — longer tees on the 2nd and 9th holes, restored bunkers, and recontoured greens designed to revive classic features and open up new hole locations.

The tree planting comes as Pebble fine-tunes the course ahead of the 2027 U.S. Open, which it will host for a record seventh time.

This is not the first time an iconic tree has been replaced at Pebble. In 2002, an 80-foot Monterey cypress was planted beside the 18th green, taken from the 1st hole to replace the original, which had died of pitch canker disease. That replanting — digging a giant hole, maneuvering a giant root ball into place — was something of a spectacle.

But it played out with less immediate fanfare in the age before Instagram.

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