It’s been a wonderful life for Mark O’Meara.
The 16-time winner on the PGA Tour and three-time winner on the PGA Tour Champions announced he’s hanging up the golf spikes and putting away the tour bag for good after the 2024 Pure Insurance Championship.
There’s certainly no better place for the two-time major champ to call it a career. O’Meara, 67, won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am an amazing five times during his PGA Tour career. It was known as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am won he first won it in 1985. AT&T was the title sponsor for the other four.
On Wednesday, two days before he will start his final competitive event, O’Mears shared some memories from Pebble, from winning alongside his dad to earning the moniker the “Prince of Pebble.”
Remembering his first win at Pebble in 1985
The first win came in ’85, which was the last Crosby, and it would have been my second win on the PGA Tour because I won my first tournament in ’84 in Milwaukee.
In ’85 the reason why I know that I remember it distinctly is because in ’84 I stood on that 18th green with about a 14-footer for birdie to tie Jim Nelford, who was in the clubhouse. Hale Irwin was in the group behind me. He had hit it in the ocean, bounced back up on the fairway. Hale made birdie to go into the playoff with Jim Nelford.
But I actually had about a 14-footer, a lot of people will remember that, and I needed to make it for birdie to tie Jim. I ran it by about three feet and I missed the next one. So yeah, but my pro-am partner made a long putt and we won the team event in ’84, Bing Crosby pro-am with Jack Diesel, who was my pro-am partner that year. Then in ’85 it just gave me more motivation to come back and try to do a little bit, one or two shots better and that came to fruition in the ’85 Crosby. That was obviously my first win around Pebble Beach as a professional golfer.
Remembering his last win at Pebble in 1997
And then my last win was in ’97 and I remember it distinctly because my good friend Tiger Woods was like in a group one or two in front of me and on the back nine he was lighting up the place and the roars were crazy. Most people would have probably maybe when Tiger Woods’ name goes up on the board, they start like, just like when Mr. Nicklaus was doing that kind of stuff, players start falling off the other way. But because I knew Tiger so well and our friendship and everything, I expected him to do those kind of things so it didn’t really faze me.
I remember I was on the 17th green, my 71st hole, and Tiger drove it in the fairway getting ready to knock it on the green in two. I had a birdie putt and I knew if I made my birdie putt I’d have a two-shot lead. I thought to myself, Tiger’s going to knock it on 18, he might make eagle, he’s going to make birdie for sure, I’ve got to make this one. I made it for birdie and I ended up beating Tiger.
He once won the team event with his dad as his amateur partner
The year that I won with my father here as my amateur partner, I played with my dad all four days and I was fortunate to win the AT&T Pebble Beach playing alongside my dad, which is rare in any major sport. I remember the next week my father called me and he goes, ‘Mark, I just got my Golf World in the mail and you’re on the cover, Prince of Pebble.’
He goes, ‘I’m looking over there and I see you played well and you won 180 grand’ or whatever it was back then. But he goes, ‘I also noticed in this other category over here Team O’Meara-O’Meara won $8,800. So I’m just wondering when are you going to send me my check for $4,400?’
I told my father, ‘Dad, listen, you’re an amateur, you can’t accept prize money.’ He goes ‘No, no, I’m going to turn pro, just send me the $4,400.’ So we had a great banter back and forth.
‘O’Meara, you own this place’
One year I’m playing in the tournament, in the pro-am and I’m paired with Ben Crenshaw and his amateur partner. We were on the fourth hole by the beach club. We’re sitting on the tee waiting to hit our tee shots on 4 and a member in the gallery, a person in the gallery yells over: ‘O’Meara, you own this place,’ and I remember looking up and I said, ‘Oh, I appreciate that, that’s really nice of you, but to be fair, if I owned this place I wouldn’t be playing as a professional golfer anymore.’
How is he preparing emotionally for his final round at Pebble?
I’m going to take it all in. I’m also going to have a tear in my eye. I realize that for the last 44 years I’ve been chasing this little white ball around these golf courses, but certainly because of the experiences and the memories that are etched in my mind that have transpired here Pebble Beach and the Monterey peninsula, yeah, I mean, I’ll be happy but I’ll be sad.
I don’t know. I mean, I felt this experience before already when I played my last Open Championship in 2017 at Royal Birkdale and I felt this at Augusta National in 2018 when I walked away from playing in the Masters.
I’m kind of prepared for it, but we’ll kind of see. But if I’m not emotional, then I wouldn’t be human.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Mark O’Meara, retiring this week at Pebble Beach, shares some of his favorite Pebble stories, including winning with dad
