Mark O’Meara is ready to retire, and he has picked the ideal spot in Pebble Beach.
O’Meara won the California State Amateur in 1979, the first of his six titles over three decades at Pebble Beach. Five of those were the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the last one in 1997 when at age 40 he held off Tiger Woods and David Duval.
O’Meara, 67, is ending his career this week at the Pure Insurance Championship, held at Pebble Beach and Spyglass, a unique PGA Tour Champions events that puts pros with kids from The First Tee.
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O’Meara, inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2015 at a ceremony at St. Andrews, ends his career with 16 wins on the PGA Tour, three on the European tour, two on the Japan Golf Tour, one on the PGA Tour of Australasia and the 1994 Argentina Open.
He won on every continent golf is played except Africa, although he did partner with Nick Price of Zimbabwe to win the Liberty Mutual Insurance Legends of Golf, one of his three PGA Tour Champions titles.
Pebble was the obvious choice to walk away, starting with that 8-and-7 win over Lennie Clements.
O’Meara also won the U.S. Amateur that year, and his two biggest wins were the Masters and The Open in 1998, making him the oldest player to win two majors in the same year.
His favorite Pebble moment was winning in 1990 with his father.
“I flew him and mom out and then I won the tournament playing alongside my dad,” O’Meara said. “I put that right at the top of the list of great things, winning at Augusta with a putt on the final hole, winning the U.S. Amateur. But to play with my father and coming up the last hole, the 18th hole at Pebble, you can’t do better than that.”
