Hall of Famer Mark O’Meara announces retirement

For the golfer who wants his resume to be the envy of his fellow professionals, there are certain venues that capture attention.

Obviously wins at Augusta National come not only with a green jacket but yards of cache. St. Andrews in Scotland is another venue for a career-defining victory. And Pebble Beach may be the only other course that can join that pair in terms of prestige.

That’s what makes Mark O’Meara’s accomplishments there so incredible.

O’Meara, 67, won an event at Pebble Beach in each of three decades beginning with the 1979 California State Amateur. He also won the PGA TOUR’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am five times. His first victory came in 1985, followed by back-to-back wins in 1989 and 1990 and another in 1992. His fifth and final win at Pebble Beach came in 1997, when both David Duval and Tiger Woods were runners-up.

It is that success that makes Pebble Beach the fitting place for O’Meara to call it a career. He announced Monday that this week’s PURE Insurance Championship at Pebble Beach will be his the last of his 958 combined starts on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions. It marks the end of a career that also included victories in the 1998 Masters and The Open Championship and induction in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

O’Meara has been hitting Pebble hard since his first trip to the Monterey Peninsula, for the California State Amateur in 1979, when he was a senior at Long Beach State. He was immediately taken by the beauty and mystique of the area. It also didn’t hurt that he won the 36-hole final match, 8 and 7, over Lennie Clements. O’Meara also won the U.S. Amateur that year by that same dominant margin, beating John Cook, 8 and 7, in the final match.

O’Meara credits that first trip as being a cornerstone of his success at Pebble Beach. Before he had even turned pro, he had good vibes for the place.

He also didn’t mind the Poa annua greens. They can be very bumpy and tricky to read, but O’Meara grew up in Mission Viejo, California, putting on Poa annua.

“It was a combination of factors that lead to my success at Pebble,” said O’Meara. “First for me to go back there and have all the fond memories of the State Amateur. And a lot of great players won the California State Amateur. I also love to play so much in the natural beauty and growing up on poa annua greens that are very bumpy and knowing you have to be very patient.”

O’Meara won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am once with his dad as his amateur partner. He cited that as one of the most cherished memories of his life.

The year was 1990. They had first played together in 1986, the year after his first victory at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. And they made the cut. After O’Meara won in 1989, he invited his dad to come play with him one more time.

“I gave it to him as a Christmas present,” O’Meara said. “I flew him and mom out and then I won the tournament playing alongside my dad. 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.”

Now Pebble Beach will mark the end of an incredible career. You can’t do better than that, indeed.