Lift, Clean and Set a Record

Should there be an asterisk on such a score?

Comments are open to all subscribers on this one. Curious what everybody thinks.

Wyndham Clark’s 60 in the third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Saturday came on the strength of a stunning display of putting—almost 190 feet of putts made—on a set of Pebble Beach greens whose characteristics typically make it difficult to run the table.

And the reigning U.S. Open champion was just a few turns of the ball away from shooting something in the 50s as birdie tries on the 16^th and 17^th holes, and an eagle attempt on the par-5 18^th, were tracking but lacked a touch of speed. Had all three putts dropped—obviously a huge “if”—Clark would have had a 57, the lowest score in PGA Tour history, surpassing Jim Furyk’s 58 in the 2016 Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

His 12-under 60 will go down as the Pebble Beach course record, eclipsing the 61 by collegian Hurly Long in 2017 and the tournament mark, bettering four 62s shot between 1983 and 2022.

Even though the third round was played with preferred lies in the fairway because of extremely soggy conditions caused by more than four inches of recent rain, Clark’s score will receive no asterisk. As Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson noted in his account from the Monterey Peninsula, “The PGA Tour counts records when players are able to lift, clean and place their golf balls in the short grass. The European tour does not.”

The subject has been settled law on the PGA Tour for decades even as it continues to be debated—even derided—by those on the side of golf purity. It has been nearly 30 years since former USGA rules and competitions chief Tom Meeks said the U.S. Open at a water-logged Oakland Hills wouldn’t be contested under a “lift, clean and cheat” provision. That was an unnecessary jab at the PGA Tour’s utilizing the local rule when necessary to get a round in.

Most people understand why the PGA Tour implements lift, clean and place, but should scores shot on those days make the record book?

The first 59 shot on the PGA Tour and the first 62 at the former “Crosby” both were played with preferred lies.

In the case of Al Geiberger at the 1977 Danny Thomas Memphis Classic, the Colonial Country Club turf had been damaged by a rough winter leading up to the event in late spring. “That’s the only fair way,” tour official Wade Cagle told The Commercial Appeal newspaper days before the tournament started with all fairways marked for relief. “If it should rain, there just wouldn’t be anything but mud in some areas … The condition of the course is nobody’s fault. The winter was just too severe, that’s all.”

Geiberger shot a 13-under 59 in the second round, the first sub-60 score on the PGA Tour. Raymond Floyd’s 65 was the next best score on a day when the weather was as torrid as Geiberger’s game. He had only 23 putts on Colonial’s grainy Bermuda putting surfaces after hitting every fairway and green in regulation.

“We were playing improved lies, but I don't ever remember doing it,” Geiberger told Golf World in 2012. “As you came off every tee, there was a dip in the terrain where they had winter kill. But the fairways, where we were playing to, were pretty nice. I think the field staff didn’t want to go chalk off every canyon. Most of the low areas that were damaged, we were playing over those.”

Tom Kite’s 62 in third round of the 1983 tour stop at Pebble Beach was two strokes better than Rod Funseth’s mark set in 1972. Kite’s score—subsequently matched by David Duval (1997), Patrick Cantlay (2021) and Matthias Schwab (2022)—was shot under preferred lies due to a saturated course, conditions much like those encountered on the iconic site this week.

“There’s no question about it, that makes the round a lot easier,” Kite said of getting to improve his lie in the fairways, as reported by then-AP golf writer Bob Green. “But if we hadn’t been playing it up, I don’t think we could have finished the tournament. About one-tenth of the shots you hit plug into the fairway. In five years, nobody will remember we were getting our hands on it. In five years, I might not remember.”

Green noted that Kite had a “twinkle in his eye” when commenting about future recollections of his 62.

Indeed, given that asterisks only exist in people’s short memories, Clark’s score will be known only as having occurred in winter, not under winter rules.