Straka has late surge to regain Pebble Beach lead over Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Rory McIlroy felt like he was playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am he used to watch on TV, minus the amateur and celebrities filling up the time on Saturday.
The weather brought back romantic images of the old “Crosby Clambake,” with a cold wind whipping off the Pacific Ocean and light rain, generally miserable weather for golf except at Pebble Beach — at least for those watching.
Sepp Straka watched his shot on the 10th sail over the cliff and onto the beach, starting a stretch of three straight bogeys. He rallied with four birdies over the final five holes to salvage a 2-under 70 and a one-shot lead over McIlroy and Shane Lowry.
“You can’t stay dry, ball’s not going where you want it to go, putting is tough. It’s really hard to kind of stay in the moment,” Straka said. “Yeah, I was pretty happy about how I did that today.”
Tom Kim punched a 7-iron from 103 yards down the hill on the seventh. Scottie Scheffler posed after a purely struck 5-iron that was right on target and couldn't believe when it stopped 155 yards away from where he was standing.
“I bogeyed 9 and parred 10 and I felt like I was gaining on the field, to be honest,” Lowry said. “It might not look like that on TV. But when you're out there, it was brutal.”
When they trudged off the course, Straka was atop a leaderboard that looked like the European roster for the Ryder Cup — Straka, McIlroy, Lowry, Justin Rose — as the Austrian-born Georgia Bulldog goes for his second straight PGA Tour title.
McIlroy was practically flawless, at least in the nasty conditions, by getting through the exposed stretch of Pebble Beach without dropping a shot and chipping his way around for a bogey-free 65.
“It's a more authentic experience of what the Pebble Beach Pro-Am is like,” said McIlroy, playing the tournament for only the third time.
Lowry got off to a birdie-eagle-birdie start that allowed for a few mistakes around the turn and he finished with two birdies on the last three holes for a 65.
Just don't get the idea Irish weather was well-suited for McIlroy (Northern Ireland) and Lowry (Ireland), especially because they now are neighbors in south Florida.
“It might suit me somewhat, but I don't enjoy it,” Lowry said. “I live in Florida for a reason. I think my game is well-equipped to handle these conditions and I go out there, kind of no fear, and I know I just need to batten down the hatches and make pars when I can.”
Straka, coming off a win in the California desert, blasted out of the sand to 4 feet for one last birdie that putt him at 16-under 200, one shot ahead of McIlroy and Lowry, his Ryder Cup teammates from Marco Simone.
Rose, a Pebble Beach winner in 2023 and part of Team Europe later that year, was another shot behind along with Kim and Cam Davis.
Scottie Scheffler, in his 2025 debut delayed by his hand surgery from a freak puncture wound, held it together for a 69 and was six shots behind.
Gone are the days of the old Crosby Clambake, with amateurs having left on Friday. But it was reminiscent of the Clambake weather, not the prettiest pictures but a delight to see golf's best players have their hands full with a wind strong enough to bend flagsticks.
McIlroy had a suitable game plan. When the wind arrived as he was on the sixth hole, he said he turned to caddie Harry Diamond and said, “Let's try to chip the ball around today.”
“I feel like I didn't make a full swing after that,” McIlroy said.
He had to save par six times from the rough and bunkers, none more valuable than from down in the high grass below the 10th green to 6 feet and a key par putt.
“That was a key up-and-down to just to keep the momentum of the round going,” he said.
The 10th hole is where Straka nearly came undone. His approach sailed well to the right, over the cliff and onto the beach. He went down to the sand and picked up his golf ball, taking the penalty shot instead of trying the dramatic shot off the beach, and did well to salvage bogey.
But he bogeyed the next two holes, going from a four-shot lead early in the round to trailing by two shots. Straka, though, is equipped with newfound confidence and steadied himself on the way in with birdies on the 14th and 15th holes, a 30-foot birdie putt for the only birdie of the day on the par-3 17th and his closing birdie.
It sets up a final round in which six players are separated by two shots and Scheffler, the world's No. 1 player, hanging around on the edge of contention. He didn't birdie a par 5 until the last hole — two par 5s on the front were in benign conditions — but made a pair of birdies late.
“I hung in there on a day where I didn’t have my best stuff,” Scheffler said.
McIlroy and Lowry both began the week making a hole-in-one — Lowry on the seventh hole at Pebble Beach, McIlroy on the 15th at Spyglass — and now the longtime friends from Irish golf will be in the final group with Straka.
“There's a few courses in the world that you would like to win on and this is definitely one of them,” Lowry said. “So you try not to think about stuff like that and hopefully it comes to you someday.”
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