By DOUG FERGUSON
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Sepp Straka took a trip down to the beach that derailed his round Saturday, and then recovered with four birdies on his last five holes in a cold, whipping wind for a 2-under 70 to reclaim the lead over the Irish duo of Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
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.
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.”
The second signature event of the year produced big names at the top, and this one had a distinctive Ryder Cup feel — European, that is.
Straka, the Austrian-born Georgia Bulldog 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.
Justin Rose of England, a Pebble Beach winner in 2023 and part of Team Europe later that year, was another shot behind.
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 ripping off the Pacific Ocean.
Scheffler couldn’t believe it when he hit a 5-iron as pure as can be on the 10th hole and watched it fly only 155 yards, 20 yards short of his target. Lowry knows the feeling. He drilled a 3-iron and came up short.
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 doesn’t usually have great success on the West Coast — his lone California victory was in early May in the Match Play at Harding Park in 2015 — but has talked about this being a big year for him on several front. Pebble Beach wasn’t at the front of his mind, but it is now.
“It’s really cool to be in contention this early in the season,” he 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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