This week, several professional and amateur golfers will tee off for the first time at Pebble Beach Golf Links in the 78th U.S. Women’s Open tournament. The over 100-year-old course has held many women’s golf tournaments before, but this is the first U.S. Women’s Open at the famous course.
With this year's purse of $11 million, the USGA U.S. Women’s Open is arguably the most important golf tournament of the year. But for one player in particular, this tournament is extra special for another reason.
Mina Harigae is a Monterey native who grew up golfing at Pebble Beach Golf Links. She graduated high school from Stevenson School, just a mile away. Harigae said she’s played the course at Pebble Beach dozens of times.
“Growing up here, playing high school golf here, playing the AT&T Junior Golf Series when I was little… we've come a long way,” Harigae said.
Harigae is now a professional golfer and has competed professionally for 13 years. But this is the first chance to play in the USGA’s U.S. Women's Open on her home turf at Pebble Beach.
“I've always dreamed of playing in the U.S. Open here for women,” Harigae said. “But I never thought it'd happen… while I was still playing. But here we are, and I'm just super excited.”
This tournament has been a long time coming, said John Sawin, the director of golf for Pebble Beach Resorts. The course learned they would be hosting the U.S. Women’s Open in 2017.
“We're starting to see the vision come to reality, and we can't wait to get things started,” Sawin said.
While this is the first USGA Women’s Open at Pebble Beach, the course has hosted many other women’s tournaments dating back to its first years about a century ago.
“Pebble Beach has a rich history of women's golf here, going back to the Pebble Beach Women's Championship in the twenties and the women's amateurs in the forties,” Sawin said. “We had the California State Women's Amateur here for many years and up through the eighties.”
Pebble Beach hosted the men’s U.S. Open in 2019. The course will differ slightly from the 2019 course, but not by much.
“The goal with the golf course setup is to present an equal test to what the men see here during the U.S. Open,” Sawin said. “So the adjustment that we make for the women's game is primarily around distance.”
That difference is about 600 fewer yards of total driving distance for the women’s tournament compared with the men’s. But otherwise, Sawin said the course will remain just as challenging.
“We've already narrowed the fairways. The rough is growing up. The greens will be firm and fast,” he said. “The bunkers have that wispy native grass around them that gives it that iconic Pebble Beach championship.”
That’s what makes Pebble Beach a bucket list course for golfers around the world, said Allis Burns, who is organizing this year’s tournament for the USGA.
“People want to play Pebble Beach,” Burns said. “They want to come experience this community… Monterey and Carmel, all of it. It's something that people save up and make their trip once in a lifetime.”
And, Burns adds, the course’s first U.S. Women’s Open is making that once-in-a-lifetime visit even more monumental.
“It’s a huge deal, and I'm really excited to see all of the women play Pebble Beach,” Burns said. “They've watched the men play it for several years in a championship, and they're finally going to get their chance at it.”
Pebble Beach Golf Links is set to host the U.S. Women’s Open at least three more times, the soonest being in 2035, and returning again in 2040 and 2048.
Mina Harigae placed second in last year’s U.S. Women’s Open — her best career finish in a major tournament. She has high hopes for this year.
“Obviously it'd be awesome to win here. It'd be literally a dream come true,” Harigae said. “But just to be able to compete here… I'm really happy to just be able to showcase that I'm from here.”
The tournament starts Thursday and goes through Sunday, July 9.