AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am 2015: Tee times, pairings for Thursday’s first round

The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is probably the most unique event on the PGA Tour. Where else can you see Tour pros competing in an officially sanctioned tournament with a standard Tour purse alongside Bill Belichick in a hoodie with cut sleeves?

This event used to be a less publicized but much more wild party on the Monterey Peninsula, held annually by Bing Crosby. What simply became known as the Crosby Clambake consisted of a bunch of professional golfers and a group of celebrities that would get together and hack it around some of the most beautiful golf property in the world. Now it’s an official event with 156 pros, mostly C-list celebs and businessmen deemed important by the right person, and spread across three courses in the Monterey area. It’s one of the few places in the world that can accommodate such an event. The concentration of world-class golf courses in such a confined area is an embarrassment of riches that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

The event has settled into a rota of Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and the Shore Course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club. Pebble is the most famous course in the area, but the most highly rated is its neighbor, Cypress Point. That course is so exclusive that it wouldn’t dare accommodate the peasant masses and TV cameras on their grounds for such an event like this. So Pebble is the namesake and the show here this week. It’s not set up or conditioned in any way approaching the U.S. Open test that we’re used to seeing here, but it’s still the main attraction and maybe the best non-major course on the PGA Tour’s annual schedule.

In addition to the course not being up to major championship conditions, the tournament setup (and pace of play) is far from the grind and intensity of a major. With foursomes that include two amateurs chopping their way around the peninsula, the rounds can approach six hours in length. There are two concurrent contests -- the pro-am and then the official FedEx Cup PGA Tour title. And then there are the Ams that make sure no one is taking things too seriously, such as Bill Murray.

Even though the rounds are interminable, the three-course setup gives the Tour a good deal of flexibility when it comes to scheduling. There’s no need for a morning and afternoon wave like you normally get when 150 pros at a tournament are crammed onto one course. Everyone in the field should be out by 10:15 a.m. local time, with groups going off split tees at each of the three venues. The weather, which created a bit of a scheduling nightmare last year, is supposed to be good all week. That can change pretty quickly given the location but there should not be too many severe delays. Here’s the tee sheet for the opening round (all times ET):