{"id":2054,"date":"2016-02-14T07:42:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T14:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2016-02-14T07:42:47","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T14:42:47","slug":"a-love-letter-to-pebble-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/2054\/a-love-letter-to-pebble-beach","title":{"rendered":"A Love Letter to Pebble Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Romantic?

Romantic? Pebble Beach’s seaside seventh hole inspired a wedding.<\/p><\/div>\n

The words \u201cromance\u201d and \u201cgolf\u201d may not typically roll off the tongue together, as many weekend \u201cgolf widows\u201d (are there really \u201cgolf widowers?\u201d) might tell you, but the PGA Tour\u2019s venue this Valentine\u2019s weekend proves the two pursuits can not only cohabitate, but thrive, together! Pebble Beach Resorts, along Northern California\u2019s Pacific Coast, hosts the world\u2019s best professional golfers over five days in what began as crooner Bing Crosby\u2019s \u201cClambake:\u201d a tournament and party for his celebrity pals. Crosby is long gone, but the beautiful holes along Stillwater Cove, and the beautiful people, including, this year, the University of Michigan\u2019s football coach Jim Harbaugh, remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing that gorgeous course on television was love at first sight, for me,\u201d says Jason Guss, now a golf professional at Hawk Hollow Golf Course in Bath. \u201cI grew up on a municipal course so knowing Pebble Beach was open to the public gave me the incentive to know that I could, one day, play there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorth every penny,\u201d he insists.<\/p>\n

Michael Kernicki, past president of the Michigan PGA, agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSit there by the fire pit at the bench overlooking the 18th<\/sup> green and the ocean, with your arm around your favorite girl and a drink in your other hand, and I\u2019d call that \u2018love.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That drink, in any romantic story, would be champagne, plenty of which will be poured and tasted March 31 through April 3<\/span> during the annual Pebble Beach Food + Wine Festival. And if the viticulture on the itinerary is any indication, much of it could be rose champagne. Seminars will include \u201cRose Colored Glasses: the World of Pink Wines;\u201d \u201cTete du Cuvee \u2013 Exploring Rose;\u201d and \u201cBig Bottle Bubbles,\u201d where champagne houses Ruinart, Taittinger, and Veuve will among those pouring.<\/p>\n

My first exposure to rose champagne was at the resort\u2019s Beach Club, where pink Dom Perignon was paired and poured during the event\u2019s closing dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo style of champagne shouts \u2018romance,\u2019 or is better suited to celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day, than rose,\u201d says travel writer, golfer and husband Larry Olmsted. Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial, for example, is offered in an insulated chiller sleeve for picnics or, shall we say, breakfast in bed. \u201cRose is richer and tastier and pairs better with foods. It\u2019s been pigeonholed into a \u2018brunch drink\u2019 because it goes well with eggs, but chefs tell me its\u2019 very good with truffle fries and even fried chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fly to San Jose or San Francisco and drive over to the resort which offers multiple on-site hotel options at The Inn at Spanish Bay; The Lodge at Pebble Beach or Casa Palmero. \u201cCasa Palmero is the most romantic lodging experience at PebbleBeach,\u201d says Olmsted, who has visited Pebble frequently. \u201cIt\u2019s a lavishly landscaped Mediterranean-style estate with 24 rooms featuring wood-burning fireplaces, soaking tubs and luxurious beds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emmy Award-winning TV sportscaster Jim Nantz, who lives at Pebble Beach and will call the action for CBS this weekend, blended golf and romance in a truly ultimate fashion when he and his wife Courtney married on the scenic, seaside 7th<\/sup> green in 2012 and, in tribute to the wedding, built a replica of the famed hole in his backyard\u2026presumably for all those coming vow renewals!<\/p>\n

Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at\u00a0<\/em>InviteYourself@aol.com<\/a>\u00a0or via TravelTattler.com\u00a0His talk show can be heard weekday mornings in\u00a0Lansing\u00a0on 92.1 FM.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The words \u201cromance\u201d and \u201cgolf\u201d may not typically roll off the tongue together, as many weekend \u201cgolf widows\u201d (are there… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[360916,597,152900,90639,634,94915,305254,422547],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courses-and-travel","tag-jim-nantz","tag-california","tag-jim-harbaugh","tag-san-jose","tag-san-francisco","tag-golf-2","tag-pebble-beach-2","tag-pebble-beach-food-wine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2016\/02\/IMG-20120412-00008.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2056,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}