At The Peninsula's 'The Golf Party,' They're Going Back to the Future

PEBBLE BEACH—On Tuesday morning, as the participants of the first annual Golf Party were heading out for their opening round, co-host Huey Lewis—yes, the crooner on various hit songs from the 1980’s—offered a parting pep talk: “Play well or have fun.”

At the Golf Party, the emphasis is definitely on the latter. The two day pro-am, played at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, was the brainchild of Lewis’s best friend, Peter Jacobsen, who wanted to recreate the intimacy and freewheeling vibe of the old Crosby Clambake, which began in 1947. Thirty years later, Jake was a rookie rabbit on the PGA TOUR. He tried to qualify for tournaments in Tucson and Phoenix but struck out at both. Then he came to Pebble Beach with his new bride, Jan, and played his way into the field. They slept on the pull-out couch at the home Bob Zoller, MPCC’s superintendent, an old friend from Oregon. Jacobsen was thunderstruck by the relaxed feeling and casual star power on display at the Clambake. “Clint Eastwood told everybody to check their ego at the door,” Jacobsen says about the longtime pro-am participant. “He’d say, ‘We're just people playing golf, raising money for charity, having fun and trying to get to know each other.’ It didn’t matter if it was Jack Lemmon, Neil Young, Michael Keaton, George C. Scott, Sean Connery—you walked into the grill room and they stuck out their hand, even to an unknown rookie. And the crazy thing was, they looked up to us pros because we had a mastery of the game that they all loved.” For two decades, a charming subplot of the Clambake was Jacobsen’s Sysiphusian efforts to help his partner, Lemmon, make the pro-am cut. The highlight of Jacobsen’s golfing life was winning the Clambake in 1995…yet Lemmon failed to make the cut, what Jake calls “a statistical impossibility.” He still laughs uproariously when telling the story.

The Clambake is now the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a Signature event with a $20 million purse and a small field stacked with the best pros. The amateurs play only the first two rounds, with the celebrity component having been deemphasized. The Golf Party has gone back to the future, pairing Champions Tour players with singers and actors, alongside two-man teams of weekend warriors willing to pay five figures to support the tournament’s charities of choice (including the First Tee of Monterey County and the Golf Diversity Program). At the draw party, Jacobsen and Lewis called up a variety of old pros to tell stories about long-ago Clambakes and the olden days on Tour. “We want to keep that heritage alive,” says Jacobsen.

Ray Romano, Peter Jacobson

This reverence for the past was a nice contrast with the tournament’s rock ‘n roll soul. Music blasted on the driving range, a live band performed on the 14th tee of MPCC’s Dunes course during play, and the Golf Party concluded on Wednesday evening with a rip-roaring jam session featuring musicians Darius Rucker, Jake Owen, Jason Scheff of the band Chicago, Ben Rector, Griffin House and Joe Horowitz. (Lewis no longer performs due to hearing issues related to having contracted Ménière's disease.) “It’s hard to have more fun than this at a golf tournament,” said Champions tour vet Chris DiMarco.

Jacobsen, 71, won seven PGA TOUR events, two major championships on the over-50 circuit and the U.S. Open in Tin Cup. He runs a successful event management business while supporting numerous charities and good causes. But he thinks the Golf Party will be a key part of his legacy as it grows into a staple of the golf calendar. “The essence of the game is being with friends and having a good time,” says Jacobsen. “There’s nothing like golf for bringing people together.”

The author takes a crack.