Ranking the 5 U.S. Opens played at Pebble Beach

1. 1982 – Tom Watson

As a college student at Stanford, Tom Watson would play Pebble Beach and imagine having to par the last four holes to beat Jack Nicklaus and win the U.S. Open. Years later, he got the opportunity.

In 1982, Watson was making his 11th appearance at the U.S. Open, but despite six top-10 finishes had never managed to win. He started off the tournament with two even-par rounds and was five back after 36 holes. On the range after his second round, Watson remembered an old tip from Sam Snead to keep his left arm close to his body on his backswing. After working on that adjustment, Watson went to his caddie Bruce Edwards and told him, “I’ve got it.”

Watson went out and fired a four-under 68 on Saturday, tying Bill Rogers for the 54-hole lead. Still tied for the lead making the turn in the final round, his approach to the 10th went to the left of the green and onto the steep bank. Watson was fortunate to find a playable lie in the thick rough and chipped out to 25 feet, then holed the putt to save par. He made a long birdie at the 11th to take the lead and added another from the back of the green at 14.

Now leading Nicklaus by one with four holes to play, Watson was faced with the same situation he had often pictured in his mind. He dropped a shot at the 16th, though, to fall into a tie with Nicklaus going to the par-three 17th. Watson’s tee shot went long and to the left, settling in thick rough on a downhill lie, a difficult shot even to get close to the pin.

But little did anyone know that Watson had spent most of the week preparing for this very situation, practicing hitting these downhill chip shots. When Edwards told him to get it close, Watson turned to him and said, “Get it close? Hell, I’m going to hole it.”

With Nicklaus watching on television after already finishing his round, Watson’s ball bounced onto the green and rolled toward the pin before dropping in for a birdie. Knowing he now had a one-shot lead with a hole to go to win the U.S. Open, Watson ran around the green in excitement before heading to the 18th.

He decided to lay up at the par-five and hit his third shot to 20 feet above the hole. Needing two putts for the win, Watson only used one, holing the birdie to beat Nicklaus by two.

Watson’s chip-in at the 17th remains one of the most memorable shots in tournament history. As if the golf gods ordained that no one should replicate it, the exact spot where he hit from was swallowed up by the ocean during a storm the following winter.