Justin Thomas is not the Lorax but he speaks for the trees.
He thinks golf courses cut down too many of them.
Thomas said as much this week in a social-media post, citing a hole on a famous course to underscore his point: the par-4 16th at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
At 400 yards from the tips, the hole plays gently downhill from the tee, followed by an approach over a gully and between goal posts of Monterey cypress trees. At least, it used to. In early September, Pebble Beach removed the tree on the right, which stood some 90 yards short of the green.
In his commentary, Thomas criticized the change while making a broader case against tree removal.
“Such a great hole,” he wrote. “Makes no sense to me why they’d do this. When are places going to realize getting rid of trees is not the answer to making courses better.”
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A prominent player knocking a prominent course was always going to draw attention, especially on a subject that arouses strong opinions. Tree removal has become a familiar flashpoint in an era defined by Golden Age restorations aimed at stripping courses back to the way they used to play, tree-lined corridors included.
Sure enough, armchair architects were quick to chime in. Some backed Thomas; others bashed Pebble. Still others blamed the USGA, claiming — without evidence — that the governing body ordered the tree gone to prep the course for next year’s U.S. Open, which returns to Pebble Beach for the seventh time. Turns out some critics were barking up the wrong tree.
Thomas himself had committed an error of omission by failing to address the why. Courses remove trees for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with design philosophy. Some are agronomic: trees compete with turf for sunlight and water, they can choke off the airflow healthy grass needs, and their roots have a knack for cracking drainage pipes and cart paths. Courses plant trees for plenty of reasons, too — sometimes for strategy, but also for aesthetics, or safety, to keep golfers on tightly routed holes from getting in each other’s crossfire.
In the case of the tree on the 16th at Pebble, the USGA had nothing to do with it. A spokesperson for the government made that plain in an email to GOLF, and Pebble Beach corroborated it.
The real explanation for removing the tree, a Pebble Beach spokesperson wrote in an email, was health. The tree “had become diseased and infested beyond recovery, despite our best efforts to treat it over the past two years. It was removed upon recommendation from a local certified arborist to prevent the risk of spreading to neighboring trees.”
Courses lose trees all the time, and Pebble is no exception. This past spring, the resort replaced a Cypress tree in the 18th fairway that had been toppled in a 2014 storm. In 2002, an 80-foot Monterey cypress was planted beside the 18th green, taken from the 1st hole to replace the original, which had died of pitch canker disease.
That transplanting — digging a giant hole, maneuvering a giant root ball into a place — was something of a spectacle. But it wasn’t spread and distorted by social media.
The facts are these: The tree is gone, and it was removed because it was sick. Reasonable people can disagree as to whether the hole is better or worse without it. Pebble Beach told GOLF that it will stay in touch with its arborist about the possibility of planting something new in its place. That’s TBD. If it remains a bare spot, count on Justin Thomas being asked about it at the U.S. Open next year.
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