Pebble Beach 2026: When Power, Celebrity, and Golf Collide—And Why That’s Actually Good for the Game

Look, I’ve been covering professional golf for 35 years. I’ve caddied for major champions, watched the Tour evolve through boom and bust cycles, and I’ve learned that when a pro-am field reads like a guest list for a billionaire’s wedding, something interesting is happening in the sport—for better or worse.

The 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is shaping up to be exactly that kind of event. And after spending a few days analyzing the roster, I think what we’re seeing here is less about celebrity circus and more about golf’s genuine ascendancy in American culture right now.

The Power Player Surge

First, the obvious: Travis Kelce playing in this thing is a megawatt statement. The guy’s engaged to Taylor Swift—we’re talking about someone who moves cultural needles that most professional athletes can’t even see. That he’s showing up at Pebble Beach with a 10 handicap tells you that golf has become aspirational in ways it wasn’t even five years ago.

But here’s what really strikes me about this field: it’s not just celebrities pretending to care about golf. Look at the actual amateurs competing. We’re talking about:

• Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo!, playing scratch golf and serving on the USGA board
• Jake Owen, the country musician, carrying a legitimate 1 handicap
• Alex Smith, the former NFL quarterback, playing for his second consecutive year with Mackenzie Hughes
• David Abeles, TaylorMade’s CEO, paired with World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler for the second straight year

These aren’t dilettantes checking a bucket list item. These are serious players who’ve invested real time in becoming competent golfers. In my experience, that’s always been the marker of whether a pro-am field has integrity or is just celebrity window dressing.

The Augusta Connection: A New Golf Establishment

What really fascinated me while reviewing this roster was the concentration of Augusta National members in the field. We’ve got Condoleezza Rice, Jimmy Dunne, Heidi Ueberroth, and several others who wear that green jacket to tournaments. That’s not random casting—that’s institutional weight.

“A star-studded field has been assembled for the 2026 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, including all of the world’s top-10 golfers along with a number of high-profile sports stars, the Governor of Florida and figures from the business world such as founders, CEOs and billionaires.”

I’ve covered 15 Masters. I’ve watched how Augusta National operates, and I can tell you: they don’t just hand out membership or invite to their social functions lightly. The fact that this many institutional gatekeepers are at Pebble Beach signals something we often miss in golf coverage—there’s a real establishment forming around the sport, and it extends well beyond the PGA Tour itself.

Jimmy Dunne’s presence is particularly interesting given his history brokering the original PGA Tour-PIF framework deal in 2022 and his subsequent resignation from the Policy Board in 2024. Having him at Pebble Beach, still actively competing alongside his five club memberships (Augusta, Seminole, Cypress Point, Pine Valley, National Golf Links—basically golf’s version of the Fortune 5), tells you that the power dynamics in this sport remain remarkably stable despite all the recent turbulence.

The CEO Golf Arms Race

Here’s where it gets really interesting: the sheer concentration of corporate power in this field is staggering. We’ve got the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Adobe, Palo Alto Networks, SoFi, TaylorMade, and Kohler Company all teeing it up. The owner of the Denver Broncos. The CEO of the Walmart board. Chuck Schwab—whose name is literally on the PGA Tour Champions trophy.

“David Solomon is the CEO of Goldman Sachs, the investment bank which has a current market cap of $285bn. Solomon is a regular competitor in this event, having previously teamed with former Goldman Sachs ambassador Patrick Cantlay.”

In my three decades covering this sport, I’ve never seen corporate golf become this weaponized as a status symbol. And I don’t mean that cynically. What’s happening is that golf—the actual game—has become proof of belonging to a certain tier of American success. You can’t fake a single-digit handicap. You can’t buy your way past a well-struck fairway.

That appeals to ambitious people, and ambitious people tend to be the ones running things.

The Balance Question

Now, here’s the honest part: there’s a legitimate tension here worth acknowledging. When you stack a field this heavily with power, wealth, and celebrity, you risk overshadowing the professional golfers who are actually competing for prize money and ranking points. The narrative becomes about Travis Kelce’s golf game or David Solomon’s handicap rather than whether Scottie Scheffler can extend his dominance or how a young player like Ludvig Aberg performs against top-tier competition.

But I’d argue that’s a feature, not a bug, at an event like Pebble Beach. The Pro-Am format is supposed to blend worlds. It’s supposed to be aspirational. It’s supposed to remind us that golf—unlike almost any other sport—is genuinely playable by anyone with dedication and time.

“Playing off a handicap of 1 and plays at the Golf Club of Tennessee and the Indian River Club in Vero Beach, Florida.”

Jake Owen, a country music star, shooting that kind of handicap? That’s not celebrity golf. That’s someone who loves the game.

What This Field Actually Means

After 35 years in this business, I’ve learned to read fields like tea leaves. The 2026 Pebble Beach field tells me that golf has transcended its traditional upper-class country club image without losing its institutional dignity. You’ve got former Secretaries of State and NFL quarterbacks, titans of finance and tech founders, all genuinely competing in the same tournament.

That’s powerful. That’s healthy. And that’s a sport that’s genuinely growing beyond the traditional boundaries that once defined it.

The real story of this Pebble Beach isn’t that it’s star-studded. It’s that the stars actually belong there—because they’ve earned their place in a game that doesn’t lie about ability.