By Sarah Joplin | Photos by Joann Dost
Pros, scratch players, and duffers all agree that if you’ve played Pebble Beach, then you consider it as the ultimate round, and if you haven’t, then it’s high on your bucket list. You don’t even have to be a golfer to recognize the stunning beauty of the fabled course and how its seemingly angelic placement on the dreamlike stretch of California coast defies hyperbole. Former LPGA player-turned-golflandscape photographer Joann Dost fell under its spell in the mid-1970s and has called the surrounding area home for the better part of the past 40 years.
Dost landed a handful of dream jobs all related to photography at Pebble Beach, starting with an assignment for which she reported to Clint Eastwood for a 1982 U.S. Open book and culminating, in 2015, with the publication of The Ultimate Round: Pebble Beach Golf Links—An Illustrated Guide to America’s Majestic Dream Course. The latter was commissioned by Pebble Beach Company retail as a lead-up to the 2019 U.S. Open and the company’s centennial. Given Dost and her team’s long-standing working relationship with Pebble Beach Company, they were chosen to produce the compendium of the famed links. It conveys the place’s beauty and chronicles its history, providing a coffee-table, book-style yardage guide replete with players tips and offering readers the next best thing to being there as they page through, from cover to cover.
Drawing on her Rolodex containing many of the game’s greats, Dost compiled quotes attesting to Pebble Beach as the pinnacle of golf. Pebble Beach is an incredible balance of challenge and enchantment. With nine amazingly beautiful holes on the ocean, it always compels you to want to return.
With the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-AM Golf Tournament drawing international attention again this winter, Dost will be in attendance with her camera, ready to capture event highlights as they play out against the ultimate backdrop of Pebble Beach Golf Links. -------------------------- Images Copyright Joann Dost Pebble Beach Golf Links, The Lone Cypress, their images and hole designs are trademarks, service marks and trade dress of Pebble Beach Company. Used under license.