The Only Two Days a Year Pebble Beach Golf Links Is Closed
Pebble Beach Golf Links is accustomed to giving way for big events.
The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am comes every winter. U.S. Opens have been contested here. Some of the greatest moments in golf history have unfolded along these fairways.
But even then, Pebble Beach is still a golf course.
There are only two days each year when Pebble Beach Golf Links closes completely and no golfers tee it up.
And it isn’t for golf.
It’s for cars.
Two Days Without a Tee Time
According to the Pebble Beach Golf Links pro shop, the course closes for just two days each year, during the weekend of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
That’s a remarkable distinction when you consider the demand for a tee time here.
Pebble Beach’s published 2026 green fee is $695 per player. On a typical summer day, golfers can tee off from roughly 7:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.
Assume foursomes going off every 10 minutes and the math looks like this:
48 tee times × 4 golfers = 192 rounds per day.
At $695 per player, that’s approximately $133,440 in potential green fees each day.
Over two days:
$266,880.
More than a quarter-million dollars in potential green fees comes off the books so Pebble Beach can make way for the Concours.
And that’s just the tee sheet.
It doesn’t include caddies, carts, food and beverage, merchandise and all the other spending associated with nearly 400 rounds at one of the world’s great golf destinations.
Of course, Pebble Beach isn’t simply giving up that revenue. The Concours has grown into one of the world’s premier automotive events and brings an entirely different level of activity to the resort.
But the economics help illustrate just how significant the event has become.
How Cars Took Over Pebble Beach
The relationship dates back to 1950, when the first Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance was held in conjunction with the inaugural Pebble Beach Road Races.
It was a much smaller affair then, with roughly 30 cars participating.
In 1952, the Concours moved to the area surrounding Pebble Beach’s famous 18th green. As the event grew, so did its footprint, eventually expanding onto the golf course itself.
Today, the transformation is extraordinary.
The 18th fairway becomes the primary show field, while the event and its infrastructure extend across the closing stretch of Pebble Beach, encompassing areas around the 17th and 18th holes and reaching toward the opening hole near The Lodge.
These aren’t just any three holes.
The 17th and 18th comprise one of the most recognizable finishing stretches in golf. The 18th fairway curling along Carmel Bay may be the single most photographed finishing hole in the game.
For 363 days of the year, this ground belongs to golfers.
For two days, it belongs to automobiles.
The Ultimate Pebble Beach Transformation
That’s what makes Concours weekend so fascinating from a golfer’s perspective.
This isn’t a parking lot being converted into a car show.
It’s Pebble Beach Golf Links.
It’s the ground where Jack Nicklaus hit the flagstick with a 1-iron on the 17th in the final round of the 1972 U.S. Open. It’s where Tiger Woods finished off his historic 15-shot victory in 2000. It’s where generations of golfers have walked toward the Pacific on one of the most famous finishing holes in the world.
Then, once every August, the flags come down, the golfers disappear and some of the rarest automobiles on Earth roll onto the fairways.
And Pebble Beach willingly gives up more than a quarter-million dollars in potential green fees to make it happen.
There are plenty of prestigious car shows.
But there is only one important enough to close Pebble Beach.
And it gets exactly two days a year.