AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Hoge remaining focused after hot start

Tom Hoge fires 63, nine under par round, makes six consecutive birdies, and has no plans of letting up as he aims for PGA Tour win number one.

Tom Hoge was electric during Thursday’s opening round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and even though he sits top of the pile after the first round, he is not satisfied, in fact, he already has his sights set on another low round on Friday.

“there’s a lot of great players out here, conditions look pretty good for the weekend, so I know that I got to keep moving forward.”     -Tom Hoge

The 32-year-old Hoge has been playing on the PGA Tour since 2015 and he is still in search of that first win on Tour. He came close to that first win at last year’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am when he entered Sunday’s final round just two shots back of leader Jordan Spieth, but after a one-under-par Sunday finish, his chances were ended.

Hoge leads by one after his excellent opening round on Thursday this time around, and he knows he needs to keep the pedal down as he goes into the second round on Friday.

” you feel like you got to keep making birdies the whole way because there’s a lot of great players out here, conditions look pretty good for the weekend, so I know that I got to keep moving forward. And Monterey’s very scorable tomorrow, so I hope to keep it going.” he said after his round on Thursday.

Conditions for the rest of the weekend do look good, and he is playing Monterey Peninsula on Friday, so he is correct on both fronts. Monterey Peninsula’s (Shore Course) played nearly a stroke and a half easier than the more difficult Spyglass Hill on Thursday, and it was the easiest of the three courses during round one.

Hoge has had a mixed start to 2022

The New Year has started with a missed-cut, 2nd, missed-cut for Tom. The 2nd place finish came at the American Express a few weeks ago at another tournament that implements a multiple-course rotation. Hoge struggled at the Farmers last week and after opening with a three-under-par, 69, he produced a two-over-par, 74, on the more difficult South Course the following day.

When asked about his performance at Torrey Pines last week he had this to say “I drove it in the rough a few too many times and just didn’t make enough putts.”. He has certainly made a significant amount of putts so far this week and that may be attributed to a brand new putter that was in the bag for this week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

” I switched putters this week. To see one go in right off the bat today on the first hole was huge for me. I felt like I made a lot of good putts there today”. I’ll say, he was terrific on Thursday and he garnered nearly four strokes gained on the greens.

Of course, he also was good on the greens here last year, so maybe he just has the magic touch on these poa annua greens at Pebble Beach. The problem last year for Hoge came from off the tee, he just didn’t find enough fairways to earn his first win.

This was highlighted on Sunday on the iconic 18th hole at Pebble Beach when he managed to somehow drive his tee-shot into the cypress tree along the fairway. Luck was not on his side, the ball was not found, and he had to go back to the tee for a second tee-shot.  It cost him a top 10 finish as he went on to finish 12th after his adventure on the final hole.

Hoge has made improvements driving the ball in 2022, and even with a few fairways missed last week he still has gained strokes off the tee in each start to begin the New Year. He is fully aware that he will need to keep that up if he is to stay on top of the leaderboard this time, to “Keep moving forward” as he put it.