Carmel Valley resident Alan Shipnuck started his career as the editor of the newspaper at Washington Middle School in Salinas and as a 16-year-old stringer for The Salinas Californian covering high school sports.

“I always knew I wanted to be a sportswriter,” he says. “I was reading Sports Illustrated when I was 10 years old.”

While attending UCLA, he worked at The Daily Bruin, pre-Internet, helping fill 30 pages of sports content every day.

“It was like working for The LA Times,” he says. “It was incredible. I was flying to football and basketball games in Arizona, Washington and Oregon. So by the time I was 20 years old, I’d been a sportswriter for half my life.”

One of Shipnuck’s many lucky breaks occurred at Pebble Beach Golf Links, where he was working as a “cart boy” and met Sports Illustrated Managing Editor Mark Mulvoy, who would come to Pebble Beach every summer.

“I met Mulvoy when I was about to graduate Salinas High and I told him my dream in life was to write for his magazine,” Shipnuck says. “He was nice enough to give me his card. So for two years while I was an undergrad at UCLA, I wrote him letters updating him on my progress at The Daily Bruin, which of course he didn’t really care about. But when he came out again in the summer of ’93, I was waiting for him and after some schmoozing, he offered me an internship. I took a year off from UCLA and moved to New York City. By the end of my internship, I ended up writing a cover story for SI [on Ken Griffey, Jr.]…which secured my place at the magazine.”

Shipnuck returned to L.A., finished his degree in Mass Communications, and on the day he graduated, became the youngest staff writer in Sports Illustrated history. For nearly 25 years, Shipnuck worked at the famous sports magazine, producing dozens of cover stories, receiving multiple writing awards, and honing his interest in golf both as a writer and a player.

In 2018, he switched to working full time at Golf Magazine/GOLF.com, where he remains as a senior writer. He’s also penned six books, which include best-sellers “Bud, Sweat & Tees” and “The Swinger” (co-authored with Michael Bamberger) and is currently completing a biography of Phil Mickelson.

“My journey is very much tied into local golf,” he says. “This area attracts so many interesting people in the golf world who are passionate about the sport and my big break happened on the first tee of Pebble Beach.”

Q: What are some of your sports writing career highlights?

A: I’ve covered 25 Masters and more than 90 of golf’s major championships. The Olympics in Atlanta and Rio. Two Super Bowls, the NCAA basketball tournament. I’ve interviewed so many folks. I've written SI cover stories on Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bubba Watson, Michael Phelps (right after Beijing), Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Tim Tebow, Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and Leonard Fournette.

Q: How did you get from working in sports media in the heart of New York to living back on the Monterey Peninsula?

A: We started having kids at a furious pace and most of the grandparents were back here…so we moved to Carmel almost eight years ago. We lucked into an amazing house in Carmel Valley this summer. With four teenagers doing at-home learning, having the extra space is crucial.

Q: Where did you pick up the sport?

A: No one in my family really played golf. But my mom had a boyfriend who was a golfer who introduced me to the game when I was 13. We’d go out to Quail Lodge and play. My first job at age 16 was as a cart boy at Quail. On my lunch hour, I’d listen to the teaching pros give their lessons and try to steal a few ideas. And I had those three summers as a cart boy at Pebble Beach where I fell in love with the game.

Q: At what point did you progress into a more accomplished golfer?

A: My current index is a 7.1. I’m just good enough to always be frustrated that I’m not better. I don’t play as much golf as I could or should. With four kids and a busy day job and two ongoing book projects, I’m lucky if I play three or four times a month. And I don’t practice very much. I’m just trying to maintain. I always say that when my kids drift away to the real world, that’s when I’m going to get serious and work on my game. I could just be kidding myself.

But I love playing the game, and because of my day job, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to play all over the world. It’s been quite a ride. I’ve played everywhere from New Zealand to Australia, all over Scotland, Ireland, really out of the way places like Morocco, and remote courses in the Alps. It’s just amazing where the game can take you. I’m blessed in that regard. And also, it’s just so much about the people you play with. Most of my best friends are passionate about the sport….It’s an incredible vehicle to spend time with people you care about.

Q: What is it about the Monterey Peninsula that is unusually special for golfers?

A: I’ve played all over the world and had access to all these private exclusive golf courses, but Pebble Beach will always be my favorite golf course. We are so blessed locally. People do come from all over the planet to play golf on the courses that are in our backyard. There’s no golf course that’s more beautiful and dramatic than Pebble Beach, that’s more elegant than Cypress Point, that’s a greater challenge than Spyglass Hill.

I think Monterey Peninsula Country Club is the greatest 36-hole club on the planet, although the folks at Royal Melbourne might disagree. To have two courses that good that play and look so different is really remarkable. And then you have the Preserve, such a pastoral setting in the sunshine that is an incredible getaway. You can go to other side of the Bay to play Pasatiempo, which is a top 100 course and one of Alister MacKenzie’s masterworks.

Bayonet/Blackhorse is a really strong 36-hole public facility. I absolutely love PG Muni, it’s just to me what golf is all about: it’s quirky and fun and affordable. A great melting pot. Overall, you just can’t beat the quantity and the quality we have here. Even in a pretty tight geographic area, there’s so much diversity. From the huge sand dunes at Cypress, to the rocky headlands at Pebble, to the deep forests that envelop Poppy Hills and Spyglass, to the hilltop vistas at Tehama or Pasadera, we just live in one of the most incredible places in all of nature and the courses reflect that.

Q: What are some good local courses for the whole family to enjoy?

A: I think Quail Lodge is one of the most underrated golf courses in this area. To me, it’s so much fun and it’s a charming, sporty layout. Carmel Valley Ranch is a wonderful family resource to learn and fall in love with the game. Poppy Hills is the heartbeat of the NCGA, and kids can go there for $5 through Youth on Course. It’s wonderful. The game needs more of that. For beginners, Monterey Pines is a really nice user-friendly course and the new Peter Hay Par-3

course, redesigned by Tiger Woods, is already coming to life and that’s going to be great fun.

Q: What would you tell an infrequent or beginner golfer to look for in terms of enjoying the game?

A: The biggest benefit is it’s the most social of all games. It starts with friendship. You can have grandkids playing with grandparents, husbands with wives, and with the handicap system, players of all different abilities can compete against each other and have fun. Everyone can be a part of it and feel included and just have fun. If you want to smoke a cigar and drink a beer, you can do that, too. You can play for a lot of money and get the adrenaline rush of that, or you don’t need to even keep score and just enjoy being in nature. There are so many ways to have fun with golf.

It’s such an inclusive sport, despite what people think. There’s a course for everybody, from Peter Hay to Pebble Beach. There are a lot of portals into the game, too. You can take group lessons with friends, and if you have the means and motivation, you can take lessons at Pebble Beach Academy, which is one of the great teaching facilities in California. There are so many ways to come into the game.

Q: What are the differences between the Pro-Am and a U.S. Open at Pebble Beach?

A: The Crosby is kind of a fun local party in a lot of ways and the U.S. Open is a monumentally important event to the whole golf world. It’s always neat for Pebble Beach to be on such a grand stage. It’s great to see Pebble play with its most challenging and interesting setup. Tiger Woods said, ‘There’s nothing like Pebble when it’s set up for the U.S. Open,’ and I couldn’t agree more. The greens are brick hard and so you have to control your ball so precisely. There are more narrow fairways, longer rough, much more devilish pin positions. The USGA just turn up the volume on everything, making the course more of a challenge and a test.

Q: How was it for you playing with your friends on the course right after the U.S. Open concluded?

A: You can have an existential crisis because it’s so hard. You think you know how to play golf, but those conditions will quickly expose your weaknesses, both physical and emotional.

Q: At press time, we are looking toward the 75^th AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, played for the first time without spectators due to COVID-19. How is that going to affect the tournament?

A: I covered the 2020 Masters and the PGA Championship without fans. You definitely miss the energy. For the Crosby Clambake, there’s always been such a close connection between the spectators and those inside the ropes. It’s a format that encourages interaction and fun and silliness. Certainly with the Bill Murrays of the world, but it also helps relax the professionals—they kind of get into it, too. The fans are going to be missed at this tournament more than most any other, but the show must go on. You’d much rather have the tournament without fans than have to cancel it.

We take that tournament for granted, but I know when I lived in New York, I’d sometimes get emotional watching the opening montage on TV that would show dogs on the beach and whales frolicking with the sun shining.

Pebble Beach in February is such a wonderful mental vacation for much of the country, just getting to enjoy all that beauty sitting in your living rooms. That will endure even without spectators. As a television product it will be perfectly enjoyable.

Q: How is golf well-suited as an activity to enjoy during the pandemic?

A: Golf is the perfect sport for the COVID era. It’s very easy to socially distance and there are lots of little changes that have taken place to make it safer, like leaving the flags in the holes so no one has to touch them. You can still get exercise and be with friends and enjoy competition and camaraderie. The benefits and the joys of the game have never been more important than during COVID.

And without school sports, a lot of kids have gotten involved in the game. Nationally, participation rates are through the roof—it’s neat that during this time of need, golf has become a safe haven.

Q: What are some of your most special memories from the golf course?

A: I’ve been blessed to be the first person to tee off at Pebble Beach a handful of times. And at Cypress Point a few times. You are literally making footprints in the dew walking down the fairways. I always get goosebumps and I take a moment to reflect on how lucky I am. Most golfers play these courses once in a lifetime…if they’re lucky! To be able to play on a semi-regular basis, it is a thrill. You sort of float along in a state of euphoria, not just because it’s such a beautiful place and such a great golf course, but also, it’s like the energy of tens of millions of golfers are propelling you along because you know they would give anything to be making those footsteps.

I still feel that way, even though I’ve been playing these courses for a long time now. They are simply the greatest golf courses in the country and maybe the world. That we have access to them is amazing. I will put Monterey Peninsula Country Club on that list as well and Spyglass Hill, these once-in-a-lifetime courses that we get to play at all the time. That is an incredible blessing.

This article originally appeared in 1913 Luxury by the Sea.