The Pebble Beach Pro-Am is basically two tournaments happening at once: one for the pros and one for pro‑am teams , all over some of the most famous courses in golf.

Big picture: how it works

  • 80 PGA Tour professionals and 80 amateurs (often celebrities or CEOs) tee it up together.
  • Each pro is paired with one amateur, so there are 80 two‑player teams.
  • There are effectively:
    • an individual stroke‑play event for pros (for FedEx Cup points, world ranking, and big money), and
    • a team pro‑am event using a best‑ball format.

Courses and schedule

  • The event is played on:
    • Pebble Beach Golf Links (host course) and
    • Spyglass Hill Golf Course.
  • Over the first two days:
    • Every pro‑am team plays one round at Pebble Beach and one at Spyglass Hill.
* The field is split so that about 40 pros (and their partners) are on each course each day, grouped into foursomes.
  • The tournament runs over 72 holes for the pros (four rounds), but the amateur competition only runs for the first 36 holes (two rounds).

Scoring: pros vs teams

Pros (individual tournament)

  • Pros play normal PGA Tour stroke play:
    • Every shot counts, lowest total score after 72 holes wins the pro event.
  • Their score is completely independent of how the amateur plays, even though they’re in the same group.

Pro‑am teams (best‑ball net)

  • The team event uses net best ball of partners :
    • Both the pro and the amateur play their own ball on every hole.
* For the team score, you take the **better** of the two scores on each hole **after the amateur’s handicap is applied**.
  • Amateur handicaps:
    • Typically range from about 0 (no strokes) up to around 16, which can mean one stroke on most holes except the easiest ones.
  • The lowest 36‑hole team total (after two rounds) wins the pro‑am; the team competition does not continue into the weekend.

Example:
On a par‑4, the pro makes 4, the amateur has a course‑handicap stroke on that hole and makes 5. Net, the amateur is 4, so the team score for that hole is 4.

Cuts and weekend format

Recent changes turned Pebble Beach into a “Signature Event,” which also changed the cut rules.

  • Old style (pre‑2024, for context):
    • Cut after 54 holes: low 60 pros and ties continued; low 25 pro‑am teams and ties played Sunday.
  • Current style (Signature Event era):
    • No cut for the pros: all 80 pros play all four rounds.
* The **pro‑am competition ends Friday** after 36 holes; a team winner is crowned, and amateurs are done.

* Saturday and Sunday: only pros compete at Pebble Beach for the individual title.

Money, points, and playoff

  • The winning pro gets:
    • 700 FedEx Cup points and a significant world‑ranking boost (around 65–71 OWGR points depending on year).
* A large first prize (e.g., around 3.6 million dollars from a 20‑million‑dollar purse in recent editions).
  • If there’s a tie for the pro title after 72 holes:
    • They go to a sudden‑death playoff on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach, repeating until someone wins a hole outright.

How people on forums describe it

Golf fans often explain it like this: the pro is essentially playing one ball for two leaderboards.

  • For the pro leaderboard , only the pro’s own score counts.
  • For the team leaderboard , you compare the pro’s score to the amateur’s net score and take the lower one each hole.
  • Typically, the top 25 teams (in the older format) or just the top few teams in the new format would be the ones actually in the hunt by the end of Friday.

Quick HTML table summary

html

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Aspect</th>
      <th>Pros</th>
      <th>Pro‑Am Teams</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Field</td>
      <td>80 PGA Tour players.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>80 teams (1 pro + 1 amateur).[web:1][web:3][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Courses (first two days)</td>
      <td>One round at Pebble Beach, one at Spyglass Hill.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>Same as pros, in the same groups.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Format</td>
      <td>72‑hole stroke play, low total wins.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>Net best‑ball of partners over 36 holes.[web:1][web:2][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Handicaps</td>
      <td>No handicap for pros.[web:1][web:5]</td>
      <td>Amateurs get handicap strokes, often up to around 16.[web:1][web:5]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Duration</td>
      <td>Four rounds (Thursday–Sunday).[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>Two rounds (Thursday–Friday) only.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Cut</td>
      <td>No cut; all 80 pros play all four rounds in current format.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>Competition ends after 36 holes; team winner decided Friday.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Playoff</td>
      <td>Sudden‑death, typically on 18 at Pebble Beach.[web:1][web:5]</td>
      <td>No playoff once the team winner is decided.[web:1][web:5][web:7]</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

TL;DR:
Pros play their own four‑round stroke‑play tournament, while at the same time each pro‑am duo is playing a two‑round net best‑ball event using the amateur’s handicap, with the team winner crowned Friday and the pros finishing the big‑money event alone on the weekend.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.