Pebble Beach Live Cameras: Highway 1 & US Open Traffic

Pebble Beach Golf Links is one of the most famous golf courses in the world, opened in 1919 on the cliffs of the Monterey Peninsula overlooking Carmel Bay. Owned by the Pebble Beach Company, it made history in 1972 as the first course open to the public to host a US Open, and it has hosted six through 2019 with the seventh scheduled for 2027. The USGA has designated it an anchor site for a run of championships stretching to 2048, and it hosts the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am every February. Uniquely for a venue of its stature, it sits inside a private, gated community and along the scenic 17-Mile Drive.

That setting defines the traffic story. The Monterey Peninsula is served by essentially one arterial, Highway 1, and Pebble Beach itself is reached through toll gates on the 17-Mile Drive. During a major championship the roads simply cannot absorb the crowd, so the model is remote parking and shuttles, with driving to the course discouraged outright. TrafficVision aggregates live camera feeds from Caltrans covering Highway 1 and the peninsula approaches, all free to view with no account required.

Approach Corridors to Pebble Beach

Because Highway 1 is the only real artery onto the peninsula, its cameras are the most useful check before any drive toward Pebble Beach, and never more so than during a championship when Caltrans actively steers traffic away from it. On a normal day, the 17-Mile Drive's gates meter the flow into Pebble Beach itself.

Championship Traffic: Park-and-Ride, Not Drive-Up

For a US Open, there is essentially no on-site public parking, and the entire crowd moves by shuttle. In 2019, all fans arriving by car were directed to satellite parking at CSU Monterey Bay in Marina, with more than 16,000 spaces and continuous shuttles running from early morning until after play, a ride of roughly 30 to 35 minutes each way. The plan was the product of an 18-month, multi-agency process involving the USGA, the Pebble Beach Company, the California Highway Patrol, the Monterey County Sheriff, and Caltrans, which recommended avoiding Highway 1 entirely.

The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am each February follows the same shape: free spectator parking at CSU Monterey Bay with tournament shuttles to the Pebble Beach main gate, plus shuttle origins in Pacific Grove and Carmel. The evergreen takeaway for any major event here: plan on a satellite lot and a shuttle, watch the Highway 1 cameras, and do not expect to drive up to the course.

Getting to the Peninsula

Pebble Beach is about a two-hour drive from the San Francisco Bay Area and roughly 75 miles from San Jose, almost all of it converging onto Highway 1 for the final approach. Monterey-Salinas Transit provides the regional bus network and publishes event-specific guidance during majors. For most visitors, timing the drive around the Highway 1 cameras, then using the sanctioned shuttle system for a championship, is the difference between a smooth trip and hours of delay.

Year-Round Traffic on the 17-Mile Drive

Even without a championship, Pebble Beach generates steady traffic. It is a public resort course with paid tee times, and the 17-Mile Drive is one of the most-visited scenic drives in California, gated and tolled from sunrise to sunset and drawing a continuous stream of visitors to the Lone Cypress and the coastal viewpoints. That year-round tourist flow, funneled through the same gates and along the same Highway 1 approach, means the cameras are useful any time you are heading to the peninsula, not just on event weekends.

Coverage Across the Monterey Peninsula and California

For the wider network these roads belong to, our Monterey traffic cameras guide covers the peninsula and Highway 1, and the California traffic cameras guide covers the full Caltrans camera set statewide. Since much of the crowd drives down from the Bay Area, the San Francisco traffic cameras guide covers the start of that roughly two-hour run down US-101 and Highway 1.