How Taylor Swift Caused a Rush of Ticket Sales for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

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“Taylor Swift might be there.”
That was likely what many Swifties thought when Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end who’s engaged to Swift, entered the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which pairs celebrities with PGA Tour pros over the first two rounds.
As a result, the galleries Friday on Pebble’s Spyglass Hill course were large, following Kelce, who played with Tour pros Keith Mitchell, Mackenzie Hughes and retired NFL quarterback Alex Smith.
Much to those fans’ disappointment, though, Swift didn’t show up.
“It was busy without [Swift],” Hughes told the Associated Press. “With her, I think it would have literally been pandemonium.”
Regardless, the event benefited from just the hope that Swift might attend. Steve John, the tournament director, told the AP that when it was revealed Kelce would participate in the pro-am, nearly $60,000 in tickets were sold in the following 12 hours.
And between Kelce’s first-and-second-round tee times, roughly $21,000 in tickets were purchased, yielding over 1,000 fans lining up the side of the fairway Friday morning.
"I brought out the old visor ... I've got the cashmere on."
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 13, 2026
Cashmere (@TKelce) respects Kashmere (@K_M_Mitchell) 🫡
📺 Golf Channel pic.twitter.com/U19pZjoLsf
Knowing that it was a possibility Swift might arrive on-site, John said the tournament planned for enhanced security measures, along with transportation around the course for Swift and a private, secure suite that overlooked the 18th green.
Had Swift been sitting in there when her fiancé played last, she would have seen a turbulent end to his round. According to Golfweek, Kelce hit a fan in the gallery with his second shot. Afterward, he went to check on them, signed something, picked up his ball and walked off the course.
Kelce and Mitchell finished T35 on the pro-am leaderboard at 11 under par, while Keegan Bradley and Mark Meeker, a venture capitalist, won that division at 20 under par.
Akshay Bhatia and Ryo Hisatsune lead the professional leaderboard by one stroke at 15 under.
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Max Schreiber is a contributor to the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated, covering golf. Before joining SI in October 2024, the Mahwah, N.J., native, worked as an associate editor for the Golf Channel and wrote for RyderCup.com and FanSided. He is a multiplatform producer for Newsday and has a bachelor's in communications and journalism from Quinnipiac University. In his free time, you can find him doing anything regarding the Yankees, Giants, Knicks and Islanders.