PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Taylor Swift boosted ticket sales to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am without even being there.
Pebble Beach had an extra buzz Friday morning with rumors swirling in the cool Pacific breeze Swift would be there to watch her fiancé, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, playing in the PGA Tour event that combines corporate CEOs and celebrities with golf's best.
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Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce reacts after putting on the first hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs hits the tee off the 13th hole at Spyglass Hill in the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, Calif., on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce, left, fist bumps Keith Mitchell after making a putt on the 10th green at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce hits from the second fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Alas, Swifties, it was just another pretty day at Pebble Beach.
“It was busy without her,” said Mackenzie Hughes, who played in the group. “With her, I think it would have literally been pandemonium.”
It still was good news for the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, which runs the event. Tournament Director Steve John said when Kelce was announced as playing in the pro-am, more than $60,000 in tickets were sold over the next 12 hours.
Swift is rumored to be in town. But she was not at Spyglass Hill on Thursday, where Kelce was playing with pro partner Keith Mitchell along with Hughes and retired NFL quarterback Alex Smith.
No matter. Pebble Beach is the main attraction, and John said some $21,000 tickets for the second round were sold between 6:30 p.m. Thursday and 6:30 a.m. Friday, two hours before Kelce played.
More than 1,000 spectators lined the left side of the first fairway at Pebble Beach, but all they saw was Kelce hitting his tee shot to the right, into and out of the trees, and along the cart path (he made a par).
Sure, there was plenty of Chiefs gear in the crowd, one young girl wearing a Kansas City sweatshirt. The tournament has a long history of athletes over the years, including Ken Griffey Jr. playing in a group with Tiger Woods some 20 years ago, Aaron Rodgers and Roger Clemens, who once made a hole-in-one.
This, however, was clearly a Swift moment. Except that it wasn't.
John and his tournament staff left nothing to chance. When he wasn't busy responding to text messages — will she be there or not? — he had plans in place for security, for transportation across the course, even a secure suite overlooking the 18th green.
Even when it was clear Swift was not at Pebble Beach, the tunnel leading from the 18th green to the scoring area included CBS announcer Jim Nantz and CBS Sports president David Berson. Nantz, whose network has the AFC, shared a long chat with Kelce and arranged for a few photos.
Kelce chose not to stop for interviews. Hughes, who described himself as a fringe Swiftie, said it was a treat to play with Kelce, whom he described as a “great personality, great vibe.”
“He even said it hasn't always been this way,” Hughes said of so much attention on Swift. “But since they're now engaged it's like, ‘My life has changed a little bit.’ Even for him to say that, that's pretty telling. He's already a pretty big star.”
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce reacts after putting on the first hole at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs hits the tee off the 13th hole at Spyglass Hill in the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, Calif., on Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce, left, fist bumps Keith Mitchell after making a putt on the 10th green at Spyglass Hill Golf Course during the first round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce hits from the second fairway at Pebble Beach Golf Links during the second round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in Pebble Beach, Calif., Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin, the American figure skating sensation known as the “Quad God,” proved to be a mere mortal after all.
The 21-year-old from Northern Virginia fell twice during a disastrous free skate at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday night, sending him tumbling all the way off the podium and allowing Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan to claim a stunning gold medal.
“I blew it,” Malinin said afterward, poised and magnanimous in defeat. “That’s honestly the first thing that came to my mind.”
Malinin led by a comfortable margin after the short program and merely had to deliver a mediocre performance Friday night to add individual gold to his team gold medal. Instead, the two-time reigning world champion was trying to hold back the tears after one of the worst nights of his career, one that left a star-packed crowd inside Milano Ice Arena sitting in stunned silence.
“Honestly, yeah, I was not expecting that,” Malinin said. “I felt going into this competition I was so ready. I just felt ready going on that ice. I think maybe that might have been the reason, is I was too confident it was going to go well.”
Shaidorov finished with a career-best 291.58 points to give his nation its first gold medal of the Winter Games, while Yuma Kagiyama earned his second consecutive Olympic silver medal and Japanese teammate Shun Sato took bronze.
Then there was Malinin, who dropped all the way to eighth place. He finished with 264.49 points, his worst total score in nearly four years, and one that ended a two-plus year unbeaten streak that covered 14 full competitions around the world.
“The nerves just went so overwhelming,” Malinin said, “and especially going into that starting pose, I just felt like all the ... traumatic moments of my life really just started flooding my head, and there’s just like, so many negative thoughts that just flooded into there and I just did not handle it.”
Much of Malinin’s journey in the Milan Cortina Games had felt a little bit off.
He was beaten by Kagiyama in the short program of the team event, later acknowledging for the first time that the pressure of winning at the Olympics had started to get to him. And he still wasn’t quite his dominant self despite a head-to-head win over Sato in the team free skate, which clinched the second consecutive gold medal for the Americans in the event.
But by the time of his individual short program Tuesday night, Malinin’s fearless swagger and unrivaled spunk seemed to be back. He took a five-point lead over Kagiyama and Adam Siao Him Fa of France that seemed insurmountable going into Friday night.
Malinin had decided to practice early in the day at U.S. Figure Skating’s alternate training base in Bergamo, just outside of Milan, allowing him to escape the Olympic bubble and avoid sitting in the arena all night. And he was the essence of calm throughout his warmup, never once falling in all of his practice jumps while wearing his familiar glittering black and gold ensemble.
Then came a performance that might well haunt Malinin for the rest of his career.
As the atmospheric music with his own voice-over began to play, he opened with a quad flip, one of a record-tying seven quads in his planned program, then appeared to be going after the quad axel only he has ever landed in competition and had to bail out of it.
Malinin recovered to land his quad lutz before his problems really began.
He only doubled a planned quad loop, throwing his timing off. He fell on a quad lutz, preventing him from doing the second half of the quad lutz-triple toe loop combination that would have earned him big points. And in his final jumping pass, which was supposed to be a high-scoring quad salchow-triple axel, Malinin only could muster a double salchow — and he fell on that.
By the time the music stopped, Malinin was left trying to mask his sorrow for a crowd that included Nathan Chen, the 2022 Olympic champion, along with seven-time Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles, actor Jeff Goldblum and his wife, Emilie.
“I’ve been through a lot,” Malinin said. “Being the Olympic gold hopeful is really just a lot to deal with, especially for my age.”
Shaidorov was just as shocked as everyone as the realization hit that he had won the gold medal.
He was only in sixth after the short program and an afterthought as the night began. But the 21-year-old known for high-flying jumps but maddening inconsistency delivered the performance of his life, landing five quads in a technically flawless program.
It seemed altogether fitting that Coldplay’s song “Viva La Vida” played after the medal ceremony, as Shaidorov and his fellow medalists from Japan took a victory lap. “I used to rule the world,” the lyrics begin.
“I went up to him and I congratulated him,” Malinin said of the new Olympic champion, “because watching him skate – I watched him the locker room – I’m just so proud of him. I heard that he had not a great season.”
AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan reacts to his scores after competing during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Mikhail Shaidorov of Kazakhstan competes during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Ilia Malinin of the United States does a back flip while competing during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States falls during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's free skate program in figure skating at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Ilia Malinin of the United States competes during the men's figure skating short program at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
Ilia Malinin of the United States wobbles while competing during the figure skating men's team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
