Natalie Gulbis out to conquer golf, TV and the free world
Looks like Natalie Gulbis is out to conquer the world.
Not that I’m complaining, but Gulbis recently pulled a cameo spot on The Price Is Right, of all things, shortly after every red-blooded male in North America tossed their televisions out the window after The Donald gassed Nat on Celebrity Apprentice.
Hey, when your golf’s gift to camera-friendliness, you may as well flaunt it.
Not sure I have watched The Price Is Right since coming home for lunch in, oh, about Grade 4 when Bob Barker called the shots (pre Happy Gilmore Days, for those of you keeping score at home), so needless to say I am somewhat surprised TPIR has survived the chopping block all these years. Even with all those babe hostesses.
So, what do I learn? Barker is long gone and fellow Cleveland Browns diehard Drew Carey is now pulling the game levers. Oh, how the mighty have fallen – and by that, we mean in a rotund sort of way.
So who is co-hosting the Showcase Showdown with some other dude we could care less about? Little Miss Emmy – as in Award - herself.
During the bit, for whatever reason, the cameraman felt the need to zoom in on the TaylorMade sticks up for bid while Nat was putting on a makeshift green. Uh, buddy, pan out. Seriously. We can see golf clubs by walking out to the garage.
This is Natalie Gulbis we’re talking about.
Apparently a camera is part of the showcase, since Mr. Co-Host starts snapping pictures. Just to, uh, check out her form. Is that what we call it these days? Yeah, like she’s never heard that line before.
“You’re not going to learn a whole lot by just taking pictures of me putting,” says Nat. Yeah, who said anything about learning?
Deneka, our lucky contestant, didn’t exactly fall out of the ugly tree herself but overbid by just a few hundred bucks, missing out on a chance to win, among other things, nine holes of private golf with Gulbis as well a trip to England to see the Women’s British Open.
Personally, I’d pass on the trip overseas for a full 18 with Gulbis, but that’s just me.
Natalie Gulbis is doing it all. Calendars, photo shoots, Twitter, The Price Is Right, Celebrity Apprentice. Oh, and golfing.
Just one step closer to world domination. Which is nothing but good news for the rest of us.
Sand angels in a bunker for 15 minutes of fame
See, streakers aren’t the only moronic fans in golf.
Remember that poor chap that, uh, fell into a bunker during the final day of The Masters, apparently trying to get his sunglasses and wallet? Turns out he didn’t “fall in” after all. Surprise, surprise.
Steven Davis claims he was sober when he performed his little routine in front of Tiger and Lefty and, if that is indeed the truth, it might explain why, at 34, he is “unmarried and childless.” We’re dropping a ten-spot on the fact he made more than a few trips to the Augusta National beer stand on April 12th and coincidentally ended up on his back, doing sand angels in a bunker. Happens to the best of us.
If it turns out he wasn’t into the sauce and instead was coherent, we would like to offer a premature good luck to the future Mrs. Davis, in whatever alley she may currently be polishing off a bottle of Jack. She’ll need it. Along with a good divorce lawyer.
Let’s give a blow-by-blow account of what happened that afternoon at Augusta, courtesy of the Sandman himself:
As he watched, he started thinking about doing something outrageous. He asked a woman next to him, “What do you think they’d do if I did sand angels in the sand trap with Tiger still on the green?”
They agreed “all hell would break loose.”
So he waited until Woods and Mickelson had hit to the 17th green and were coming down the fairway, then slipped under the ropes and began sprinting.
“I ran maybe 100 yards up the fairway, past the players. I was running as fast as I could,” he said. “I was jumping and hooting and hollering and then I jumped as high as I could and dove into the bunker like a swimming pool.”
The gallery watched in shock.
“The silence,” he said, “was deafening.”
Gee, do you think, Sparky? It’s not everyday you see an attention-deprived idiot pleading for his 15 minutes of fame in a pile of sand. No cameras, no TV, just the gallery and the two best golfers in the world saw you make a complete jackass of yourself. Well done.
At least plant a wet one on Tiger’s cheek. Chug a beer in a Speedo. Streak across the fairway with “LEFTY” scrawled across your cheeks –yes, those ones – in lipstick. Make it something a little more memorable.
Apparently, Davis wanted to thumb his nose at what he perceived as being the stuffed-shirt, arrogant establishment at Augusta, and do something a little daring on golf’s hallowed grounds.
As he was doing his deed in the bunker, Davis says Mickelson peered in with a bewildered scowl.
“The look on his face was priceless. His jaw dropped so far,” said Davis. “He looked me in the eye and was shaking his head like, ‘What’s going on?’ I fist-pumped and said, ‘Go, Phil!’ while I was doing an angel.”
Probably exactly what Lefty wanted to hear some jerk slurring as he watched his green jacket slip away in the minutes before, huh? Davis should consider himself fortunate. He spent a few hours in the pokey and was fined $285. Had Phil been in a less-forgiving mood, they may have had to surgically remove a Callaway from his rear end.
Oh, and he’s banned from Augusta. Forever.
“I don’t care,” said Davis. “I’d never go back again, regardless.”
The state of Georgia mourns.
And Kentucky, consider yourself fortunate. Davis actually toyed with the notion of showing up to the Kentucky Derby and proving he is more than just a one-sport imbecile.
“At that point I would be known as the Sand Angel,” he said. “But when I thought about it, I decided I didn’t need to go to jail again.”
Too bad. We’re thinking Mine That Bird wouldn’t have been nearly as understanding as Lefty.
Naked truth on golf streakers
OK, if you drop your drawers to go streaking at a PGA Tour event and hardly anyone notices, you should have A) refused that last beer and B) kept your clothes on.
Such is the case for some liquored up lush that stripped down to his boxers and darted across the 18th fairway before hopping a fence Sunday during the final round of the Byron Nelson Championship.
Yet nothing is being made of it. Well, almost nothing. Reporters at the Nelson swear it happened, but Google isn’t so sure.
Maybe it’s because the guy gave a bad name to streakers everywhere. Boxers? How daring. So, a guy in shorts with no shirt? Wow, bet you had a tough time finding that in Texas Sunday, huh?
I mean, if you don’t have the ba – er, courage - to get down to the birthday suit, or at least close to it, what’s the point? And I am sure the website that paid you to brandish their URL on your, uh, chest, could have found better ways to spend their money.
Like on this young lady. Or on Mark Roberts, who pulled the stunt at the Super Bowl.
Make an impression, boys. There is humour in going commando if it is done right. Some people are made for streaking.
Others, like this Calgary Flames fan, are not. He got some laughs, but probably showed a little too much when he wiped out hitting the ice and was taken off on a stretcher. Wearing red socks and nothing else.
When done right, streaking is a thing of art. No, mom, I said ART.
So, to toss a lifeline to those who are thinking of darting across fairways in the buff, let’s take a look at ten memorable streaking moments. Well, because we can.
10. This guy gets the award for most cops required to haul off a drunken naked man.
9. Bet you never thought you would see a naked guy wearing just a chicken at a curling bonspiel. Think again.
8. It took security guards four minutes – literally - to catch this streaker so, at the end of his little game of catch me if you can, he figured he was going down anyway so he might as well score.
7. This is the right way to streak in golf. Well, unless you happen to be male.
6. Mom would be so proud. Well, this guy is anyway.
5. Some guys go to a tennis match to show off their gymnastics skills. Among other things.
4. Wasn’t this the guy in Chariots Of Fire? Great form…or at least a heck of a lot better than his pursuers.
3. Best friends, together forever. Even at bail hearings.
2. A must for public streaking: too much beer. But, dude, ditch the black socks. Seriously.
1. The best golf streaker of all time, the legendary Mark Roberts, yet again, at the ’95 British Open. Coincidentally, the event was won by one John Daly. Go figure.
But beware. You’ll get laughs but remember, it was Confucius, I believe, that once said “man who streak soon have crackup.”
Pairings we’d like to see
I don’t ask for a lot when it comes to my golf viewing. A little Sunday afternoon drama, birdie binges, the odd playoff here and there and, occasionally, a little eye candy courtesy the LPGA Tour.
My dream threesome – and get your mind out of the gutter, we’re talking golf here – would have to be Natalie Gulbis, Anna Rawson and, I don’t know, say, Russian newcomer Maria Verchenova. Hey, it’s all about ratings, baby. And who cares if the Verchenova has no status on the LPGA Tour as of yet. Let’s talk exemptions. And plenty of them. Please.
But, when it comes to intriguing groups, it’s all in the name. Just a few pairings that, for once, we’d like to see, even if we have to mix and match from various tours. Hey, it’s not as easy as it looks:
Gay-Pride-Day. No explanation required. And think of all the pretty costumes. Just saying.
Finch-Byrd-Crane. Have to put these guys together. At the Quail Hollow, of course. Duh.
Flesch and Bohn. Bet you weren’t expecting that, were you? Or, though not as creative, Shin-Bohn.
We have yet to find a Yin, so Yim and Yang will have to do.
Wi Wie. Just because.
Bill Paul, talk the PGA Tour into a Wi Love Kanada grouping at the RBC Canadian Open. Oh, and thank me later.
Sharp Points Edge. Oh, and even though Stephen Williams may think of Mickelson as a, um, word that starts with p and rhymes with stick, it is out of context with the theme of this threesome. Honest.
Wi Short Little. And shhhhh. Corey Pavin is getting a complex.
Moody Hagge. Speaking of which, wonder how the ex is doing.
Oh Mann.Light Beem. Job Hunter. Mayo Pepper. Funk Song. Love Yoo Bunch. Points Ames. You get the idea. I need a hobby.
Oh, and there’s a Gump, but no Forrest. Go figure…
Rory McIlroy has a point - Ryder Cup is an exhibition
Psst. Rory McIlroy, word of advice. Don’t speak your mind, even if you’re right.
Seems McIlroy managed to offend an entire continent for suggesting the Ryder Cup was nothing more than an “exhibition” and really wasn’t all that important to him.
Listen closely. You can hear the knickers tightening up as we speak.
“The Ryder Cup, it’s a great spectacle for golf, but an exhibition at the end of the day and it should be there to be enjoyed,” McIlroy said. “I think if I get on it, you know, you enjoy the week, and if you win or lose, it’s a great experience and you move on from it. In the big scheme of things, it’s not that important of an event for me.”
Blasphemy! Somewhere, Colin Montgomerie is doing a slow boil.
And at the risk of ruffling the feathers of traditionalists everywhere, I reckon the kid’s got a point. The Ryder Cup, while certainly a unique, special event, is like the Pro Bowl or baseball’s all star game on steroids. Sure, there’s history, tradition and almost a century’s worth of memories, not to mention a little too much fist-pumping and flag-waving, but an exhibition is exactly what the Ryder Cup is.
So McIlroy, who is just dipping his toe in pro golf’s pond, would rather stay focused on winning majors. Big deal. Any Ryder Cupper would probably say the exact same thing. Professional golfers live for the majors. Not the Ryder Cup. Ask a player in January if he would rather win the green jacket or Open Championship as opposed to making the Ryder Cup team. Gee, wonder what he will say?
Certain people are taking this way too personal. Overseas, some are playing the Seve Ballesteros card, which, given Seve’s current plight, is both childish and unfair to McIlroy. I mean, the kid didn’t exactly pull a Hunter Mahan here.
His comments have to be kept in perspective. McIlroy, who will indeed be a cornerstone for the European team for years to come, isn’t dissing the event, but merely saying he isn’t being kept awake thinking about it. That may change when he gets involved in his first Cup representing a continent that takes this thing pretty seriously but, for now, he sees it for what it is.
The Ryder Cup produces some of the most memorable moments in golf, and its history needs little in the way of an explanation. But when all is said and done, it’s for Us vs. Them bragging rights and not much more.
Ask Tiger Woods which is more important to him, the Ryder Cup or major championships.
Something tells me his answer won’t be any different than McIlroy’s.
The kid may have stepped on a lot of toes, but at least he’s honest. Not to mention right.
Mickelson’s dream season dealt dose of reality
Just when Phil Mickelson’s life couldn’t possibly get any better, he runs straight into reality’s brick wall.
News that Lefty’s popular and charismatic wife, Amy, had been diagnosed with breast cancer cast a pall over the PGA Tour getting set for this week’s Byron Nelson. Love him or hate him – and the scales are probably pretty evened out when it comes to Lefty – Mickelson and his wife are about to travel the most ominous of roads, making everyone a fan of the Mickelsons.
Lefty’s non-supporters like to grind his gears, taking great pride ridiculing final-hole U.S. Open chokes and his expanding physique. But with two wins this year and the number –two ranking on the planet, Lefty had the world by the tail. In time it may have been a Tiger.
None of that matters right now.
Needless to say, golf is not overly important to Phil Mickelson these days. He is bailing on the PGA Tour, suspending his season indefinitely to be by his wife’s side. Golf doesn’t matter. Life does.
Amy Mickelson will not be the first stricken with cancer, not by a longshot, nor will she be the last. But as one of the most popular wives on tour, if not all of sport, the outgoing, affable ex-cheerleader, who has been a fixture at her husband’s side during many of his greatest moments, will be cast under the media glare, even as she tries to avoid it.
Phil Mickelson will one day return to the PGA Tour, perhaps in the very near future. No one really knows when that time will be, but right now, it doesn’t matter.
He may be the world’s second-best golfer, but for now it’s the husband, the father, the shoulder, that comes first.
Golf can wait, however long that takes.
Right now, Lefty and his wife are preparing for the longest round of their lives.
Goydos’ pride, Driscoll’s ride and did Perry try to pull a fast one?
As I watched James Driscoll rally from eight shots down Sunday at the Texas Open, my thoughts wandered to what he was driving these days.
If, for some unknown and pointless reason, there is ever a trivia book on my life, Driscoll will be an answer. As in, who was the Canadian Tour player who had his car stolen along with mine, on the same night from the same parking lot, of a Montreal hotel seven years ago?
Answer: James Driscoll.
Driscoll was a Canadian Tour rookie back in those days and was more than a little perturbed – and rightfully so- as the hotel clerk tried to explain to us, a little after the fact, the perils of the ongoing car theft problem in Quebec at that time.
Never got the car back – and, as far as I know, neither did Driscoll – but all was not lost. I caught a ride back to Toronto with a co-worker after the tournament ended. Not sure how Driscoll, who had Massachusetts plates on his vehicle, made it home.
We shared a laugh about the lack of Montreal hotel security for the rest of the summer, but Driscoll probably doesn’t have to worry about those types of things these days. Now if he could only figure out how to knock in a 20-foot birdie putt in a playoff…
***
Paul Goydos deserved a better fate Sunday at the Texas Open.
Not because he outplayed Zach Johnson or Driscoll or Bill Haas, but because, darnit, he deserves to catch a break.
By now you’ve heard the stories of Goydos taking over the upbringing of his daughters, of the struggles his ex-wife Wendy endured as she fought a painkiller addiction trying to overcome severe migraines before passing away earlier this year.
Of Goydos being prepared to walk away from golf if that is what it took to raise his daughters, just as he did in 2004. He returned, won in 2007 and lost a heartbreaking playoff to Sergio Garcia at last year’s PLAYERS Championship.
For Goydos, it is never about him.
“I can sit here and claim I made an altruistic or courageous decision not to play golf so I could be with my girls,” Goydos said in an interview after his return to golf. “But Wendy made one herself, by not fighting to have them and walking away so she could take care of herself and wind up a better mother. That’s pretty strong, too.”
How can you not cheer for a guy like that?
***
Is Kenny Perry a cheater? Discuss.
More than a few people are suggesting Perry subtly improved his lie on his way to a win earlier this year at the FBR Open. After sitting down with a few rules officials and studying the tape in recent days, Perry was cleared of any wrongdoing.
But, rightly or wrongly, golf’s court of public opinion will surely have its dissidents.
Probably the most surprising thing is that some doofus sitting on his couch at home didn’t pick up the phone and call in to the PGA Tour to blow the whistle on Perry. Then again, maybe someone did. There has, after all, been precedent.
“Kenny is a man of the utmost purity and integrity,” says Mark Russell, a senior rules official with the PGA Tour.
Of course, Russell could have been talking about Perry himself –Kentucky innocence at its finest.
Or he could have been taking about Perry’s daughter.
John Daly still kickin’ but does anyone care anymore?
Maybe John Daly still has something left to prove, after all.
Only time will tell if anyone really cares. That ship may have long since sailed.
Much to the surprise of many, Daly showed he still has some serious game left in that trimmed down frame – and you’ll have to do some research to see if that indeed is the first time “Daly” and “trimmed down” have been used in the same sentence - finishing second across the pond at the European Tour’s BMW Italian Open.
The $136,000 he pocketed should help pay off a few debts and, with a little luck, allow Daly a couple of minutes at the blackjack table. More importantly, however, at least as far as his career goes, Daly’s performance could create a little more interest as he gets set to return to the PGA Tour ranks after a six month Tim Finchem-imposed exile.
There was a time, long ago, that Daly was the crown prince of golf, the beer-guzzlin’, chain-smokin’ working man’s hero who could draw a crowd simply by launching a ball into another time zone. Remember the hoopla, just a few short years ago, when Daly attempted to clear customs by driving a few balls from Canada into the United States via Niagara Falls?
Those days are long gone.
The crown prince is now the court jester. Daly is hanging on by the proverbial thread, selling memorabilia from his trailer outside the front gates of Augusta National during The Masters and making recent headlines for his pants rather than his golf game.
Until last weekend, anyway.
Many have turned a blind eye to the fall of John Daly, jumping off his once overflowing bandwagon and shrugging with indifference at his plight. In golf circles, a two-time major champion is almost an afterthought. Quite simply, very few seem to care anymore.
Sponsors won’t go near him and even Hooters has parted ways. Daly is running out of money, and flirting with bankruptcy. His loyal fans are sick of the gong show.
Daly is almost referred to in the past tense.
For a man determined to salvage his career, Daly’s timing couldn’t have been better for a strong showing. He proved he is not a write-off just yet, and you have to think a tournament sponsor or two will roll the dice and drop an exemption into his lap once he is able to return to the PGA Tour next month. A serious Daly, one desperate enough to realize he has thrown it all away, could get the public talking again. That John Daly will still sell tickets.
A few more performances like last week, and people many start once again paying attention to his game rather than his pants.
If it isn’t too late.
National Golf In Schools Program long overdue
Probably an initiative that hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves is the recent announcement unveiling the National Golf in Schools Program.
I, for one, am aboard that bandwagon.
Finally, at long last, comes a plan based on action instead of just hot air about the importance of growing the game at the grassroots level in this country.
Kudos to Physical and Health Education Canada, Scott Simmons and the RCGA and the Canadian PGA, who are working to get golf truly introduced at the grassroots level instead of repeating the same tired rhetoric we’ve been hearing for years.
The question, of course, is what took so long?
After all, Kingsley Rowe, in a roundabout way, has been running a scaled-down version of the program for a decade.
The first time I met Rowe, I was immediately impressed with the drive, determination and passion he had for his National Junior Golf Academy. In case you aren’t aware of the volunteer-driven NJGA, Rowe has essentially brought the game of golf to some of the most economically challenged, crime-ridden areas of Toronto, including the notorious Jane-Finch part of town, with plans to expand cross-country. The idea isn’t to scope out the next Mike Weir, but to instill morals and life skills through the game. I often wondered how if one man could see things so clearly, why couldn’t the most powerful golf organizations in the country?
Until now.
For a nation that always seems to be wondering where the next Mike Weir or Lorie Kane is coming from, the National Golf in Schools program should go a long way to answering that question. Stakeholders maintain the program is not designed to stake out the next Weir, but has the potential to get hundreds of thousands of youngsters, perhaps more, introduced to the game at that grassroots level – starting in the early school years. From there, the law of averages says there will, down the line, be a much broader pool from which to select candidates for elite amateur programs.
Of course, on the record, the powers-that-be in Canadian golf are telling you that isn’t the ultimate goal of the program rather than instilling integrity, etiquette and life values. But there is no denying that the program is going to introduce the sport to thousands of kids that may have never picked up a club.
That can be nothing but good news for those harping about the need to grow the game at the grassroots level.
And, if nothing else, it’s a start. And it’s about time.
David Feherty should have stuck to golf jokes
Hindsight being what it is, one is left to ponder exactly what in the heck David Feherty was thinking.
If, indeed, he was thinking at all.
Golf’s village idiot, who often delivers some classic one-liners but can tend to push the boundaries of arrogance and bad taste, certainly tripped over that line this past weekend in an ill-fated attempt at humour, suggesting in the Dallas rag ‘D Magazine’ U.S. soldiers probably wouldn’t lose any sleep by offing a pair of top U.S. elected officials –Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
It all seemed harmless enough for Feherty, one of five Dallas residents who penned a column addressing President Bush’s move back to Texas.
Until he tried to get too cute.
“Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death,” Feherty wrote.
People tend to get their panties in a twist over, well, pretty much anything these days, which renders the notion of freedom of speech debatable at best. Despite having Feherty’s satirical handprint all over it, no matter how witty the line may have seemed when he proofed his piece, it was a major faux pas. Such is the problem when a sports writer or broadcaster tries to dabble in the world of political satire. All too often, it doesn’t come across as funny.
Just a few words after the controversial verbiage, Feherty put his common sense cap back on, saying of U.S. soldiers “At Walter Reed, Bethesda Naval Medical Center, and the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, I have visited dozens of patients, and I always ask of them before I leave: “What do you want to do when you get out?” No matter how broken or burned, or how many limbs they are missing, they give only one answer: “I want to go back. I want to rejoin my team, to finish our mission.” They are rightfully proud of what they have done and want nothing more than to be with their brothers and sisters in arms, because they know the consequences if their job is left unfinished.”
Touches the heart a tad, doesn’t it? But how many people are talking about those words in Feherty’s column today?
Someone forgot to tell Feherty this wasn’t Yuk Yuk’s on a Friday night. Did he actually believe, even if some found his wit quite entertaining, that there wouldn’t be some serious backlash? Politicians are fair game for the most part, but this was undoubtedly a ‘can-I-get-a-mulligan’ moment for Feherty.
And the answer, of course, is no. There may have been no malice intended, but CBS Sports is left in an awkward spot and will undoubtedly cave in under the public outcry, likely suspending Feherty, if not sticking a pink slip to his microphone altogether.
“We want to be clear that this column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved by CBS Sports,” they said in a statement.
Feherty’s comments will, somewhat sadly, overshadow his admiration of the U.S. troops in Iraq, with whom he has visited over the past couple of years. He is also a supporter of the “Troops First Foundation” for soldiers who return to American soil wounded – many of them missing limbs.
Spending time with the troops is said to have touched him enough for Feherty, a native of Northern Ireland, to apply for U.S. citizenship.
One thing is certain. He didn’t win over many friends among his prospective countrymen with his latest attempt to get a laugh.
Fairways Web Editor Marty Henwood spent more than six years as the Media Relations Director with the Canadian Tour and has been involved in sports journalism for more than a decade, including stints in newspaper, radio, new media and media relations. He will offer his unique take on the world of golf, with nothing and no one off limits.
