Celebrity Golf

Filed in archive Golf Wanderings on March 21, 2007

Courtesy: The Sporting News

Of all the golf tournaments on TV, the ones I enjoy watching the most for sheer entertainment are the celebrity pro-ams.

I am constantly amazed at how many celebrities play the game well enough to not embarrass themselves on championship courses with TV cameras focused on them for every shot.

Okay, they're not going to worry about cameras. Fair enough. But a lot of them can play. And it's downright impressive.

For many, they pull off the game with aplomb. The Hollywood biggies play it well; Mr. Tin Cup, Kevin Costner, is really quite good. So is 70-something Glenn Campbell (who I recently saw in concert. And the guy can still play the guitar like he was 23).

Clint Eastwood has a pretty good game. So does alice cooper, for heaven's sake.

The list goes on.

But the really impressive celebs are the guys from other sports. And before you say, "yeah, the stick and ball guys", consider Troy Aikman, Eric Dickerson, Marcus Allen, Jim Kelly, Michael Jordan, to name a few. They are all former football or basketball stars who are now members of the Celebrity Golf Tour.

Of course, the stick and ball or stick and puck guys tend to rule. And there are solid kinesthetic arguments to be made explaining why these guys adapt to golf so well.

What I find very impressive is that all of them learn the golf swing with apparent ease. I think it was only last summer that I saw Roger Clemens win a skills competition on the Golf Channel, a competition that featured tour players as well!

Clemens has a really good looking swing. And he kicked their butts!

It comes down to talent. These guys have the talent to not only excel in their chosen sports professions but to excel in a game that is widely and correctly regarded as the hardest game known to mankind.

Perhaps it's because they have honed their intensity. What former sports stars bring to the Celebrity Golf Tour is the very thing that propels Tiger Woods into the winner's circle so often: they know how to win.

They eat pressure for breakfast; they eat it for lunch; they have a double helping for dinner. And when you can handle the intense pressure of competition on the gridiron, hardwood or on the ice, you can apply that control to golf.

The game of golf is so compelling, so strategic and so rewarding when played well that it easily attracts the best from other games, too.

Do touring pros play football for fun when they retire? Do they turn to full-bore, total contact hockey in their off-seasons? Not likely.

Golf is a magnet; it draws in the sports celebrity players the same way it draws in lawyers, plumbers, rock stars, contract killers, you and me.

It's the level playing field, the great equalizer. The ultimate challenge.

And it's no wonder that the Celebrity Golf Tour is growing every year. It could almost be called the Champions Tour For All Other Sports.