PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — With its alabaster beaches and arresting curves, the Monterey Peninsula is perpetually ready for its close-up. So it is fitting that it is the one stop on the PGA Tour where the celebrity amateurs are the headliners.
“I got the program and I looked at the tickets and I thought: ‘Wait a minute. Didn’t I win?’ ” Points said Tuesday. “There are pictures of Bill everywhere. I’m like driving down the highway, I see a billboard, and there is Bill. There is Tiger. I’m like, ‘Where am I?’ ”
This year’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which starts Thursday, features the power coupling of Tiger Woods, the 14-time major champion, with Tony Romo, the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback.
According to Woods, Romo has been “grinding hard” to get ready for the tournament. As Woods explained: “He’s into the game because post-football, he wants to play golf. He wants to maybe give it a run on the mini tours or the senior tour eventually.”
Romo is hardly alone among the celebrity amateurs in feeling as if the grass is greener on the tours’ fairways. The actor Lucas Black, 29, who is paired with Rickie Fowler, is a scratch golfer who portrayed a touring pro in last year’s movie “Seven Days in Utopia.” His performance was praised by the eight-time major champion Tom Watson, a great admirer of his swing.
Black takes a different approach to the week than Murray, who plays to the crowd in between shots, cracking jokes and playing pranks, occasionally at Points’s expense.
“I learned quickly that he’s there to entertain the people that are watching,” Points said.
Black’s game face radiates an intensity that can spook his wife, Maggie, a lawyer who negotiates his contracts and will be toting his golf bag this week.
“It’s pretty sinister,” she said with a laugh.
Black said: “If I’m hitting a golf ball, there’s nothing else I’m thinking of. I’m kind of zoned in.”
At last month’s Humana Challenge in La Quinta, Calif., Black was paired one round with the Australian pro Gavin Coles, who said, “He was more interested in the golf and in trying to beat the pros.”
Golf is the only sport that requires its athletes to work alongside amateurs. “Obviously, you can’t walk out when Derek Jeter’s fielding grounders against the Red Sox, which would be awesome,” the second-year pro Blake Adams said.
This week’s stage requires the pros to play many roles: competitor, swing coach, caddie and straight man.
The celebrity presence, Points said, “Gets the fans and everybody really excited. Sometimes that’s a sacrifice that I guess we have to make for the greater good of this tournament and the growth of golf.”
For Black, who played golf for Speake High in Alabama, the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is another audition. He made his film debut in 1994 at age 11 in the Kevin Costner film “The War” and worked steadily during his teenage years. He is probably best known for his roles in the movies “Sling Blade” and “Friday Night Lights.” As a consequence, he said, “I didn’t think of being a professional golfer when I was in high school.”
He thinks about it now. Black’s dream is to one day put acting on the back burner and turn up the intensity on golf.
“I got back into playing amateur tournaments a few years ago,” he said, “and just competing in them kind of sparked the bug and got me thinking, ‘Maybe I can take this elsewhere.’ ”
Robert Duvall played Black’s spiritual mentor in “Utopia,” the third film in which they have worked together (the others were “Sling Blade” and “Get Low”). He has described Black as one of Hollywood’s best golfers, never mind that he and his wife live in Columbia, Mo., where the winters are not conducive to lowering one’s handicap.
“When it’s 35 degrees and windy and snowing and the ground is froze, I’m doing a lot of swing drills inside,” Black said.
No comments:
Post a Comment