Most of us will never know what it’s like to hit a game-winning home run, stand on stage in front of the world’s best actors and actresses and accept an Oscar or collect a Billboard No. 1 hit that creates a societal frenzy — but we will know what it’s like to strike the perfect golf shot.
In that sense, we have something in common with those we look up to on the silver screen, listen to on our iPods or select to our fantasy teams. Without anything else in common, we’ll always have something to talk about if we bump into a Josh Duhamel, Jerry Rice or Adam Levine.
Athletes, actors, musicians, writers – you name a celebrity type and they all play golf.
Today, celebrity golf is an industry. It’s almost impossible to name a celebrity and not be able to find a picture of he or she swinging a golf club. Some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names are avid golfers whose hobby borders on being a medical condition.
Academy Award winners, music legends, sporting icons, supermodels — you name the type of celebrity and odds are they’re just as addicted to the game as you and I.
With so much of the world’s entertainment business being based in Los Angeles and the Southern California area, it’s no surprise that the love affair between celebrity and golf began, was fostered and bloomed into the full-blow industry and spectacle that it is today.
Bob Hope & the Bob Hope Classic
Perhaps no other celebrity in history has done more, not only for the game of golf, but for celebrity golf than Bob Hope. Without the efforts and passion that the famous funny man brought to the game and industry, we may never have the events like the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and The American Century Championship or celebrity golfing icons like Bill Murray and Justin Timberlake.
Hope began his love affair with the game of golf in 1933 when he was introduced to it while he was performing in Canada. Over the course of his life, golf and Hope became synonymous with each other. He was almost never without a golf club during his stage shows and even had a putting match against a then-two-year-old Tiger Woods on the Mike Douglas Show.
In 1965, Bob Hope was one of the Hollywood’s biggest names — and his affinity for the game of golf was already well-noted when he lent his name to the Palm Springs Classic and added a celebrity pro-am portion to the event — and the Bob Hope Classic was born.
Here, the true beginning of celebrity golf took hold. It was at the Hope that names like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Burt Lancaster and Desi Arnez made their first starts in celebrity pro-ams.
Hope himself, it was estimated, played in close to 150 celebrity golf tournaments a year and eventually got his handicap down to about a four.
The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am
Perhaps even more famous a celebrity tournament is the one held every year just up the road from SoCal — the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. While the Hope still continues in Spirit each year in Palm Springs (now the CareerBuilder Challenge), it’s the AT&T Pro-Am with the biggest drawing power.
Each February, the tournament draws not only one of the best fields of the season for PGA Tour players, it draws a who’s who of Hollywood, musicians of every imaginable ilk (i.e. Kenny G and Kid Rock in the same field) and the world of professional sports.
The event, which is now synonymous with the Monterey Peninsula and Pebble Beach Golf Links actually got its start in Southern California, too — at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe. It was held there until 1942. When the tournament resumed after World War II in 1947, it moved up the coast to its current home.
The tournament has gone through a number of celebrity “ambassadors” over the years. The first was Bing Crosby, whom the tournament was originally named for from 1937 until 1985. It was Crosby who, like his friend, Hope, decided to add the celebrity event to the Tour Schedule.
After Crosby, the torch was passed to Clint Eastwood. Like Crosby and Hope, Eastwood was — and still is — an avid golfer. He’s also an investor in the Pebble Beach Golf Links. Eastwood, 85, has been a fixture on the property for decades and though he no longer plays in the event, still makes appearances during the week and is often invited into the broadcaster’s booth to offer some commentary.
In recent years, no name has been more synonymous with the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am like American comedy icon, Bill Murray.
Perhaps there is no one who fits the “larger than life” moniker more than the former “Saturday Night Live” star-turned Academy Award nominated actor. Murray is famous for wearing ridiculous outfits, playing with fans, dancing in bunkers with little old ladies and — in 2011 — for winning the celebrity portion of the event with professional partner D.A. Points.
Celebrity Tournaments
The Bob Hope Classic and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am aren’t the only celebrity tournaments out there that showcase the games of celebrities. In fact, nearly every event of the year on the PGA Tour, there’s a celebrity pro-am that pairs the game’s best with some of the world’s most recognizable figures.
Alfred Dunhill Links Championship – While the United States and the PGA Tour has the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the European Tour has the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. While it may not be as world-renown an event as the AT&T, the Dunhill Links Championship is still a marquee event on the European Tour that draws some of the tour’s top players — and some of the UK’s biggest celebrities.
Darius Rucker’s “Monday After the Masters” – Former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker is an avid golfer and has been spending his Monday after the Masters Tournament hosting some of his best friends, musicians, actors and athletes for one of golf’s most popular celebrity events.
Each year, Rucker and co. meet in South Carolina for a day of golf, music, food and other entertainment. While it started as a small gathering to raise money for charity, the “Monday After the Masters” has become one of the marquee celebrity golf tournaments in the country.
American Century Classic – The ultimate celebrity golf tournament is held each year in Tahoe and hosts nearly 100 of the world’s top celebrity golfers. Be it former and current athletes, musicians, actors — you name it, they’re represented at the American Century Championship.
Using the modified stableford scoring system, the celebrities duke it out for the right to be called the best in the business. The week is generally one of the most fun on the calendar and even gets covered in it’s own right by NBC Sports. Between folks hanging out on their boats and throwing passed to Jerry Rice as he streaks from the tee box to the hole or having Super Bowl winning quarterback Mark Rypien throw a pass to the crowd — there’s always something going on at the American Century Championship.
Golf & American Pop Culture
Nowadays, you can find golf everywhere in pop culture. It frequently finds its way into TV and cinema (thanks in part to golf-crazy celebs like Jimmy Fallon, Will Smith, the Wilson Brothers, Bill Murray, Justin Timberlake and more) and has even got the golf world taking notice, with things like Golf Channel’s “Playing with the Pro’s” and Golf Digest’s annual lists of the funniest people in golf and the best golfers in Hollywood, sports and the music industry.
Beginning with Tiger Woods and continuing today with stars like Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson and Rory McIlroy, golfers are more celebrities today than ever. There was a time when the Mark O’Meara’s and Scott Hoch’s of the world could walk around and go unnoticed, it’s tough for people like Rickie and Bubba not to be noticed — and they like it.
The modern world of social media has made everyone a celebrity, it seems, but in the world of golf it’s not only given us unprecedented access to the pros, but it’s given celebrities unprecedented access to them, which has created some interesting relationships and facilitated a lot of tee times.
Now, it’s not uncommon to see Justin Timberlake playing golf with Rory McIlroy or NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin becoming best buds with two-time Masters champion, Bubba Watson.
More than anything, golf is becoming cool. Golf is becoming something for everyone — which is something it desperately needed to be perceived as — and that is thanks in large part to celebrity golf and the reach it’s created.
Now, not only do celebrities want to play golf, people want to see and know everything they can about their favorite celebrities golf games. They want to know handicaps, where they’ve played and where they’re playing next and what their favorite moments in the game have been.
As long as people love the game and their icons, celebrity golf will continue to be a booming industry the world over — but it will always have it’s home in Southern California.