Golf: Natalie Gulbis now acting with confidence
Natalie Gulbis always felt at ease on the golf course. She took up the game at 4, won her first tournament at 7, broke par at 10, played in her first LPGA Tour event at 14, and turned pro at 18.
Off the golf course, it was a different story.
You’d never know it today, but the 28-year-old Gulbis — gregarious and good-looking — used to be shy and uncomfortable in front of the media and fans.
“Ten years ago when I came on tour, I was afraid to do interviews,” Gulbis said Monday before hosting a clinic with PGA Tour golfer Chris DiMarco at the first McGladrey Foundation Charity Golf Event at The International GC in Bolton. “I couldn’t talk in front of the camera. I talked with my head down and gave one-word answers.”
To break her out of her shell, Gulbis’s father had her take lessons — not golf lessons, but acting lessons in Los Angeles.
“I cried every day,” Gulbis recalled with a laugh. “It was horrible. It was so hard.”
But reading scripts and acting out characters gave her confidence and an appreciation of the hard work put in by television and movie actors. Many LPGA Tour golfers undergo media training, but Gulbis doesn’t know of anyone else who took acting lessons.
“Now, fast forward 10 years,” she said. “I love the fans, I love doing charity work. The media is great to me, so I love doing things with the media and promoting the game. But it didn’t come naturally.”
Gulbis credited mentors Butch Harmon and Peter Jacobsen with helping her interact with fans more easily.
Her acting lessons and mentors helped Gulbis grow confident enough to pose for a swimsuit calendar, host her own series on the Golf Channel, and guest star on “Celebrity Apprentice.” But convincing her to host her own show took some time.
“I did not want to do a TV show,” Gulbis admitted. “It was just so scary to have the cameras show your personality and to follow you around and show who you actually were, but the fans loved it. They spur you on and love to see your house, that you’re human. Now I encourage other players to showcase their personalities and open up their worlds to fans.”
Gulbis has become one of the most engaging and popular members of the LPGA Tour even, though she has won only once on tour. Her appearance last week helped the McGladrey Foundation Charity Golf Event raise $150,000 in its first year. That money will be divided evenly among the foundation, the Special Olympics of Massachusetts, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.
Gulbis shot her two lowest rounds of the year — a pair of 4-under-par 68s — last weekend in the LPGA State Farm Classic to earn her highest finish of 2011, a tie for 15th. She ranks 37th on the LPGA Tour money list with $82,526.
“I’m hitting my driver well,” Gulbis said. “Driver has been a challenge for the last couple of years.”
She won the 2007 Evian Masters, but her only top-six finishes since than have been victories in the 2007 and 2009 Wendy’s 3-Tour Challenge, an unofficial event.
Gulbis credited her new Taylor Made Burner for helping her drive straighter and 10-15 yards longer recently. She still ranks only 66th on tour in driving distance with a 252.1-yard average, and is 97th in driving accuracy, hitting 71.2 percent of her fairways. On the other hand, she’s 21st in putting.
The LPGA Tour had no problems with Gulbis selling her swimsuit calendar early in her career, but the USGA thought it was inappropriate and made her stop selling it at the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open at the Orchards in South Hadley.
All the proceeds from her calendar benefitted the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
“They never talked about that,” Gulbis said. “It was strictly for marketing and to create a little buzz and do something that hadn’t been done for a while, and it worked out perfectly.”
Gulbis believes her calendar would be more accepted today than seven years ago.
“I think it’s OK now,” she said, “to be attractive and athletic, and to present yourself as being a feminine athlete now in the sporting world, and I love to see it.”
Gulbis looks upon her five-year alliance with McGladrey as a chance to give the LPGA Tour some much-needed exposure. She works several clinics a year for them.
“It keeps us on the radar in women’s sports and in golf,” Gulbis said.
The LPGA Tour didn’t play this week, so many of the golfers worked corporate or charity events. After leaving The International, Gulbis headed to Congressional CC in Bethesda, Md., to sign autographs on behalf of Lexus at the U.S. Open.
Gulbis has been linked romantically with Dustin Johnson, but she declined to discuss her personal life.
Fran Quinn should feel very much at home when he tees off in the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Conn., on Thursday.
Quinn, 46, of Holden, lives only about an hour and a half away from TPC River Highlands, and played the course twice last week to prepare for the tournament. Quinn estimated he has played the course 25 to 30 times over the last few years.
“I’m very comfortable there,” he said.
Suffering from heat stroke, Quinn withdrew after 27 holes in his last PGA Tour event, the FedEx St. Jude’s Classic in Memphis on June 10.
Quinn said the heat index that day was 100 degrees and he became dizzy and nauseated while warming up, but attempted to play anyway. He shot a 9-over 44 for his first nine, then withdrew.
“I shouldn’t have even tried to play,” Quinn said.
Quinn felt better last week and reported that his back felt fine as well. The PGA Tour granted him a major medical extension this year after a stress fracture in his back sidelined him for much of last season. He has 13 starts left on his extension.
Congratulations to Dave Hinman of Springfield, who won the use of a Mercedes for two years by carding a hole-in-one with a 5-iron on the 160-yard, par-3 first hole on Wednesday at Juniper Hill’s Lakeside Course. General manager Dudley Darling said it had been at least a dozen years since someone won the use of a car by getting an ace at Juniper Hill.
Here’s a story for every father and father-in-law who loves golf. It happened a while ago, but it still hits home.
When Rob Riggieri of Worcester carded his first hole-in-one, he immediately thought of his father-in-law, James Barry. It was easy to understand why.
Riggieri and Barry played golf every Sunday at Wachusett CC for 25 years before Barry died at age 80 on Oct. 4, 2000. After Barry’s death, his wife, Lena, gave his clubs to Riggieri because she knew he’d appreciate them.
Even though the clubs were too short and the graphite shafts too whippy for him, Riggieri used them for the first time when he played in a shotgun tournament to benefit Holy Name High at Pine Ridge CC in Oxford the following May. His group began on the steep, uphill 159-yard par-3 ninth hole, so Riggieri used his father-in-law’s 5-iron.
He took out one of his father-in-law’s Slazenger balls, wrote “JB,” his father-in-law’s initials, on it and placed it on the tee. With his first swing of the day, and his first swing with one of Barry’s old clubs, he hit his blind tee shot into the cup. Riggieri looked in the hole and there was his ball with his “JB” marking facing up at him.
“The hair on my arms stood up,” Riggieri said. “I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ I thought of him right away, that he was there with me.”
“I still say my dad had a lot to do with it watching down on him,” Riggieri’s wife, Pat, said in an e-mail. “Love you Dad, Happy Fathers Day.”
By the way, Riggieri’s team won the tournament that day. He later carded a second hole-in-one, but it doesn’t compare to the first.
Continuing the Father’s Day theme, John Hanlon Jr., a PGA pro at Vinoy Golf Club in St. Petersburg, Fla., thanks his father, Jack, for getting him hooked on golf.
Jack Hanlon, who at 83 works part-time in the pro shop at Leicester CC, allowed his son to caddie for him when he played in a Friday night league at Hillcrest CC decades ago. After an errant shot on the 12th hole, Jack tossed his 4-iron toward his pull cart.
“Not in anger, of course,” John wrote in an e-mail, “but it happened to strike the pull cart I was next to and broke at the grip end.”
The shortened club worked fine for John with a little tape on the end.
“We have had a lot of memories on the golf course over the years,” John wrote, “but this got me my start in the game. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.”
Jane Flagg-Guilbert wished her father, Mason B. Flagg, 89, of Worcester, a happy Father’s Day and e-mailed a copy of a photo of Commerce High’s state championship golf team that appeared in the Worcester Telegram on June 11, 1939. Flagg is one of seven golfers pictured with their coach. He was elected captain the following year and Commerce won the title again.
Bill Doyle can be contacted at wdoyle@telegram.com.