A country singer, a baseball player, a racecar driver and a comedian walk onto a golf course.
Sounds like the start of a joke, right?
Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t. Lee Brice, Roger Clemens, Rusty Wallace and Larry the Cable Guy all participated in the Cologuard Classic’s annual Celebrity Challenge at the Omni Tucson National. Clemens and Wallace teamed up to beat Brice and Larry the Cable Guy by a combined three strokes. A donation in their name was given to charity.
To kick off the action on the 10th hole, Wallace said, “Drivers start your engines.”
The one-liners began as soon as Wallace, Clemens and the Larry the Cable Guy sat down to talk about their golf, racing, and baseball. Brice flew into town at 6 a.m. Saturday after performing in Prescott on Friday night. He was still sleeping only a few hours before his 2:30 p.m. tee time.
Wallace’s approach to the challenge was simple: Stay out of the sand trap.
“Because every time we get into sand, I look like a dump truck out there trying to get out of it — (stuff’) flying everywhere man, I tell you what,” Wallace said.
Larry the Cable guy saw his opening. “I hate to say this,” he said, “but he looks like that in the fairway. Don’t narrow it down to that.”
While the four celebrities had never played together before Saturday, they’re connected. Clemens and Larry the Cable Guy have golfed in celebrity tournaments in Lake Tahoe, Orlando, Florida, and Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.
The last time Wallace and Brice were together, they were on a racetrack. At Wallace’s invitation, Brice took a spin around the Richmond International Raceway in a twin turbo pace car, going 160 miles per hour.
Golf is a much, much slower pace. There, Wallace said, he doesn’t feel the need for speed.
“When I’m golfing, it doesn’t feel like that — it’s really relaxing to me,” Wallace said. “I get to focus and laugh and drink some beer out there and have a nice time. I don’t really compare to having to go fast like I did when I was driving. It’s tense because you want to do really good.
“I love golfing. I’ll go play nine holes and I get to 14 and all of a sudden, the wheels start coming off my golf game. I need to stop at 14 because that’s perfect for me.”
Wallace says racing and golf don’t have much in common.
Larry the Cable Guy begged to differ: “Except that when you hit it,” he told Wallace, “it always goes left.”
Despite their varied backgrounds and passions, the four all love the game. No joking there.
“There is nothing like good golf,” Larry the Cable Guy said. “I think we can all agree that if we were all single guys and in our mid-20s, if somebody said to you ‘Hey, the Swedish bikini team wants you to go somewhere in a limo with them, or you can hit a 9-iron five feet from the pin at 147 yards,’ which would you do? I’d go to 9-iron.”
Give Bryant a hand
Two fusions, three screws and a torn tendon in your left wrist would be enough for anyone to hang up the clubs, but not Bart Bryant.
Bryant has been dealing with the injuries for eight years. He wore beige athletic tape from the inside of his wrist to nearly his elbow on Saturday, when he shot 7 under to move up into a tie for seventh place with Woody Austin.
He started off his round with a birdie, eagle and birdie. Bryant used a 3-wood on the second hold, got what he called a lucky bounce “and it rolled right in.”
“I got off to a great start and I knew at some point you cool off a little bit, so I tried to be really patient and not get down in the middle of the round where like, I felt like I needed to keep scoring,” he said. “At the end of the round I made a couple of birdies … I don’t know if I’m back in the tournament, but with a spectacular round, it is.”
Bryant received medical treatment after Saturday’s round. He’;s hoping to get through the Sunday’s final round; then he’ll take three weeks off.
“It’s the mechanics of the wrist are just not conducive for playing golf — that’s the bottom line,” Bryant said. “But I do my best and you know, I can punch it around. … There are some bad days and worse days — there aren’t any good days anymore with the wrist. We just manage it the best we can keep going until we can’t go no more.”
Chip shots
- Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee shot an even par Saturday, and is 4 under on the tournament. Jaidee flew in Tuesday and said he quickly adjusted to the time difference.
- Although the air is much drier than he’s used to in Thailand, Jaidee stayed hydrated by drinking water at each hole.
Jaidee said that the course was in great condition, but different from those in Bangkok. His irons played about 10% longer due to the elevation and dry conditions.
“You have to be perfect distance, because otherwise the green is really, really tricky,” he said.
More than 40 golfers wore blue spikes on Saturday, the tournament’s annual Dress in Blue Day. FootJoy created custom blue shoes with the Colorectal Cancer (CRC) Blue Star, a symbol of unity among Colorectal Cancer advocacy groups. Jerry Kelly, Cologuard’s ambassador and a six-time Champions Tour winner, surprised cancer survivors who participated in the Jose Cuervo Pro-Am with the shoes. Kelly wore different spikes designed by Nomad Customs, which also does shoes and cleats for professional baseball, football and basketball players.
