Hard rockers, soft rockers, heavy-metal rockers and just-this-side-of-a-rocking-chair rockers, they came.
Drawn to Las Vegas that day by a force they were powerless to resist.
Addicts every one of them, hopelessly under the influence of a new pastime. Hooked so bad they couldn’t stay away from a gig they knew would only make their habits worse.
Some of the biggest names were the most obsessed.
Guitarist and lead singer Todd Nichols of Toad the Wet Sprocket and his new best buddies, singer Darius Rucker and drummer Jim “Soni” Sonefeld of platinum-selling Hootie and the Blowfish, flew in from the West Coast, where Hootie is cutting a new album and where Nichols is resting up from his band’s recent tour.
Drummer Steve Gorman of the Black Crowes and bass player Michael Anthony of Van Halen showed up–and Alice Cooper his ownself. Three members of Bon Jovi, including Heather Locklear’s husband (guitarist Richie Sambora), made it along with Cheap Trick and two Stone Temple Pilots.
Scratches included bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry of R.E.M., but if you know Mills and Berry you know their scheduling conflict (something about a world tour) really hurt.
What was it that drew so many music legends to the Nevada desert like a busload of blackjack fanatics from nearby Bullhead City, Ariz.?
Farm Aid? AIDS Aid? A Beatles reunion?
Would you believe . . . golf?
“How many rock ‘n’ roll golfers are there now?” says Paul Barrere, slide guitarist and singer for Little Feat. “I don’t know. All I know is, there are a ton of us.”
In rockdom, the place to be Oct. 16 was the annual Fairway to Heaven charity golf tournament, where for one day your backswing counts more than your singing. Golf? With Johnny Miller, Phil Mickelson, John Daly and other PGA and LPGA Tour stars? Get me a tee time, said the rockers.
Last year’s inaugural event in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., was such a hoot that sponsor VH1, the rock video cable station, decided to do what it does best: rerun it. Fairway to Heaven II was held at the Tournament Players Club at Summerlin in Vegas, and the turnout was even bigger than ’94 with mainstream performers Bruce Hornsby, Graham Nash, Smokey Robinson, Stephen Stills and Amy Grant joining in. Fifty thousand dollars was raised for three Las Vegas charities.
“Last year was the first celebrity golf tourney I’ve ever played in,” says Nichols, speaking for many of his peers. “It was nerve-wracking. There were cameras on you, people watching you. It was totally different than playing by yourself. I played with Alice Cooper in a practice round and (PGA Tour player) Peter Jacobsen. What a thrill! Will I play again? Definitely. I play golf whenever anybody asks me.”
“When you think about it,” says J.C. Wyncoop of Planet Golf, one of the tournament sponsors, “until recently it was hard to imagine hard-core rock stars on a golf course. It was an oxymoron. Now you see guys out there in their high-top alligator shoes, playing golf–it’s wild. They love it.
“In the ’80s the big thing was managers getting drugs for their guys; now they get them tee times.”
A perfect pairing
To paraphrase CBS sports announcer Pat O’Brien, who co-hosted the VH1 broadcast with Ann Liguori of The Golf Channel (to be telecast from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday on VH1): “Rock ‘n’ roll and golf–what a great combination.”
Sonefeld of Hootie and the Blowfish put an astute, interlocking grip on the trend when he responded, in Rolling Stone, to the band’s guys-next-door image.
“Darius and the rest of us are breaking ground by being normal,” said Sonefeld. “In rock ‘n’ roll you’ve got to do something whacked to be different, and now being ultranormal is the most whacked thing of all.”
Thereby making golf, by extrapolation, about the coolest, hippest thing going.
How cool is golf?
– VH1 hyped Fairway to Heaven II by holding a pre-tourney contest for viewers. First prize: a chance to caddie for a member of Hootie and the Blowfish.
– In a recent video, J Mascis, of Dinosaur Jr., is seen tooling down the streets of New York City in a golf cart, wearing knickers, of course.
– In their “I Only Want to Be With You” video, the Hootie guys goof around on the course with PGA Tour stars Fred Couples, a huge Hootie fan, and Jay Haas. Earlier this year, the band toured the Titleist plant in Fair Haven, Mass., where they got fitted for clubs, hit balls at the test facility and mingled with employees.
“Golf is one of the main focuses of these guys,” says Hootie road manager Mark Root. “It’s not like they became rock stars and took up golf. They were playing golf a lot long before they got into the business.”
The reasons today’s rockers are flocking to the links are as varied as the artists themselves.
At his age–47–Barrere is a musician you’d expect to have found golf.
“A lot of the guys who are playing golf are rockers who’ve been around a long time,” he says. “They have families now. They’re taking care of themselves. They’re not into drugs and alcohol now. But I know a lot of young bands who play golf–like Hootie.
“Golf is a sport that’s conducive to traveling the country. Your days are free, for the most part. When you’re riding a bus, it’s easier to take your clubs out and play a round with the band than it is to put together a five-on-five basketball game. Or if you’re in Podunk, Iowa, it’s fun to call up the local golf pro and see if he wants to swap a free round of golf for a couple of tickets to your concert.”
Barrere, a 12-handicapper, didn’t take up the game till he was 28, which just happens to be Nichols’ age at the moment.
Nichols’ passion is longstanding. He played on the junior varsity golf team as a freshman at San Marcos High in California. When, as seniors, he and his buddies formed the band that became Toad the Wet Sprocket, Nichols stored his clubs in a closet for five years.
“I picked golf up again because it’s something I love and I finally had the free time to do it,” he says. “On the road we play five nights a week. If I get up late, I still try to get in nine holes–just to get out of the hotel. I try to play a couple times a week.”
Golf offers a balance
Young or old, one theme seems universal: A quiet 18 holes on the links is the ultimate back rub for musicians who rock till the midnight hour in front of thousands of adoring fans.
“It’s a real good way to counteract the rock ‘n’ roll aspect of my life,” Barrere says. “Being on a golf course is peaceful, it helps me unwind. It takes the same kind of concentration to get the lyrics straight as it does to look over a 20-foot downhill slider of a putt.”
“I even like to watch golf on TV,” says Nichols. “I like the way it sounds. It’s a nice contrast to what I do at night. Plus, I like the focus of it. I’m really serious about it. I’m a 10-handicapper but now that I’m home I’m going to try to cut that number in half.”
Rock stars say they also like the perks.
It’s great being Hootie when it opens the door to places like Harbour Town in Hilton Head, S.C., home of the Heritage Classic; Pebble Beach Golf Links in Monterey, Calif.; Miami’s Doral and Ft. Lauderdale’s Weston Hills (Honda Classic), where the boys played this year with Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino.
“When the band’s on tour,” Root says, “they probably play once a week; at home maybe three, four times a week. . . . On tour there are 11 sets of clubs in the bus. There are 10 or 12 of us playing–not just the four guys in the band.”
Nichols says golf also has been an important link in his friendships and business dealings.
“The guy who produced our last two records,” he says, “plays golf. When we heard that we thought, `Great, when we’re not recording we’ll have somebody to play golf with.’ It’s kind of why we picked him in the first place.”
At last year’s VH1 tourney, Nichols struck up a conversation with four guys from an obscure new band. The talk drifted to golf.
“Back then I’d never heard of Hootie and the Blowfish,” says Nichols. “This year we toured together and played golf together.”
How cool is golf? This cool:
“I don’t think I’m a rock star,” says Nichols. “I don’t think of myself as a guitarist either. I’m just a member of this band. If I wasn’t in this band, I probably wouldn’t be in another one. I’d probably be trying to get on the PGA Tour.”
