He came. He saw. He swung. He won. In classic Kix Brooks fashion, the man who would be Ferris Beuller somehow managed to tee it up with golf legend Arnold Palmer, power-hitter John Daly and top 10 LPGA star
Natalie Gulbis at the Atunyote (pronounced ah-dune-yoo) Golf Club hoping to hold his own with such fast company and somehow walked away the winner of their Celebrity Skins Game - with actual birdies on 3, 10 and 16 AND pars that turned to birdies with his handicap stroke on 9 and 14.
"Beats me," says the man with the devilish grin and permanent twinkle in his eye. "I just wanted to not embarrass myself. But I had two natural birdies on a couple of the Par 3s?. and rolled in some good putts. I haven't broken 90 out on the road the last few weeks, when I was trying to 'get ready' for this, and today I played some of the best golf of my life."
With carryovers, Brooks won 9 of the 18 possible skins - besting Arnold Palmer's 4 and John Daly's 5, the final hole being a double-value chip-off. And while the man who owns to playing to a solid 15 handicap back home might not be beyond a little sand-bagging, the 10 strokes he was given seemed a little more than taut. Still in classic old school songwriter style, the man with the low-slung guitars and black hat worked off the most time-honored trick in the book: inspiration.
"When you're out there playing with those folks, it brings out the best in you, it just does," Brooks allows. "And probably rolling in there on about an hour's sleep doesn't hurt, either. It's tough to have nerves when you're flat exhausted? and I was, because John took me out with a bunch of the PGA pros, and we got to singing songs all night, hanging out - and these guys all hang together, have a good time together like the baseball players.
"I mean, there we were at 3 in the morning with Johnny Lee (a Daly pal) singing 'Looking For Love' (the man who actually had the No 1 hit with it from the "Urban Cowboy" soundtrack) and telling jokes. It was totally like running away and joining a whole other kind of circus."
Certainly Daly is known for his desire to tee it up on the concert stage. Even The Syracuse Post Standard referenced Daly's "All My Exes Wear Rolexes" recording when balancing the odd pairing in a piece that proclaimed Brooks "trounced some of golf's royalty at their own game."
Still for the man whose "Play Something Country" just topped both the Billboard and Radio & Records Country Singles chart and whose Hillbilly Deluxe gave Brooks & Dunn a two-week Billboard Album chart-topper, it's not a bad cherry on top of the sundae. With hosting duties for the 39th Annual Country Music Association Awards coming up - Nov. 15 live from Madison Square Gardens - and their Deuces Wild Tour doing big business, he's got some pretty strong things to compare it to.
