AmFam celebrity event all fun and games
Madison – A huge gallery moved amoeba-like up and down the fairways at University Ridge Golf Course on Saturday, following four golfers, none of whom had a chance to win the American Family Insurance Championship.
Lee Trevino, Andy North, Brett Favre and Derek Jeter competed in a ninehole celebrity scramble to raise money for American Family Children’s Hospital. OK, maybe “competed” isn’t quite accurate. They participated.
The great Trevino, 78, told stories and cracked jokes, pausing just long enough between punch lines to hit that pretty left-to-right butter fade. People yelled “4” at Favre and he yelled “Fore!” back. Jeter, the Yankees great, hit some decent shots with a wrap-around-his-back baseball swing. North, who always tells me, “I got nothing,” when I ask about his golf game, showed flashes of the shot-making skill that made him a two-time U.S. Open champion.
But it wasn’t about the golf. It was about having a good time and making sure a couple thousand people who followed them on the hilly back nine did, too. For the record, Favre and North teamed to shoot 4-under par and “win” the scramble; $25,000 in their names will be donated to AmFam Children’s Hospital.
The foursome teed off on the 10th hole immediately after the final tournament threesome went through. This would no sooner happen on the more restrictive PGA Tour than having the pros putt through a clown’s mouth, but the
PGA Tour Champions is in no position to nix an event that brings people to the course.
This was Trevino’s first visit to the AmFam. The six-time major champion can barely hit the ball out of his own shadow now but still has marvelous hands. He gave an impromptu lesson on the range to former University of Wisconsin player Jessie Gerry, alternately hitting low hooks and high fades with an ease that hinted at the talent that once took down Jack Nicklaus.
“That was pretty priceless,” said Gerry, who now plays on the Symetra Tour.
After they finished the exhibition, Trevino nodded at Favre and told the crowd gathered around the 18th green that he played golf with Vince Lombardi and counted old Packers Paul Hornung, Max McGee and Jesse Whittenton among his friends.
“I partied with those boys …” Trevino said.
“Why does that not surprise me?” Favre interjected.
“… I’m telling you, they’d come to El Paso and we would wind up in Juarez (Mexico), baby,” Trevino said.
Trevino, Hornung and McGee, raising hell in bars south of the border? Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
Favre, once a mid-single digit handicapper, obviously hasn’t played much golf lately. His shots were all over the map.
“I played with Lee about 20 years ago in the Cadillac Classic in Montclair, New Jersey,” Favre said. “The guy can still play, and so can Andy. It’s really humbling to play golf with these guys. You realize how bad you really are.”
On the plus side, he looks like he could suit up for the Packers tomorrow. You can’t tell me a 48-year-old Favre wouldn’t beat out Brett Hundley and DeShone Kizer.
North, 68, hasn’t played much golf in recent years and cold-topped a hybrid from the rough on the 11th hole. But he quickly warmed to the challenge and hit several vintage shots. He spun a 70-yard bunker shot to a stop just 21⁄2 feet from the hole on No. 13 for a conceded birdie and knocked a wedge close enough on the next hole for Favre to convert that one.
“I don’t know why Andy quit playing (on the PGA Tour champions) so early,” Trevino said. “I think he could still compete.”
On the 10th tee, as Jeter stood over his ball, a fan straining against the gallery rope 30 yards down the fairway yelled, “Don’t be nervous!”
“I’m not nervous,” the Captain said in mid-waggle. “You should be nervous.”
And so it went, the players trading barbs and taking turns hitting shots good, bad and ugly. Up ahead, a tournament was going on. Back here, where legends roamed, it was all about the fun.