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February 2, 2023
Alfonso Ribeiro is again within the area on the AT&T Pebble Seashore Professional-Am this week.
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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — In 1937, when Bing Crosby first hosted what turned the Clambake, an annual gathering of golf-mad, cocktail-happy gadabouts, the superstar pro-am was a novel idea.
Even a technology later, when Crosby’s pal, Bob Hope, stamped his identify on a Tour cease within the California desert, the crossover of elite golf and leisure barely registered as a pop-cultural blip.
Occasions change, although. The world modifications, too.
The seed that Crosby planted has grown into an trade — a cottage trade, anyway, giant sufficient to maintain a celeb golf circuit, drawing giant crowds and sponsors and, perhaps most impressively, newbie A-listers who’ve turned the rota right into a part-time gig.
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We should always make this clear: Alfonso Ribeiro hasn’t stop his day job and doesn’t plan to. That may be plain loopy; it’s been good to him.
To non-golf followers, the amiable 51-year-old is well known as an actor, comic and TV persona, a former star on The Recent Prince of Bel-Air, amongst different sitcoms; the present host of America’s Funniest House Movies; and co-host of Dancing with the Stars.
Golf followers with tunnel imaginative and prescient, alternatively, are apt to see Ribeiro as one thing else. Along with being the voice of PGA Tour Champions commercials, he’s a golf junkie who appears to be in all places without delay, pegging it in any and all occasions that pair professional golfers with luminaries from different fields.
“This sport has been a blessing to me, little question about it,” Ribeiro instructed me week. “Apart from household and work, it has introduced extra rewards than something in my life.”
It’s a sun-kissed, mid-week morning in Monterey, and Ribeiro is absorbing the ambiance prematurely of Crosby’s previous occasion, a event now generally known as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The temper is without delay festive and acquainted to Ribeiro, who began collaborating right here in, what…2015? 2016?
“You’ll be able to most likely Google it,” he says (You’ll be able to; 2016 it’s!).
It’s no surprise Ribeiro loses observe. Previously 12 months alone, he has made it to 4 of what he payments as “the 5 majors” of the pro-am circuit: the American Century Championship, in Tahoe; the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, in Lake Nona; the Invited Superstar Traditional, in Dallas; and now the AT&T. It pains him to have missed the Pure Insurance coverage Championship, additionally at Pebble. However it couldn’t be helped. He was locked in for capturing Dancing with the Stars.
Ribiero and Lydia Ko on the Hilton Grand Holidays Event of Champions final 12 months.
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Throw in different golf-a-paloozas, just like the annual charity occasion he hosts in Los Angeles, and one-day outings too quite a few to call, and also you begin to grasp the fullness of Ribeiro’s ledger. In contrast to some execs, he by no means complains about enjoying an excessive amount of.
“I form of pencil issues into the schedule and let individuals round me know that that is what I’d love to do,” Ribeiro says. “I do my greatest to suit issues in. However work all the time comes first.”
In a roundabout approach, it was work that introduced Ribeiro right into a golf, a sport he’d by no means performed — and had barely heard of — as a child rising up within the Bronx, the kid of Afro-Trinidadian mother and father. Baseball was his sport. Not till his late teenagers, after appearing and dancing had taken him to Hollywood, did Ribeiro first rear again and blast one off the tee. On a whim, he had joined pals on a go to to a Los Angeles driving vary.
“The primary three swings had been with driver, due to course I used to be going to hit driver,” Ribeiro stated. He caught all of them flush, knocking all three over a distant fence.
“I fell in love proper there,” Ribeiro stated. “And, boy, did I fall onerous.”
Life and work went on. Ribeiro’s sport additionally progressed. As he remembers, his first pro-am look was in 2010 (or was it 2011? You can most likely Google that, too) at Monday After the Masters, a Hootie and the Blowfish-hosted charitable occasion in Myrtle Seashore. Ready in his cart for beginning directions that week, Ribeiro launched himself to an easygoing man in an adjoining buggy: the Tour professional Willie McGirt.
“He stands out his hand and goes, ‘Hello, I’m Al,’” McGirt stated. “And I’m like, yeah, I do know who you’re. I grew up watching you on TV.’ I used to be the one who was feeling intimidated. And Al being the form of down-to-earth man he’s breaks the ice by saying, ‘Properly, now I’m the one who watches you on tv.’”
Will McGirt testing Ribiero’s motion at Pebble this week.
Josh Sens
In these days, Ribeiro’s sport was sound sufficient to encourage expectations. He put stress on himself to play properly in entrance of crowds. However that was then. These days, he says, he doesn’t really feel the faintest first-tee jitters. Seasoning helps. So does his index. As of late, Ribeiro performs off a 0.7.
“After I first began, all the pieces for me was a long-drive contest, swinging out of my sneakers on each swing,” Ribeiro stated. “Studying to hit the contact pictures. That’s been key.”
It’s virtually an axiom in golf that scratch gamers don’t win handicapped occasions. Certain sufficient, Ribeiro has by no means received at Pebble. However nor has he received any of the opposite “majors.” It’s robust to beat large fields, particularly ones teeming with expertise.
Assured as he’s, Ribeiro concedes that he’s not fairly on the stage of the pro-am regulars whom he kiddingly calls “the unemployed.” Ex-athletes like Mark Mulder, Tony Romo, John Smoltz and Mardy Fish.
“They’re principally retired,” Ribeiro says. “I’m nonetheless working. I can’t sustain with that.”
Among the many Hollywood set, he ranks himself proper up there, simply behind Jack Wagner and a shade forward of his pal Michael Pena, a frequent enjoying associate at Lakeside, the non-public course in Burbank the place they each belong.
“There are another actors on the market who suppose they’re primary however aren’t,” Ribeiro says. Josh Lucas involves thoughts, as does Dennis Quaid.
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“Dennis was happening one time to a bunch of us about being the very best golfer in our trade,” Ribeiro says. “All of us simply laughed.”
Ribeiro has different favourite pro-am moments, just like the time (what 12 months was it?) at Tim Tebow’s charity occasion at TPC Sawgrass when his shot on the famed island-green seventeenth rattled the flag and practically dropped for a gap in a single. There was additionally the time (2015, perhaps?) when, enjoying with McGirt at PGA West, Ribeiro drained an eagle and celebrated with a crowd-pleasing Carlton dance: the jig that he made well-known on the Recent Prince.
He and McGirt are paired this week at Pebble, the place they’ve partnered a number of occasions earlier than, their greatest end coming in 2018 (it’s Google-able), once they scrapped so onerous the make the minimize on Saturday that each one of Sunday turned a blur.
“We had been so drained on the primary tee the following morning,” McGirt stated. “It felt like we’d been out partying all night time.”
How this week will unfold is difficult to forecast. Ribeiro isn’t sweating it both approach. Enjoyment is what issues, he stated, not the end result.
“Issues are good with my household, they’re good with work, I really like this sport,” he stated. “My feeling is, simply by being out right here, I’ve already received.”
Josh Sens
Golf.com Contributor
A golf, meals and journey author, Josh Sens has been a GOLF Journal contributor since 2004 and now contributes throughout all of GOLF’s platforms. His work has been anthologized in The Greatest American Sportswriting. He’s additionally the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, of Are We Having Any Enjoyable But: the Cooking and Partying Handbook.
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