At the end of the exhibition, he talked about how he flights a ball high or low not by changing his technique, but simply by envisioning a high or a low shot and just letting his body react to it. He admitted it was part of his background growing up as a baseball player, something Bob Rotella, the sport psychologist, pointed out to him. "I paid him $1,500 to have him tell me it was just like throwing a ball," Couples said, and everybody laughed.
That night, after an awards presentation, he ate dinner at a Santa Monica restaurant, sitting across from Brad Shaw, a former USC golfer, and John McClure, a longtime friend and developer who's referred to as the mascot in Freddie's posse. Afterward, he was on the road to his place in Palm Springs, LaCava behind the wheel. And late Tuesday afternoon, he and LaCava were in that Escalade again, driving the 3 1/2 hours to Phoenix/Scottsdale. "Freddie's jacked up," Harmon said during a phone conversation over the weekend. "He's the new text king. He's excited about his back. He's able to practice. He wasn't able to practice last year."
The plan calls for Couples to sit out the long rounds at Pebble Beach, attend The Grammys on Feb. 8 (he was the winning bidder for two backstage passes at Tiger Woods' Block Party) and return to Riviera for the Northern Trust Open (Feb. 14-17). A new trophy was unveiled at Riviera the same day Couples was there, as the bank takes over for Nissan, but it's always the L.A. Open--as Northern Trust will find out.
Behind the scenes at Riviera, there's worry about whether Tiger Woods will play after two straight weeks of tournament golf that included across-the-globe travel to Dubai. Although Riviera is where Tiger hit a shot for the first time in a pro event, he has never won there. Neither did Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer. There is fear among tournament directors and sponsors that Tiger only plays courses now where he has won.
Hogan won back-to-back L.A. Opens in 1947 and '48, coming back in the summer of '48 to win the Open. Not being sacrilegious, but there was talk that if Freddie came back and won at age 48, that the alley should be renamed. "The place still echoes for him when he comes down Capri Drive," says Renaud, who has known him since Fred won the old Kemper Open at Congressional in 1983. That was 25 years ago, but in a sense, not much has changed. "I've always loved Riviera," Fred said many times during the day. "It's my favorite place."
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