Saving Grace

Sums up Lewis: "It turns out golf is more fun than what would happen after 1 in the morning."

For rockers still hesitant to venture into golf, there came Tiger Woods.

"Tiger is huge as far as attracting musicians to golf," says Adrian Young, drummer for No Doubt. As a teenager, Young often played at the Heartwell course in Long Beach, where the grade-schooler Woods honed his game. "We'd see this little 10-year-old chipping all the balls in this tight circle. We just thought, No way. Guess what? Way. Now, I want him to win every week. Mostly it's just watching greatness. Musicians are suckers for a virtuoso."

Johnny Mathis remembers meeting Woods backstage before Tiger's now-historic appearance at age 2 on "The Mike Douglas Show."

"Tiger's an inspiration for anyone who loves their craft," says Mathis, who started playing in his 20s, and now, at 71 and a member at Riviera, plays several times a week. "He has what the great entertainers have: Total concentration to be as good as he can be all the time. He cares little about celebrity. In fact, celebrity gets in the way. He's so busy just trying to learn golf. Musicians really respect that."

It has all gradually transformed some of the world's unlikeliest golfers into Golf Channel-watching, instruction-article-reading golf nerds. Cooper recalls a backstage conversation with recent golf convert Lou Reed. "Lou goes, 'I keep pushing the ball to the right.' I tell him, 'Lighten your right-hand grip so the club will turn over.' He starts practicing this motion, totally into it, and then it sort of hits us at the same time. I mean, could anyone have dreamed 25 years ago, sitting in the Chelsea Hotel, that Lou Reed and Alice Cooper would ever be having that conversation?"

Not that there aren't still elements of culture clash. Vince Neil, lead singer for Mötley Crue, has an annual charity event that he populates with "porno stars, strippers and booze. You know, to get people out." At Blackhawk Country Club in the San Francisco Bay area, Neil drives around in a golf cart modeled on a '57 Chevy. "With flames on the side," he says. "Sometimes you've got to unbutton that top button."

No Doubt's Young, who has played concerts naked and wearing just a G-string, recounts attending the 2005 Masters and watching the final holes on the television screen in the upstairs clubhouse. "I had big, pink hair at the time," he says. "I'm drinking and tipping well, but I also remember having this distinct feeling, I do not belong here."

Conversely, rockers have found charm in golf's courtliness. Dweezil Zappa, son of Frank, remembers playing in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic with Curtis Strange, who he had been warned could be cold toward amateur partners. "Not only was he really helpful, I got a letter from him a few days later thanking me for the round," says Zappa. "You don't see old-school manners and professionalism like that in the music world. You see it a lot in golf."

Adds Cooper: "The way I look and who I am, if I just came in swearing, with no etiquette, I wouldn't be worthy of respect as a golfer. But I think because I can play pretty well, and because I observe the traditions of the game, the people at the places I play accept me. And I think other musicians have seen that the game is better when you take it seriously."

There are several reasons that golf holds a special appeal to musicians.

First, the often grinding logistics of their lives--the road and late nights--also give them the opportunity to play the best course available wherever they happen to be in the world. Typically rounds will be set up by promoters, but musicians for years have been trading passes to their shows for green fees.

Because they spend so much time indoors among loud, amplified instruments and lots of people, the opportunity to be outside in relative solitude is keenly appreciated. "More cheese, fewer rats," in the words of Huey Lewis. Musicians are particularly attuned to the sound of silence. "Just the quiet of golf is such a pleasure and a welcome escape," says REM bassist Mike Mills. "You get reacquainted with the small noises of nature."

Several musicians mentioned that golf is invigorating before a performance. "It just fills me with fresh air and clears my head," says opera singer Thomas Hampson. "You don't do anything but play golf when you play golf. It's a terrific release because it's complete immersion. I sing better the days I play or at least hit balls."

Like Cooper, a good number of musicians acknowledge that golf is the safest way for them to channel addictive tendencies.

"Probably to be good at anything, but I think especially a musical instrument, you've got to be a little obsessed," says The Doors' Krieger. "Musicians definitely have that tendency, and with our lifestyles, and especially back in the day, it caused a lot of problems with drugs and whatever. Golf is definitely an addiction, but it's one of the few good addictions. It's probably the only reason I'm still alive."

"It's just the way so many of us are," says Cooper. "When I ran track in high school, I wasn't the fastest, but no matter how tired I was, I just kept going. I never had a watch until my mom gave me this Bulova from the 1940s. Everybody complimented me on it, I became a collector, and in two months I had 300 watches. A lot of us have to be very careful what we get addicted to."

Because their craft can't be fully mastered, musicians also tend to be drawn to the difficulty of golf.

"It's the bad shots that keep bringing me back," says saxophonist Branford Marsalis. "I like that thing Hogan said, 'The answers are in the dirt.' It's the same in music, except instead of dirt there's a practice cubicle with a metronome. With both things, you have to be specifically cognizant of your weaknesses, and realize it's going to take years."

Kenny G, No. 1 on the Golf Digest ranking, also believes the harder road brings more rewards. "If I was playing poorly, I used to quit after nine and go to the range," he says. "But what I've learned is that to develop the skill that will hold up in a tournament, you've got to dig deep and keep playing. Quitting after nine will weaken you, so when you need to par the last three holes to win something, you won't have whatever that toughness is. You've got to build that up like a callus."

Not surprisingly, it's the most accomplished musicians/golfers who confess to the most exasperation with the game.

No Doubt's Young, 37, a good player as an adolescent, improved dramatically when he rediscovered the game in earnest eight years ago. His Index fell from double digits to below scratch. After shooting several rounds in the 60s, including a 66 that was a stroke off the course record at Fox Hopyard in East Haddam, Conn., he began to play in mini-tour events and Monday qualifiers for the Nationwide and Canadian Tours. "My goal is to win my club championship and to see if I have any ounce of a chance at the mini-tour level," he says. "My main thing would still be playing music, but I'd like to see how good at golf I can get."