Margaret Cho not only doesn't play, she crucially brings a base level of knowledge from having grown up in the house of golf-crazed parents. She also has a raunchy mouth and enough tattoos to make any clubhouse manager blush. Our shoot with her in was a laugh-fest, and we highly recommend viewing Margaret's one woman-show of her interviewing her mother the golfer.
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MARGARET CHO, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN GOLF DIGEST? Well, I've never played golf on a course, but I've hit balls at the driving ranges in Koreatown. Usually late at night and with drinks, so it's very social. And my parents are huge golfers. Growing up, wherever we lived, they always had a net in our back yard. At family events, people would get real drunk, and it would almost always dissolve into some sort of golf contest, or golf fight. Luckily the damage was always to property--no people yet.
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YOUR IMPERSONATIONS OF YOUR MOM ARE LEGENDARY. HOW'S HER GAME? My mother is a much better golfer than my father, which infuriates him to no end. My mother is actually very good at everything. She's a flamenco guitarist, a soprano singer, a master chef, an expert seamstress, and she taught me how to do all those things. I just don't have her golf skills. She and my father live right on the golf course at La Costa. They've worked very hard. Golf is now such a big part of their lives, and they deserve it.
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AND YOUR FATHER WAS IN THE COMEDY BIZ? He wrote joke books for speakers. He also had a healthy business selling English-language books of all genres to Korea. We've owned bookstores. Our family has always been in the literary game. I inherited from my father a sense of humor, a sense of editing, a sense of knowing how to tell stories in public.
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FIFTEEN OF THE TOP-30 FEMALE GOLFERS IN THE WORLD ARE KOREAN-BORN. WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT? Golf is about excelling, and we Koreans love to excel. It's a very competitive country because there are only three major universities. If you don't get admitted to one of them, you don't have much of a chance of rising out of the working class. But golf can be one sort of answer. Same as with academics, parental pressure with sports can get so intense in an immigrant family.
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LYDIA KO WON HER FIRST PRO TOURNAMENT AT 15. YOU TURNED PRO AS A COMIC AT 16. ANY ADVICE FOR HER? Lydia knows what she's doing, and she knows what she wants. My regret is not having a childhood because I was so devoted to my career. It's really nice to be a kid. But Lydia wouldn't be where she is if she didn't somehow sacrifice her childhood. It's a complex thing, because if you want to make it to the top and stay there, there's a price. Hopefully she'll take time for understanding what her youth is and still could be.
Photo by Emily Shur
YOU DID QUITE THE IMPRESSION OF NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG-UN AT THE GOLDEN GLOBES THIS YEAR. DID YOU KNOW THAT HIS FATHER, KIM JONG-IL, HOLDS A GOLF RECORD? IN 1994, HE SHOT AN 18-HOLE SCORE OF 34, 38 UNDER PAR, AT THE OPENING OF PYONGYANG GOLF COMPLEX. HE HAD 11 HOLES-IN-ONE DURING THE ROUND, ALL WITNESSED BY 17 SECURITY GUARDS. I question everything that comes out of that nation. Of course, it's not possibly true, but you don't question it, because you don't want to be put in a labor camp.
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SHOULD GOLF DIGEST BE WORRIED ABOUT BEING PUT IN A LABOR CAMP? Hey, you never know. After the Golden Globes, my mother did actually suggest I go into hiding. And that's because my family has gone into hiding in the past. My grandfather was a labor-union leader and freedom fighter in the 1950s. He risked his life many times. I don't think they're coming to my house or wherever your office is, but hey, you never know.
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PERHAPS THE MOST FAMOUS GOLF STAND-UP BIT EVER IS ROBIN WILLIAMS EXPLAINING HOW THE SCOTS INVENTED GOLF. YOU'VE SAID THAT HE'S YOUR "COMEDY FATHER." EXPLAIN THE BRILLIANCE OF THAT ROUTINE. It's the immediacy. You can barely understand the words Robin is saying, yet you know exactly what he's saying. It's not that he's doing an impression of a Scotsman, it's that he becomes a Scotsman. Almost like a divine channel. That's true of everything he did in life as an actor and as a comedian. I love him so much.
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DID YOU KNOW THAT THE LPGA TOUR'S DINAH SHORE TOURNAMENT WAS ONCE BILLED AS THE LARGEST LESBIAN EVENT IN THE WORLD? I did know that, and I've played it. The last time I went to do a show there during the tournament, we had a major problem at the hotel. Vibrators are important for lesbians, and the electrical outlets were so far from the beds that I considered it a hate crime. But it's true that lesbians love golf. It's outdoorsy, and there's not really a gender bias because women can be just as extraordinary as men. You can have a woman's body and be a formidable player. Plus, golf has many politically progressive young fans, which is a great thing.
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TV MICROPHONES PICK UP MALE GOLFERS SWEARING ALL THE TIME. BUT IT ALMOST NEVER HAPPENS WITH WOMEN. I'm sure there's a double standard. I don't know any Korean women other than myself who use my level of profanity. In general, women are socialized differently when it comes to language. But I'm sure that women golfers get just as f---ing pissed off.
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EVEN THE BEST CAN SUCCUMB TO NERVES NOW AND AGAIN. IS THERE ANYTHING PRO GOLFERS MIGHT LEARN FROM HOW PRO COMICS HANDLE PRESSURE? It's the same thing. It's learning how to focus in the moment. You can't afford to sacrifice any bit of your performance to nerves or state of mind. You've just got to suck it up and do what you need to do. That's what's noble of both professions.
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ANY OTHER SIMILARITIES? THE TRAVEL. Life on the road. I know tons of comics who play golf all day and work at night, and it's just this ideal lifestyle they've created for themselves.
On Oct. 1, Cho begins a worldwide trip of 34 stand-up shows called "The PSYCHO Tour: because there is no 'I' in team but there is a 'CHO' in psycho."