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A Passion for Golf
1997
Interview: Ann Liguori

Pete Sampras is one of the few gentlemen left in big-time sports. He has modeled his career and behavior after the legendary and classy Rod Laver, who is the only player to have won two Grand Slams in the same year. Sampras is also setting his sights on equaling and surpassing Laver's eleven major-tournament wins.

With Pete Sampras, what you see on the court is what you get -- guts, heart, and character. Those qualities transfer to the golf course. He is a pleasure to play golf and hang out with.

Despite verbal jabs by writers who labeled him and his style of play boring early in his professional career, Sampras had let his on-court performance do the talking, until several very emotional, come-from-behind victories changed the public's perception of him.

In the 1995 Australian Open quarterfinals against Jim Courier, Sampras broke down during the match as he struggled with the fact that best friend and coach Tim Gullikson had been admitted to the hospital for what would later be diagnosed as brain cancer. Sampras rallied back from being down two sets to love to bear Courier in five.

At the 1996 French Open, soon after Tim passed away, Sampras was able to pull out three dramatic five-set matches. And in one of the most compelling and memorable matches I've ever covered, Sampras overcame an upset stomach and a two-set-to-one deficit to beat Alex Corretja in a fifth set tiebreaker in the quarterfinals of the 1996 U.S. Open.

Early in the tiebreaker, Sampras threw up on the court. At seven all, after surviving one match point, Sampras aced Corretja on his second serve to go up eight points to seven. Corretja then double-faulted to lose the match. The fact that Sampras hung in to win it was heroic.

I caught up with Sampras during the Champions Cup in Indian Wells, California, hosted by Hyatt Grand Champions and conveniently situated near two golf courses amongst the ninety courses in the Palm Springs desert resorts area.

Golf has become such a popular sport amongst tennis professionals that oftentimes, in between practice and tournament play, they'll hit the links for relaxation. When Sampras found out that the subject of our interview would be golf and tennis, he did what he could to maneuver his schedule so that he could accommodate me.

After our sit-down interview, Sampras and I went out to the range. He seemed eager to show off his driving prowess. In tennis, he's a power player with one of the biggest serves in the game. His serve has been clocked as fast as 132 miles per hour.
When Sampras is in top form, his opponent's service return games consists of walking from the deuce to the ad court and back to the deuce court, while Sampras smokes one unreturnable serve after another.

He applies the same power to his golf swing. Nothing makes him happier than taking the driver out and belting one 300 yards. He comes out of his shoes to distance the ball that far, though the ball seldom goes straight and down the middle.

But in the 1996 Isuzu Celebrity Golf Championships long-drive competition in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Sampras outdrove football, baseball, basketball, and hockey players to win the competition with a blast of 332 yards. If he only had more time to practice, he would be dangerous.

Liguori: Pete, how does the number-one tennis player in the world find time for golf?

Sampras: Well, when I'm on my time off from tennis is really the only time I can play golf. When I'm playing the Tour and whatever, I'm doing so many things and I don't really have any time. I have a home in Tampa on a golf course and I own a golf cart, so I hop on the golf cart and go out and play as much as I can.

Q: How did you get interested in golf?

Pete: I got interested in golf when I turned pro, at sixteen, seventeen. All the guys on the Tour played golf, and I just took it up. I enjoy it. It's a time when I can just escape, get away from the media, and tennis and business and all this stuff. It's really relaxing. There's no one to bother me there. You can go out with three of your good friends, have a good time, and have a lot of fun.

Q: I hear you're a fourteen handicap?

Pete: Yeah, fourteen.

Q: You have a pretty good temperament for golf, right? I mean, you control your emotions. You're pretty laid-back. Most good golfers know how to channel their anger, frustration, delight.

Pete: Yeah. I think my golf game is so erratic and I'm so inconsistent with my shots because I don't get to play enough. But you've got to admire someone who basically, for four rounds of golf, you hit two bad shots and you're going to lose a tournament. Where in tennis, you can hit many bad shots and still win. I've always respected that from golfers.

The toughest thing I have is that the ball is not moving. It's staying there and it's the same swing -- it can go anywhere. At least for me. You know, I don't get to practice enough. But I enjoy it and hopefully I can get a little bit better the more I play.

Q: Who have you played with in golf? Some of your more memorable foursomes.

Pete: I had a really fun game with Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak from the Lakers.

Q: Jerry's a good golfer. We interviewed Jerry years ago for my Sports Interview Show. He's a perfectionist, Pete. In fact, he once told me he shot the lowest score at Bel Air Country Club and he would never play again because he couldn't shoot that well every time he went out.

Pete: I believe it.

Q: He's a perfectionist.

Pete: He's a very competitive guy. Just a funny story -- I was playing with him and we were at about the fourteenth hole and I asked him about his clubs. He had some really old looking drivers, and I asked him if I would hit one of them. He's been hitting this driver for twenty-five years and loves it.

So I took a big whack at it, because I always do that -- I broke the club! I broke the club! The head fell off, and it came about a hundred yards into the fairway, and he was so pissed. I was with Mitch Kupchak on the ground laughing.

Q: And it was his favorite club?

Pete: Yes, but he got it fixed.

Q: But he must have been upset.

Pete: He took it pretty well, but I could tell he was pissed.

Q: That happened to me once on the driving range. I said, "Oh, by the way, when you pick up these balls, can you find the head of my driver and send it to me? It fell off." Is it competitive when you play with your tennis colleagues on the golf course?

Pete: You know, we take it serious to a certain point. I go out to play well, but I go out for the most part to have some fun and mess around and give each other a hard time like I always do. I play a lot of rounds with [fellow tennis pros] Todd Martin and Jim Courier.

Q: And your weakness is your short game?

Pete: I'd say I drive the ball pretty well, but when it comes to the short game, the chipping and putting, that's where I'm terrible.

Q: Well, you know, a lot of people say that. That means you spend too much time on the range trying to hit the hell out of your drives.

Pete: Just as long as I drive the ball 300 yards, I'll come back the next day.

Q: Do you drive 300 yards?

Pete: I have, yeah, but it goes straight, right into the woods. I do the John Daly workout. Bring out my driver and hit the ball as hard as I can. I go out on the first tee and....

Q: "Grip it and rip it" [from PGA player John Daly's instructional video].

Pete: My favorite video.

Q: You watch that video?

Pete: Yes. It's not too instructional, but it's good fun to watch. My tennis swings are pretty long and gangly, where golf you really need to shorten that up, 'cause my swing is so long. Kind of like John Daly in a way, but he can control it better than I can.

Q: [Tongue in cheek] Can you outdrive John Daly?

Pete: I don't think so. Maybe with a shotgun or something.

Q: Does golf hurt your tennis game, or vice versa? Because a lot of people say that you shouldn't mix both of those sports. In fact, some golfers have quit playing tennis. I remember Raymond Floyd once said that he stopped playing tennis because it was hurting his golf game.

Pete: Maybe for golfers to play tennis, that might affect them, but for tennis players to play golf, it has absolutely nothing to do with any stroke mechanic or anything that's negative about it. So I don't have any problem playing.
[On the range, Sampras drives one 250 yards straight and down the middle.]

Q: Let the club do the work.

Pete: What are you, my golf instructor?
[Sampras sets up another ball and hits it again, this time 275 yards and straight down the middle.]

Q: Oh, nice!

Pete: Not bad if you like it perfect.

Q: Is it nerve-racking for you to play golf in front of a lot of people watching? Because you're so used to it in tennis. But in golf for some reason, people say there is nothing more nerve-racking than placing that ball on the first tee.

Pete: Oh, it's definitely nerve-racking. I've only played in one pro-am in Tampa, the TPC course there. And I was playing with -- who was I playing with? I was playing with Dale Douglas, and the first tee, about a hundred people were around the tee, and for the first time I was really nervous. I hit it pretty well, but when I'm out, that's why I play, to get away from people. To get away from everyone and just have some fun.

Q: Who do you follow on the PGA Tour?

Pete: Pretty regularly, I like watching Freddie Couples. It seems like our mentality is pretty similar. Me on the tennis court, him on the golf course. It seems like we're pretty laid-back guys. I enjoy watching him play. I watch Greg Norman, who hits the ball a ton. I follow it quite a bit. If it's on the weekend, I'll watch it all the time.

Q: Are you a couch potato?

Pete: Couch potato, yeah. I've got the RCA satellite dish.

Q: Would you watch golf over tennis?

Pete: Oh yeah, absolutely. When tennis is on TV, I got away from that sport as much as possible. So golf and NBA basketball, that's it.

Q: You're a basketball fan. Who's your favorite team?

Pete: The Lakers. I grew up in LA, and so I've always been a Lakers fan.

Q: If you weren't playing tennis, would you dream of becoming golf professional?

Pete: I'd say that golfing is something that is played more or less in the States. A little bit in Europe, and the travel doesn't seem quite as bad as tennis travel. And you can play for thirty years.

Tennis, basically, you're going to last for maybe ten or twelve years. Golfers, I mean, look at guys like Ray Floyd on the Senior Tour. He's still making good money. He's fifty-two years old. I mean, you don't see that in tennis obviously because the body gets a little pounding from all the running. So golf would be the sport I'd most like to play if I wasn't playing tennis.

Q: Why is golf so popular while tennis ratings and the overall popularity of the game is on the downside?

Pete: Well, everyone plays golf because it doesn't take a lot of effort. A lot of CEO's of big companies play golf, whereas tennis takes a lot more energy, and you need to be in shape. And golf is marketed really well.

Q: One of the most successful marketing tools for all the golf tours have been the pro-ams that are held early in the tournament week. Pros play with amateurs and mix with corporate sponsors and all kinds of people.

Do you think tennis should do something like that in the beginning of the week, although you guys play matches all week long?

Pete: I've heard about it. I'd be willing to help as much as I can, but I think golfers are pretty accessible. They're older than tennis players. Most tennis players are in their early twenties, and golfers are in their thirties so they kind of understand the business aspect and you've got to give back a little bit.

I think there are some tennis players who are pretty selfish, but you know, golfers try to help their sport. They do a lot of pro-ams, a lot of cocktail parties, do whatever they can for the PGA Tour, and they do a good job marketing it. Hopefully the ATP [Associated Tennis Professionals] can get to that level, but only time will tell.

Q: When your critics called you boring and your style of tennis boring, I've always defended you. You let your tennis do the talking. Plus, I've seen you on shows and in interviews -- you can be funny!

Pete: Thank you. Everyone is different. I think the press and public were so used to seeing controversial guys like John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors, and guys that really showed a lot of personality and a lot of emotion. And I really don't. I'm pretty much to myself, and that's the best way I play my best tennis.

Q: Sure, you have to do what it takes to win and you have to be yourself.

Pete: And that's really the most important thing when I walk out on the court is to win and play good tennis. Through that, I hope I can entertain the public and people watching at home. And so I think maybe there's some reporters in Britain especially that really didn't have a lot to write about me, so they just called me boring.

And at first, that was really the first place that I heard a negative criticism about me. I thought, I'm a good guy, I do the right things, try to say the right thing, and it kind of disappointed me a little bit. But you just can't worry about stuff like that. Just let it roll off your back.

Q: And you won't change.

Pete: I'm not going to change, and I can't change because that's just not my personality.

Q: What would be the ultimate for you? If you could say, "This is what I want to do in my tennis career," what would you say it is?

Pete: I'd say to win every major.

Q: To win the Grand Slam of tennis? Could you do that?

Pete: All in one year, I think in today's game it's something very tough to do. Realistically, I think the French Open is the one title that I've not won, and I'd love to to win more of any title right now. It's really a huge challenge. It's not really my surface. I'm getting better on clay, but it's going to take some more time and maybe a couple more years.

But that's, if I can answer that question right now, it would be the French Open. That's the one I don't have. And then I'll have all four, and then I can live with that for the rest of my life.