On the 25th April, the annual Alice Cooper golf tournament took place in Arizona. Courtesy of a birthday present from my wife I had the pleasure of being there in all my Royal & Awesome glory with a few pairs of funky golf trousers!
As you would expect with Alice Coper he puts on a show and a half and the event was amazing! The Sunday evening sees a fundraising dinner with some of the rock god greats. This year saw a line up including Alice’s band, Tommy Thayer from Kiss, Alex Lifeson from Rush, Danny Seraphine from Chicago and a host of others! All loud, proud and dangerous to know. There was no Kiss painted face, the bodies may have not been so reckless and wild around the stage; but the music and performance wasn’t just awesome, in fact it was Royal & Awesome!!!!
But I get ahead of myself! We flew out to Phoenix on Wednesday so I could play the Las Sendas, home of the Alice Cooper Solid Rock Golf Tournament a few times to get to know it in advance of the competition. On Thursday I was partnered with three strangers. What luck one of them turned out to be Andrew Robertson, an ex PGA pro who works at Cool Clubs and plays in the Alice Cooper tournament. So we became buddies over the course of the round and played on Friday as well. He knew Alice and the guys and said he would look after us on the Sunday.
Then on the Sunday when I played I met Javier Reyes who is a facebook friend of Royal & Awesome! Naturally I was wearing different Royal & Awesome pants each day, all tastefully loud and drawing comment from all who saw them, Javier was impressed and is off to acquire his own set, having previously only admired from afar!
Come the Monday 25th and come the tournament I was super excited and arrived so early I parked in the best parking space! Alice was warm and generous, having met him the night before. Tommy Thayer was engaging and smart and no face paint in sight still. I was allocated a fun team and we partnered with Charlie Beljan – a fabulous golfer and good company.
So welcomed, I ended up live on Good Morning Arizona doing a piece on why I had travelled from UK for the tournament!
The format is 5 ball scramble which with 35 teams reduces time a bit! Charlie hit some great shots, driving the green on a 400 yard par 4 by cutting across the desert but still a 350 yard drive! He was a bit off and could have left us a shorter putt for eagle quite frankly! Our team were 4 under after 3 holes and we finished 11 under. We missed out on winning by 3 shots and came 6th. An amazing day, extraordinary experience and more than I could have hoped for. Our prize was a set of limited edition grips – with skull on them designed for Alice – what else!
Alice set up his Solid Rock Foundation over two decades ago and exists to help youth gain hope and help. Some of the stories are heart rending, the children have their talents bought to the fore and all the charity does is to be applauded.
So one heck of a trip, one great cause and one Mr Nice Guy, whoever said no more!
Roger Southam
6th May 2016
