Beyond the Boxscore
When NASCAR and golf hop into bed together: The unique roar of Shell HoustonOpen is part Tom Cruise
A.J. Allmendinger
Hunter MahanPhoto by © Michelle Watson/CatchlightGroup.com
That classic "Days of Thunder" still brings athletes from different sportstogether.
The Shell Houston Open isn't just another golf tournament.
Clay Walker and his wife Jessica
What's dinner conversation like when a NASCAR hotshot sits one executive away from a top PGA Tour player?
Awkward —and maybe a tad forced. Until Days Of Thunder is brought up.
Yes, that cheesy Tom Cruise flick from 1990 lore is still capable of bringing elite athletes together.
When Hunter Mahan — one of the top 15 golfers in the world — drops a Days Of Thunder reference on NASCAR's A.J. Allmendinger, as in "Just like in Days Of Thunder," you almost expect a driver eye roll. Instead Allmendinger is more than game to relate the travails of Cruise's Mello Yellow car to his own.
With his bombshell blonde wife Jessica rubbing his back and legs in support before he makes his way to the podium, Walker is a force of determination.
Allmendinger launches into an explanation of how hard the stock cars are to control and soon Mahan is completely into it. And Allmendinger never needed any reference points to get into the golf.
When he's told he can pick up something in the Redstone pro shop before his round in the Pro-Am, the driver who oozes cool (he's nicknamed Dinger) turns into a little kid. Allmendinger immediately tells his driver/problem solver that they'll be leaving for the course an hour earlier than expected the next morning.
"I have to shop," Allmendinger says.
It's Shell Houston Open week, the week when golf and motor sports become unlikely bedfellows. Yes, Houston's PGA Tour stop is unique because it's the last tournament before The Masters, really the unofficial start to golf's serious season.
But what truly makes the Shell Houston Open stand out in many ways is its tie to car racing.
What other tournament in the world brings some of the biggest names in racing and golf together? Just a table over from where Mahan and Allmendinger break bread at the Shell Houston Open Legacy Award Dinner, auto racing legend Roger Penske sits at a table with country music star Clay Walker listening to Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of ESPN's national Mike & Mike in the Morning radio show riff on each other on the stage — and marvel at the good-guy spirit of former U.S. Open winner Lucas Glover.
It turns out that Glover turned out to be the ultimate pro-am partner a few years ago for an old lady Mike & Mike contest winner.
"Her handicap was talent," Greenberg cracks. ". . . And Lucas Glover is on his knees reading putts for her. She's has a six (putt) for a 14 and he's down there. God bless him."
The day after this dinner, Penske and his star driver Helio Castroneves will be a major part of announcing that IndyCar is returning to race in Houston in 2013. And where is that announcement made? At Redstone, a golf venue. The common tie is Shell of course, the sponsor of Houston's PGA tournament ($51 million raised for charity in the last 20 years) and now its major auto race.
The oil giant keeps bringing these two passions together, finding synergy where you wouldn't expect any to be.
What's that in the corner of the room at the golf dinner? One of the cars from the Shell Eco-Marathon, which will have more than 1,000 high school and college kids competing to break 3,000 MPG in fuel efficiency on the streets around George R. Brown the same weekend that Phil Mickelson tries to defend his title at Redstone.
Assuming Mickelson makes it to the weekend (he tees off in his first round at 12:40 p.m. Thursday).
Car Talk
Back at the table, Mahan is asking Allmendinger about Danica Patrick (Days Of Thunder and Danica in the same conversation? Mahan's lucky he's good enough to have won more than $19 million on Tour or this might have been a very different talk). Allmendinger reveals he used to race go-karts against Patrick.
The golfer drives himself. The race car driver has a member of his team waiting to drive him to the course — or wherever else he wants to go.
That impresses the golfer. But not as much as Walker, whose battle against multiple sclerosis moves the entire Houstonian Hotel ballroom. With his bombshell blonde wife (something any self-respecting PGA Tour pro can relate to) Jessica rubbing his back and legs in support before he makes his way to the podium, Walker is a force of determination.
"When I was diagnosed 16 years ago, I was told I'd be in a wheel chair in four years," Walker says. "And I'd be dead in eight years."
Instead Walker is still commanding any stage he steps on with the steady gait of a cowboy. So what if the PGA Tour player at his table Shaun Micheel admits to being much more of a KISS fan? Walker will convert him by the end of the night too.
If not to country music, at least to the power of doing something.
Walker is this year's Shell Legacy Award winner for his efforts to turn his personal fight against multiple sclerosis into steps to a cure for everyone, and for his work helping America's wounded soldiers. Later, Mahan will tweet about how impressed he is by the country star.
But now, it's time to call it a night. Mahan who attends the dinner with an entourage of no one will wait in the valet line to get his courtesy car.
The golfer drives himself. The race car driver has a member of his team waiting to drive him to the course — or wherever else he wants to go.
That's Shell Houston Open week. You never know what to expect in this most full throttle of golf tournaments.
