Life turns sweet for Couples

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jul 6, 2003 | by Alan Campbell

FRED Couples still does it for the ladies. At last month's US Open at Olympia Fields, near Chicago, gaggles of teenage college girls stood outside the clubhouse hoping to catch the eye of tall, blond American amateur champion Ricky Barnes. But out on the course it was 43-year-old Freddie who, as usual, was enjoying the best of the views.

The galleries which follow Couples have always been adorned by good looking women, but the magic is that men are fans too. American sports columnist Rick Reilly wrote: "Couples is like chocolate: nearly everybody likes him, and most people like him a lot."

Although he has eventually found some stability in his home life, the past five years have not been kind to the winner of the 1992 US Masters. Personal tragedy, serious injury problems and chronic loss of form have all visited Couples, and after reeling from the cumulative effect, probably nobody was more surprised than the player himself when he won the Shell Houston Open in April. It was his first win since 1998.

Although the preceding weeks had been hopeful, actually crossing the winning line reduced Couples to tearful sobs at his post- tournament interview. Not the tears of a clown, or publicity seeker, but those of a man whose pent-up emotions could be stemmed not a minute longer.

The American, who will make his debut in the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond this week, was for most of the 1990s one of the most accomplished golfers in the States, as well as easily the best liked. Although he won his first US PGA Tour event in 1983, the bulk of his 15 American and five international wins came between 1991 and 1998. As well as the Masters he won two Players Championships and was twice voted player of the year by his peers.

Freddie, it seemed, owned it all.

In 1992, however, Couples had separated from his wife. Debbie Couples was a flamboyant blonde who had been involved in an infamous incident when the Open Championship was held at Muirfield that year. Couples missed the cut and wanted to leave immediately; Debbie instead decided on a night out in North Berwick and had to be dragged away by a friend as she danced on a table unbuttoning her top to the accompaniment of I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt.

As well as being over-demonstrative, Debbie also suffered from depression. After blowing most of the money she made from the divorce, it all ended tragically in May 2001, when she jumped seven stories to her death from the roof of a chapel in Claremont, California.

Three years earlier, Fred Couples had married his second wife, Thais, and adopted her children GiGi and Oliver. Even this new-found family happiness came at a price; Couples lost both his parents within a three-year span, while Thais was found to have breast cancer, from which she is now in remission.

As if all these upheavals were not enough, Couples frequently found himself incapacitated with an injured back. The nadir of his golfing experience came two years ago when, for the only time in his US PGA Tour career, he finished outside the top 125. Given all that had happened to him, most people assumed he was gone.

No wonder Freddie couldn't hold back the tears in Houston. The image of the most laid-back man on the US PGA Tour was suddenly cast aside for a revelatory glimpse at the emotions which tug at Couples.

Born in Seattle, he was introduced to golf on a public course by his father, who worked for the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department. Later he went to the University of Houston, where he met his best friends, fellow golfer Blane McAllister and CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz.

Couples, himself, is a man of few words, and when he does speak he has a habit of leaving sentences hanging in the air. Earlier this year he tried a bit of television punditry himself, but it is not his natural vocation.

Famously, the player whose first wife was so outgoing once remarked: "I don't like to answer the phone - somebody might be on the other end."

In keeping with his nature, praise embarrasses our Freddie and when asked after his Houston win why so many people were rooting for him, he replied tongue-in-cheek: "Because I'm such a nice guy." Then he added: "Because they feel sorry for me."

Even Couples was feeling sorry for the shell of a golfer he had become. Famous for his smooth swing, he was taken aback to be told five months ago by his new coach, Butch Harmon, that the movement he had relied on was too long and not good enough.

That meeting at Pebble Beach in February convinced Couples, who had previously been trying to introduce an over-35s tour for Major champions, that he could compete with the big boys again. But only if he worked a damn sight harder. Which he apparently has.

When married to Debbie, Couples lived in Florida, which was more her than him. Now, with his new adopted family, he lives in Santa Barbara, California, a state more conducive to his temperament. When he takes the kids to school, the lucky mothers have two men to ogle. "Tom Hanks' kids go to the same school. I don't get much attention," reported the ever-modest Freddie.