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Alice Cooper's Greatest {golf} Hits

Whether it's on stage or on the golf course, the legendary rocker shines in the spotlight.

For decades, Alice Cooper was best known for cranking out iconic hard rock anthems such as, "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out."

These days, however, what you're more likely to hear from him is, "I'm playing 18," or "I'm going to school on your putt." The guy who once used to close his show by submitting to a guillotine blade now thinks of cold steel only in regard to the shafts in his irons. Giant, slithering boa constrictors? Not anymore. They've been jettisoned for snakes of a different kind, such as those twisting 30-footers that Cooper drops with astonishing regularity. Yes, after 40 years of brilliant showmanship and a fistful of chart-topping albums, Cooper is certified rock 'n' roll royalty. Make no mistake, though. He's also a certified golf junkie.

"Golf is the crack of sports," Cooper says. "Once I took it seriously, I loved it. It absolutely saved my life."

Few have ever taken to the game with the focus and zeal displayed by Cooper. "I've got an addictive personality," explains the man known as "Coop" to his friends. "Everything I do, I do to extremes. I mean, I've been married for 30 years. You've either got to be not married, or WAY married. Addictions aren't all bad — you've got to make some of them positive."

Cooper took up golf 25 years ago, pretty much right after he quit drinking. "The whiskey and cokes had nearly destroyed me," he recalls. "After I quit, I had to find something to do when I got up in the morning that would get me through to our shows in the evening. Time is an alcoholic's worst nightmare. Golf was the perfect bridge."

As a full-time resident of Phoenix, Cooper had plenty of sunny days to aid him in his quest. "My very first year, I would play 18 holes in the morning, have lunch, play 18 in the afternoon and figure out a way to squeeze in one to two hours of lessons, too. My wife, Sheryl, fully supported me. Every morning, she'd point to my golf clubs and say, 'Go.' I went from a 36-handicap to 9 in my first year."

Cooper's passion for golf hasn't waned a bit in all of those years. He's sporting a 5-handicap, up from a low of 2 five years ago. He's broken 70 a dozen or so times, with a career best of 67 at Scottsdale's Camelback Golf Club, when he chipped in for eagle at the 18th. He gleefully pointed out that on his most recent tour, from May through November 2006, his band played in 97 cities —s and he managed to tee it up 70 times. "My guitar player and my bass player both love to play golf," says Cooper. "You get to travel around, play the greatest courses during the day, then do a show in the evening. How perfect is that?"

Although Cooper has played all over the world, it's clear he's partial to desert golf, especially golf in Vegas. "Where have I played in Vegas?" Cooper responds. "Where haven't I played?" He showers countless Vegas layouts with positives, but at the top of his list is Shadow Creek. "I play there a lot," says Cooper, "but one time I'm there with my son, Dash, and we're in that great locker room. There's Stallone's name on a locker, Michael Douglas, Don Johnson. Then Dash looks up and sees my name on a locker, and on the locker next to mine is Michael Jordan. He couldn't believe his eyes. I was a big hero that day."

Another Vegas course earning Cooper's seal of approval is Cascata. "That's a great target course, with maybe the premier clubhouse in town," says Cooper. He's also a fan of Paiute. "What a challenge," he exhales. "There's nothing to stop the wind out there. You can find yourself hitting three more clubs than you normally would on one hole and three less on another, depending on the wind. And their greens are like lightning."

Cooper praises both TPC courses, says he "liked Anthem very much" and calls Siena "a great course." He concludes his Vegas golf tour with his friend Johnny Miller's design at Badlands. "If you want to get beat up, Badlands can take care of that for you."

His unlikely pairing with Miller in a series of Callaway ads remains one of the most inspired golf-marketing success stories of the past 20 years. "I was playing in the VHl Fairway to Heaven event and Robert Wuhl (of HBO's "Arliss" fame) made the introduction to the Callaway guys, Ely Callaway and Bruce Parker. I came up with the idea of having somebody say to me, 'Nice shot, Alice,' a play on words. I thought it would make a great commercial, if we could find somebody who was the antithesis of Alice Cooper to deliver the line. Johnny Miller was the perfect guy for it. Ely was just about to launch a new product, the Steel head line, which was mid-priced so that the average guy could afford to play Callaways. I had always believed that the best way to sell anything was to have fun with it. That's just what our ads did with Johnny and me. Buyers felt warmer to Callaway products. Now I've been with Callaway for 13 years. I think I've got seniority at the company. I'm the only celebrity left."

For the man born Vincent Damon Furnier on Feb. 4, 1948, the journey to golf addict and celebrity pitchman seems nearly unthinkable, given where he was 35 years ago. The early 1970s saw Furnier legally change his name to Alice Cooper. Those years also saw him penning outrageous lyrics and performing in macabre stage shows that were so threatening he offended entire generations of music fans. He was the real Freddy Krueger, a nightmare come to life for many parents. At one point, England banned him entirely. Yet young men — and plenty of young women — couldn't get enough of this wildly original king of shock rock, with the heavy theatrical eye makeup and production numbers that included nooses, electric chairs and other props that didn't portend happy endings. Hit singles included "I'm Eighteen," "School's Out" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy" but eventually, the beer and whiskey wore him out. Fortunately, friends, family and golf were there to stabilize and then resurrect the man and his career.

Today, Cooper's like any other golf ghoul haunting the grill rooms at our nation's country clubs. He marvels over the advances in rescue clubs and how they've changed his game. He reminisces fondly at the memory of no less than John Daly telling him to shorten his swing and go to a more lofted driver, explaining that if you can put it in the fairway, you don't need to hit it farther than 240 yards and you'll still be fine. His strength as a golfer is his consistency: "I'm never in trouble — I hit 90 percent of the fairways."

Nevertheless, his greatest strength lies in what he's giving back. Since 1995, Cooper has spearheaded the Solid Rock Foundation, a non-profit Christian organization that raises money through his annual Alice Cooper Celebrity Am Golf Tournament and the Alice Cooper's Christmas Pudding at downtown Phoenix's Dodge Theater, "an old-fashioned variety show," as its founder puts it, where an eclectic mix of acts from jazz to comedy to rock 'n' roll take the stage for a few minutes, then boom — onto the next act. Indeed, Cooper's next act is as ambitious as anything he's tackled. He's looking at raising $3 to $5 million to build a Christian-based recreational youth activities center in west Phoenix, called The Rock.

"This is meant to be a safe haven," says Cooper, who says the idea came to him in 2006 because "I decided the time is now to leave a mark. We want all kids to come in, to intermix. It's sports-oriented, but we'll also have music, dance and art lessons, too. Maybe instead of a kid falling in with a gang, we can teach him three guitar chords, so instead of going to jail, he'll be making music." Contributions can be made through www.srfrock.org. "We've raised $1 million as of the end of the year, and when we hit $3 million we'll break ground. We'll need to raise $5 million overall."

There's no one betting against Cooper. He has too much passion, too much creativity, too much energy to let it fail. From time to time, you'll see him in Vegas, playing music, playing golf or just playing around. "My wife and I love coming up here. Of course, the Hard Rock is the hotel of choice for musicians, but we really like the Bellagio and the Mirage, too. Mandalay Bay is nice as well. We perform at the House of Blues there quite a bit." Cooper is a huge fan of family shows, especially the Cirque de Soleil productions. He also admires the work of Danny Gans ("He even does me — that's pretty obscure"). He'd like to see the Beatles show, Love, having been quite close to both John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He even took in Celine Dion's show at the request of his then-11-year-old daughter, Sonora, who was a fan of the movie "Titanic." Says Cooper: "I was kind of curious what $90 million would buy. Give me $50 million ‐ and let's see what I could do."

As founder of two successful themed restaurants called Alice Cooper'stown ‐ one in Phoenix and one in Cleveland — plus a Halloween haunted house that USA Today has recognized as the best in the nation, Cooper knows what to do with extra cash. He speaks playfully of opening his own Vegas-area resort that he would call Alice Cooper's Haunted Hotel, where "the phone doesn't ring, it screams," and you could belly up to the hotel's buffet, the Vampire Slayer, have cocktails served by Elvira look-alikes, have skulls for tee markers on the golf course and concoct the rooms so they change materially by the time you wake up from what they had been when you went to sleep.

Golfer, restauranteur, haunted house proprietor ‐ all are worthy vocations. Still, "nothing beats the rock-star thing," says Cooper. "It's the ultimate rush."

Rock on, Coop. You've got a lot of fans out there.