Gulbis never too busy to hone game, help others

The practice green at The Falls Golf Course was fairly empty, even though it was a picture-perfect early fall day.

A handful of golfers were trying to get a feel for their putting stroke before going off to the first tee. Suddenly, there was a buzz. The whispers were audible.

"That's her. That's Natalie."

Imagine their luck. These hacks were sharing the practice green with Natalie Gulbis, one of the world's top women golfers. Never mind they were on her turf. The Falls is part of the three courses within the Lake Las Vegas community that Gulbis has called home since 2001.

Oh, the stories they would be able to tell at the 19th hole. "Hey, you'll never guess who I was putting around with today ... Natalie Gulbis!"

Gulbis sees the middle-aged men staring at her. She waves to them. They smile back like a bunch of giddy high school freshmen who've had a brush with the homecoming queen in the hallway.

Gulbis has that kind of effect on men of all ages. Just check out her 2007 calendar that has her decked out in bikinis and evening gowns.

But as she grows older, the idea of being a sex symbol becomes less a factor to Gulbis.

The 24-year-old Sacramento, Calif., native earned her first LPGA Tour win this summer and appears set to build on that success. On and off the course.

That phase includes hoping one day to have a family and giving back to her community in Southern Nevada and her hometown.

"I would love to build a Boys & Girls Club here and in Sacramento," Gulbis said, hoping to emulate Andre Agassi's successful venture through her foundation, the Natalie Gulbis Foundation, which she started in 2005. "To me, that's a great way of giving back, helping kids."

Gulbis knows the best way to ''give back'' is to be successful. Winning eight Grand Slam titles helped Agassi become a philanthropic icon, but Gulbis has a long way to go before she can be part of a similar discussion.

At least she has tasted success on the LPGA Tour. Her win at the Evian Masters in France in July put an end to the references to Anna Kournikova -- the tennis star who oozed sex appeal but never won. The Evian title remains Gulbis' lone LPGA win, though she was part of the USA team that won the Solheim Cup in September.

"Honestly, I never gave it much thought," she said of comparisons to Kournikova, the former tennis pro who failed to win a singles title on the WTA Tour. "I'm too busy for that."

Busy. That's a good way to describe Gulbis' life. Too busy to cook at her Lake Las Vegas home. Too busy to keep pets. Too busy to have a steady boyfriend, much less get married.

But Gulbis is not too busy to work on her game or giving back to the community. She will participate in the Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge on Monday and Tuesday at Reflection Bay Golf Club, a made-for-television event that in its first 15 years has raised $25 million for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which helps foster kids.

"I love it here," she said of Lake Las Vegas, where she has a business arrangement to represent the three golf courses and maintains her home. "It's so beautiful here. I love the weather. The people are warm, and they embrace you. It's the perfect place for me."

It's also convenient. She's a short car ride from her coach, Butch Harmon, who has been working with her since she turned pro in 2001 after an All-America career at Arizona. She's an hour plane ride from her parents, John and Barbara, in Sacramento.

"My dad exposed me to the game, and my love of golf comes from him," said Gulbis, who learned to play the game when she was 4. "He loved to play, and golf was a chance for us to do things together."

John Gulbis said his only child was always athletic. First, it was gymnastics. But eventually, it was golf that would drive Natalie.

"When she was 8 or 9, she told me she wanted to play on the (LPGA) Tour," he said.

Gulbis' work is her life. She's a regular visitor to the gym, spending six days a week trying to stay in shape. She spends three days a week in the weight room. The other three days, she has physical therapy with a personal trainer to make sure her back, which has given her problems during her career, doesn't keep her off the course.

Her swing isn't textbook, but Harmon has no plans to change it.

"As long as she's hitting the ball square with the club face, she's fine," Harmon said. "She's a good student, very attentive, always wanting to learn and improve."

Her putting grip is unorthodox. Gulbis separates her hands as if she were holding a hockey stick. Yet, according to LPGA statistics, she is tied for fourth in putting, needing 1.78 putts per hole.

Then there's her reality television show, among the highest rated on The Golf Channel. "The Natalie Gulbis Show" is Natalie being, well, Natalie. The program shows Gulbis on the golf course, traveling to tour stops, hanging out with family and friends, covering personal appearances and giving viewers a look at her daily routine.

"I have a blast doing the show," she said of the series, which was her father's idea in an attempt to market her. "It's all very real, but it's fun."

The calendar, a hot item at souvenir stands on the LPGA Tour, will be toned down for 2008 -- not as much skin and more of Gulbis the golfer.

Her management team, which oversees her schedule, is a godsend, Gulbis says.

"They've taken a lot of pressure off me," she said as she opened a FedEx envelope that had her next two weeks' schedule, hour by hour.

"Look at this," she said, pointing to the color-coded spread sheet. "I couldn't keep track of this myself. No way."

Gulbis constantly is on the go. In addition to her LPGA Tour schedule, charity work and TV show, she has business obligations with her sponsors, which include adidas sportswear, 24-Hour Fitness, MasterCard, Anheuser Busch, TaylorMade golf equipment and Winn Grips.

When she gets downtime and she's in Las Vegas, Gulbis likes to go out for dinner or a concert on the Strip. She's a huge sports fan. When told her alma mater, Arizona, is playing UNLV in basketball Dec. 19 at the Thomas & Mack Center, Gulbis perked up.

"Oooh, I'd love to go to that!" she said. "I love basketball."

She would love to spend time in her kitchen, but she's too busy, which means eating out often. She loves animals, but with her schedule, she couldn't maintain a pet. She loves children and one day would like to emulate her friend and Hall of Famer Juli Inkster, who has two girls, and be a parent and wife. She said she dates occasionally but nothing serious is going on in her love life.

"It's weird," she said of reading about herself outside the sports pages. "Actually, it's pretty funny because I don't know where they come up with half the stuff they do. But I know what's true and what isn't, so it's no big deal."

Gulbis doesn't get worked up when people who don't know her criticize her or when people who know her take a swipe, as former LPGA golfer Dottie Pepper did during the Solheim Cup.

Pepper, working as a TV analyst, criticized the Americans after Round 2, calling them "Chokin' freakin' dogs." Pepper, part of The Golf Channel telecast, didn't realize she was on the air when she made her remarks.

"It was her opinion," Gulbis, one of the targets of Pepper's shot, said. "It didn't impact what I was doing."

It's probably why Gulbis is popular on the LPGA Tour. She's always upbeat and, according to Inkster, gets along with just about everyone.

"She gets what it's about," Inkster said. "She works very hard on her game. She's very driven. I think Natalie is very respected by the other players."

The hackers had left the practice green and were off for their round. Gulbis stayed behind, having the surface to herself. She would spend the next couple of hours working on her game, hoping it would lead to more success.

She smiled as she went about her business. For at least one day, there was no plane to catch, no rental cars, no strange hotels. She was home, and that was reason enough for her to smile.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2913.