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Notebook: Deborah Couples's Suicide Unhappy EndingBy Gary Van Sickle
Everyone remembers Deborah Couples's entrance onto the golf scene. It came at
the 1983 Kemper Open, seconds after her husband, Fred, had won his first Tour
event. Deborah, wearing a cowboy hat and a blue minidress, raced across the
green, jumped into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist. Her exit last
week, eight years after her divorce from Fred, was less public. According to the
Los Angeles City Coroner's office, on May 26 Deborah jumped to her death
from the roof of the Kresge Chapel of the Claremont (Calif.) School of Theology.
The coroner's office ruled it a
suicide.
Two hours before Deborah's death Joyce Donchess drove from her home in Laguna Beach to visit Deborah in her Corona Del Mar house. Couples and Donchess, both 48, had grown up together in San Marino and were best friends. "I knew Deborah was suicidal," says Donchess, a family therapist, who filed a missing-person report with the Newport Beach police the moment Couples left the house, which is 45 miles from Kresge Chapel. "I was pleading with her not to leave." Donchess says that Couples had never fully recovered from back and neck injuries suffered in a car accident a decade before and was in constant pain. Her condition was recently exacerbated by two other auto accidents and a parasitic infection that went undiagnosed for months. "It got to the point where Deborah couldn't eat or sleep," says Donchess. "She felt that she'd never be well again, and her depression overwhelmed her. This is so tragic because Deborah loved life." After her divorce Couples pursued an acting career and landed small roles in movies, including a part in the yet to be released Venus and the Half Shell. Except for the Christmas cards she sent every year, Deborah had lost contact with her Tour friends, who last saw her at the Oct. 29, 1999, funeral for Payne Stewart in Orlando. Paul Azinger spoke with Deborah that day. "She said she was teaching Sunday school," says Azinger. "She was really happy. Now all of a sudden -- boom!" (Last week Fred Couples declined comment.) Deborah Couples loved the limelight as much as Fred hated it. They met as students at Houston in 1979 and were married a year later. Deborah stood out in Fred's galleries because of her wild outfits, but her high profile caused friction between her and Fred. As he was closing in on his second victory, at the '84 Players Championship, he found her in the gallery and said, "In case I win, don't jump on me again." By the time Fred won his only major, the '92 Masters, their marriage was crumbling. The relationship reached its nadir at the '92 British Open. Deborah came alone to Muirfield in Scotland, arriving a day before the tournament. Fred missed the cut and immediately left for home -- without his wife. That night she was dancing on a tabletop in a North Berwick pub when Billy Ray Brown, a Tour player and a friend of Fred's, intervened. The Coupleses' divorce was finalized in October 1993. Deborah remained single, while Fred remarried, to Thais Bren, in September 1998. During and after her marriage to Couples, Deborah was passionate about polo and became a proficient player. Tony Coppola, owner of Tackeria, an equestrian-equipment chain with two stores in Wellington, Fla., taught her how to play the game. "She was the life of the party," he says. The party ended tragically.
NCAA: Upset
City
Nick Gilliam had made barely a blip on college golf's radar screen. He was 74th in one national ranking, had the fifth-best scoring average on his Florida team and had never won a college tournament. So when Gilliam took the NCAA individual title last week at Duke, his victory was almost as big a surprise as that of the underdog Gators in the team championship. "I knew I was capable of playing like this, only it had never happened before," said Gilliam, a 6'5", 207-pound senior who shot a 12-under 276 and was the only player to shoot four rounds under par. Gilliam, 22, was born in Green Bay and as a high school junior moved to Gainesville to live with his uncle, Dudley Birder, so he could play golf year-round. Gilliam accepted a college scholarship to North Carolina but missed his girlfriend, Erin Gallagher, so much that he often made the eight-hour drive to Gainesville on weekends. (The couple plan to marry on Sept. 1.) After only a semester at North Carolina, Gilliam transferred to Florida. "I was more than happy to have him," Buddy Alexander, Florida's coach, joked after the Gators had won their first national title since 1993 and their fourth overall. The victory was sentimental for Alexander, whose team had been ranked as low as 24th and was sixth heading into the finals. The Gators finished 18 strokes ahead of runner-up Clemson. Alexander's father, Skip, played for Duke from 1938 to '41 and then professionally, despite spending four years in the Army during World War II. Skip made the '49 Ryder Cup team, but he shattered his left ankle and sustained severe burns in a plane crash a year later. After recovering, he earned a spot at the '51 Ryder Cup. He died in 1997 and is buried in Durham, two miles from the Duke course. Says Buddy, "There's no place I'd rather have won." Issue date: June 11, 2001
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