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The gift of Gabby

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Posted: Sunday May 14, 2000 09:06 AM

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. -- Gabrielle Reece is staring at my backside. Addressing my teed-up golf ball, I can feel the weight of her azure eyes drinking in my every twitch. I waggle once, twice, three times, hoping to quiet the nerves. As if. Ben Freakin' Hogan never faced pressure like this. Unable to postpone the moment of truth any longer, I lurch into my backswing, choking a preposterous club I have borrowed from Ms. Reece herself -- a graphite fishing pole with a titanium toaster on the end. Improbably, I whipsaw a drive of cartoonish length that disappears into the horizon. "Mr. Smooth," she whispers. Over the past few minutes I have pounded a dozen drivers in a row to the back of the range, dead straight and pushing three bills in length. Despite my outward nonchalance, I have never in my life hit the ball like this. "Let me see five more drives," Gabrielle coos. "I like watching you swing."

MAIL CALL You are pathetic, Shipnuck. First you duck Van Sickle and now you are afraid of your wife! You give pencil-necked geeks a bad name. By the way, you kind of look like the guy who was holding Elian in the closet. —Bill Cronin, Watertown, Mass. Funny, most readers urge me to come out of the closet, not remain cowering within. Anyway, I would like to state for the record that I am not ducking Van Cynical. I am merely waiting for him to wrench his back or lose a couple of fingers in a household accident before I propose a game. There is a difference. If you ever do figure out a way to talk your wife into donning her old cheerleader outfit, please let me know how. Years of bribery, wheedling and cajoling on my part have yet to coax my lovely bride back into her Watsonville High Class of '86 uniform (which would still fit, I note happily). If only they could realize what that would do for those of us who couldn't get a cheerleader to spit on our burning bodies in high school! —Jim Proulx, Silver Spring, Md. Yeah, sure, Jimmy, I'll E-mail you some pictures. BTW, I can't say I blame your bride for her reluctance. When I was playing hoops for Salinas High we dusted hapless Watsonville High teams on numerous occasions. I'm sure the memories remain quite painful for her. A vacation from writing 1,000 words a week. You have it so hard!!! —"Bitter investment banker," New York City Buddy, it wasn't the 1,000 words I needed a vacation from. It was the CNNSI.com readership.

This, I hasten to add, is the very same Gabrielle Reece who was featured in March's SI swimsuit issue; the 6'3" force of nature who was once named one of the world's five most beautiful women by one of those glossy chic magazines; the overly swooshed, impossibly blonde, perennially tanned icon of the beach who spent most of the '90's chasing volleyballs, while moonlighting as a cultural phenomenon. I have been sequestered the past two days in President Clinton's boyhood home with "Gabby" (as I now call her; can "Dollface" be far off?) We've done nothing but watch each other hit golf balls and talk swing theory, occasionally breaking for long, chatty dinners, just the two of us. So what is Gabby doing in Arkansas, with a schmuck like me? It turns out she's in the grip of golf, just like the rest of us, and I am merely on hand to document her obsession.

Gabby is five months into an 18-month training program to turn her into a competition-ready golfer. This is especially ambitious, given that she just turned 30 and had never played until January. Molding Gabby's game is a gent named David Lee, who insomniacs may recognize from Golf Channel infomercials. Lee is equal parts scientist, swing instructor and shaman. He lords over a small, devoted cult of supplicants who adhere to his theory of Gravity Golf, which is headquartered at a pastoral, 64-acre ranch just outside Hot Springs. Straight from the Compaq Classic in New Orleans (next week's On Tour may or may not be devoted entirely to Bourbon Street debauchery), I dropped in on Reece and Lee to see how this most ambitious experiment is progressing.

There is no sign announcing Lee's training facility, which is down a road with no name (I was told to turn between the rock shop and a Baptist church). I was greeted at this home on the range by a couple of dogs snoozing in the shade, and the mooing of an adjacent herd of cows. No people were in sight, so I wandered towards the barnlike structure that serves as the main office. Through the window I spied a long, golden ponytail and the endless expanse of a pair of long, bronzed legs. Clearly I was in the right place.

Like most red-blooded American males, I have been admiring Gabby from afar for the better part of a decade. Her beauty has always seemed rather remote, with chiseled features that seem to have been lifted from a statue of a Greek goddess. I expected a certain measure of aloofness, but she turns out to be totally cool and relaxed and down to earth, and after a lifetime of being in the spotlight she's an expert at putting strangers at ease. Following a bit of small talk we headed to the range, where I was able to stare at her in good conscience, as I was supposed to be studying her swing. Gabby was decked out in abbreviated board shorts and a baby T, and I was blown away by her body -- but not in that way. In person Gabby's physique does not inspire lust so much as admiration. It is truly a marvel of engineering, enhanced by nutritional science and hardcore workouts.

It is important to understand that the gravity swing is a marked departure from traditional thinking -- and teaching. In its finished form it looks a lot like Fred Couples' action, only with a radical backswing known as the counterfall, whereby a player sets the mass of his body in motion by rocking backward in much the same way a baseball pitcher rears back against the rubber. To train the body Lee has come up with a series of uproarious drills, which Gabby gamely launched into. Among the least out-there was a drill that had Gabby cross-legged, swinging with one hand with "no reference" -- that is, she couldn't address the ball, beginning her back swing with the club chest high. She blew through a series of a half dozen or so different practice drills, each time lining up 20 or so balls in advance so she could hit them in rapid-fire succession. Claiming she wanted to help me understand the process, Gabby goaded me into trying the drills myself. I was duly Skechered and encumbered by my scummy Banana Republic reporter uniform, but I agreed to give it a go. The results were mixed, at best.

Gabby, Lee and I stayed at the range 'til dark, and when I wasn't hitting balls I was laughing into my notebook. Lee is the salt of the earth, a down-home Arkansas boy, and Gabby does hilarious impressions of his homilies. Eventually she and I made our way to downtown Hot Springs for dinner. Walking into a restaurant with Gabby Reece is something everyone should experience, at least once. It was all I could do not to put my arm around her and pretend we were a couple. I'm proud to report she ate me under the table, and we talked for a couple hours, united by shared California beach slang (her home base is in Malibu, natch), a volleyball background (my first beat at the Daily Bruin was covering UCLA's powerhouse men's volleyball team) and, of course, golf. Gabby was very inquisitive, and I bored her with numerous tales from the various tours.

The next morning I woke up and felt like working out, but didn't, for fear that Gabby would also be down in our hotel gym, pumping steel. I wasn't ready for that kind of humiliation so early in the morning. We reconvened at Lee's and spent another day whacking golf balls, which included my heroic display with the driver. I'd love to tell you how Gabby hits the ball, but I've got to save that for the story I'm writing. I will say this: Gabby's still at least a year away from the LPGA tour, but I've already got a new favorite golfer.

Sports Illustrated golf writer Alan Shipnuck will take you On Tour each Wednesday at golfplus.cnnsi.com. Click here to send Alan a question or a nice, friendly comment.

 

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