Columnist Dean Juipe: LPGA teen can’t escape her father

Dean Juipe

Monday, April 22, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Their hearts may be in the right places but parents don't always know what's best for their children.

Sunday, for instance, I saw a young man use every foul word in the book to verbally berate a son who was almost still a toddler. The kid's offense: He had inched to the edge of his seat and toward an open door as his father was fueling their car at an Arco station.

I felt bad for the youngster and it played in to my feeling bad for a young woman I have never met but decided to write about this weekend, Natalie Gulbis.

You don't know Gulbis either, do you?

But it's said that someday we'll know a great deal about her, as there are those who see her becoming a star on the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour.

The caveat I would add is that what we may learn first is the disservice an overprotective parent can inflict on a child, especially an athletically gifted one like Gulbis.

She's only 19 years old and has played only five LPGA events, including the Longs Drugs Challenge in Sacramento that concluded Sunday. Gulbis missed the cut, shooting 79 and 78.

She's a lowly 59th on the money list and has a career-best finish of 18th. Yet Gulbis has two agents, a business manager, a psychologist, a swing coach (Las Vegas' Butch Harmon, who also tutors Tiger Woods) and, the killer, her dad as a caddy.

Claiming he can take "two to four" strokes off his daughter's score every day he's on her bag, John Gulbis is toting Natalie's sticks and probably driving her crazy. At a time when she needs her space away from the course and a professional caddy on it, Ms. Gulbis appears to be getting neither.

While she offered little in the way of protestation when quizzed on the subject by Sports Illustrated, Gulbis is regularly berated by her father after many of her rounds. It's one thing when an athlete says "I'm my toughest critic" and uses a little pointed self-evaluation as a positive, but it's quite another when it's your father who's on the offensive.

Gulbis set an LPGA record in 1997 when she qualified for the Longs Drugs event at 14 years old, yet five years later it's difficult to measure her progress. This is purely speculative on my part, but it's entirely possible her father's inescapable presence is holding her back.

After all, every young person may need direction yet few prosper if they're being suffocated by their parents.

It's too bad that Gulbis isn't following the course of a fellow potential star and former college teammate at Arizona, Lorena Ochoa. The latter, who has won an NCAA record seven consecutive events, is playing a little on the LPGA tour this year and at 20 years old appears to be developing into a wonderful golfer. She was even on the leader board for a spell in the season's first major, last month at Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Ochoa comes across as schooled and gritty, a tough competitor with a massively bright future. She and the people guiding her career seem conscious of taking it a step at a time, with no undue pressure.

Natalie Gulbis, on the other hand, might well be burdened by a father who has become her perpetual shadow.

I'd ask him to stay home for a few weeks and limit his participation to following her on the Golf Channel.