Columnist Ron Kantowski: Big money proves Golden Tee more than just a bar game

Monday, April 14, 2003 | 9:31 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

They played the final round of a huge golf tournament on Sunday.

And the Masters, too.

With apologies to Mike Weir, Hootie Johnson and Martha Burk, that was the mind set of the 72 players who comprised the field at the seventh annual $85,000 Golden Tee National Championship at the Palms hotel-casino.

If you've frequented the P.T.'s Pub near you, chances are you've been exposed to Golden Tee. It's a coin-operated video game that uses a spinning trackball to emulate a golf swing. Slide the trackball to the left, and the player's ball will hook from left to right. Twirl it too much right, and you'll wind up in the burn with Jean Van De Velde. A couple of taps on a button controls backspin.

There are a variety of courses and computerized weather elements to test the player's course management skills and ensure that no two games are alike. With the exception of ill-fitting polyester clothing, just about everything you'll find on the PGA Tour you'll encounter in Golden Tee, only you'll encounter it at a fraction of the cost.

A round of Golden Tee costs about $3 or $4. Not even the local muni can match that, and there are no divots to replace. (Although judging from the conditions of most municipal courses, you don't have to worry about replacing divots there, either.)

The affordability of Golden Tee and its fun quotient notwithstanding, it's most endearing quality may be that you can play while drinking a beer and/or smoking a cigarette.

John Daly would love this game.

On Sunday, as the 24 players who survived Saturday's cut were introduced to a gallery of spouses, girlfriends and other players, one arrived late. He ultimately made his way to the machines, clutching an ice cold Heineken that he had purchased from one of the hotel bars. This was at 10 a.m.

As I said, John Daly would love this game.

But most Golden Tee players at the national championship level don't drink very much while they are playing, if at all. For instance, Steve Sobe, 29, was sipping straight orange juice as he prepared for his first match on Sunday.

Sobe is the Tiger Woods of coin-operated golf. Before Sunday, when ultimate winner Ryan Bourgeois of Houston took the first prize, he had won the national championship three years running. Sobe resides in Mt. Airy, N.C., which way back when served as the inspiration for the fictional Mayberry, N.C., of Andy Griffith fame.

Although the town has grown -- "I think we've got three McDonalds now," said Sobe, who grew up in Cleveland -- there's an old part of Mt. Airy where you can still get a shave and a haircut at Floyd's Barber Shop.

But make no mistake about it, Sobe is no Goober. He makes in the neighborhood of $100,000 annually, depending on how the trackball turns, on the Golden Tee circuit. He does so well playing coin-op golf that he probably doesn't need a real job, although he has one, as he operates a shuttle service.

Some say it's just a front -- in this case, literally -- for arcade golf. Behind one of the walls of the shuttle business are a row of Golden Tee machines on which he and others practice.

Mt. Airy is about 25 miles south of Winston Salem, home of Wake Forest University. That's somewhat fitting, as Mt. Airy is to the Golden Tee tour what Wake Forest used to be the PGA Tour, having produced stalwarts such as Arnold Palmer, Lanny Wadkins, Curtis Strange, Scott Hoch and Jay Haas.

Nine of the 72 qualifiers for the national championships hail from Mt. Airy. Golden Tee, according to Gary Colabuono, marketing director for Incredible Technologies (IT), which manufactures the game, is also popular in the Midwest and Texas -- and for that matter, anywhere else men gather to drink beer and lie about the women they've known.

"There's more money bet on this game than on pool and darts," said Colabuono, noting that many of the Las Vegas finalists used to hustle before the lucrative national tour -- most events pay $15,000 to win -- came on board.

Sobe, who plays the real game to a 12-handicap, is probably one of the few experts who didn't hone his Golden Tee skills in a bar or pool hall. His family owned and operated an arcade, which is where Sobe got started -- and hooked.

He said he played Golden Tee for about five hours a night for nearly a year before he got good. It took another three or four years before he started winning tournaments. That's a lot of quarters.

He'll spend many more, too, given new courses are released every year to challenge pros such as himself.

"No two games are ever the same," he said, about what makes him different than the neighborhood pinball wizard.

"This isn't Pac-Man."

Game Over.