Tournament has its share of in-the-rough patches, but star power should keep it around

By Ron Kantowski (contact)

Friday, Oct. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Steve Marcus

NFL Hall of Fame kicker Jan Stenerud putts onto the ninth green Wednesday at Justin Timberlake’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin. The tournament continues through Sunday.

One of the cool things about Las Vegas is you can bump into B-list celebrities at Albertsons on Saturday morning without making a big deal out of it.

That sort of reminded me of Wednesday’s Pro-Am at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open at TPC Summerlin.

There was the host, whose name will most likely keep our PGA Tour stop safely in the fairway for at least a couple of more years until a corporate sponsor can be found, which is what happens to most golf tournaments named for celebrities. There was Ellen DeGeneres, who for my money — er, free admission — was the star of the day, though she didn’t play and was seen dancing toward the Town Center Drive roundabout after accompanying her pal, Justin, on his first hole.

Then there was a bunch of celebrities you might spot in the produce section at Albertsons.

Was it a good walk spoiled, as Mark Twain once described golf? Hardly. I have enough “Brush With Greatness” anecdotes to entertain David Letterman’s studio audience for weeks.

Although I experience a wardrobe malfunction every time I go to the closet, I don’t own any Justin Timberlake CDs and have never downloaded one of his MP3s. So the highlight of my day was having a pleasant conversation with Jan Stenerud, the Hall of Fame kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs (and Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers).

We had a lot of time to chat, because Stenerud was playing behind a group featuring golf novice Amanda Beard, the Olympic swimmer who recently posed for Playboy without her wood covers and probably just now is ambling up the 18th fairway.

Stenerud is the director of business development for HNTB of Kansas City, which designs sports facilities, bridges, airports and highway systems such as the Kansas Turnpike. You may remember that the next time you are traveling from Wichita to Topeka and are all out of quarters. HNTB is redesigning the Las Vegas Convention Center, which is what brought Stenerud to town. That, and the fact that his mother-in-law lives here.

We talked about his ski jumping career at Montana State, the cool jerseys worn by the national hockey team of Norway, where he was born, and Hank Stram. Then he asked whether they were announcing just the pros’ names, or everybody’s.

“Everybody’s,” I said.

Stenerud, who plays to a 5 handicap, said they never pronounce his name correctly at these things, so he had his wife, Patty, instruct the starter.

He was introduced as “John” Stenerud.

Then he pulled out his Norwegian wood and hit his tee shot about 270 yards, right between the uprights.

A little later, as I made my way down the bread aisle — er, ninth fairway — I bumped into Janet 99. You may — or may not — know her as Janet Gretzky, the wife of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, No. 99.

I am pretty sure I was the only one on either side of the ropes who knew her as Janet Jones, the actress. When she went into the rough, it was to look for either her ball or the career of Mitch Gaylord, the former Olympic gymnast who played opposite her in the movie “American Anthem.”

That’s pretty much how it went for much of the day. About 200 spectators, mostly women, some clad in club wear, some showing a lot more than their Sexy Backs, followed Justin Timberlake from tee to green as if he had a magnet in his tight golf slacks — while Janet 99, Amanda Beard, J. Peterman (who could have used an Urban Sombrero), Greg Kinnear, Luke Wilson and a couple of other actors or singers or ballplayers — the “real” Willie Wilson teed off at 8:10 a.m., I was told — looked for their balls in the rough.

It wasn’t exactly like watching Bill Murray entertain the masses at Pebble Beach.

But it wasn’t the Lacy Underall Classic, either.

A couple of years ago an actress named Cindy Morgan, who played Lacy Underall in “Caddyshack,” lent her name to a celebrity golf tournament in Chicago that turned into a bigger disaster than Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie. Nobody made money, nobody got paid and Morgan wound up being sued by everybody, including her former friend Hamilton Mitchell, who played a caddy named Motormouth in the movie and wanted an appearance fee.

At the end of the day — or whenever they sent out a search party for Amanda Beard, whichever came first — Wednesday’s Celebrity Pro-Am probably did not create the kind of buzz that organizers and the PGA Tour had hoped, or even one that John Daly’s fans could appreciate.

But at least nobody found a Baby Ruth floating in the pool.