Bieber: I Played Music To Pay Green Fees!

There is a Justin Bieber cover story (not posted online) by Josh Eells in the July 18 Rolling Stone where the writer shadows the teen idol for various appearances and an infamous round of golf at Calabasas Country Club--when paparazzi ambushed.

Fathers whose daughters are inexplicably in love with the lad?  I envision this as a wonderful opportunity for you to use the story to point out the merits of the Royal and Ancient to daughters who are perplexed by your fascination with the game. After all, if Bieber is Bieber because of golf, well...they might be more understanding?

You might have heard the numbers for Bieber--the 375,000 copies his new album, Believe, has sold, making it the biggest debut of the year; the 25 million followers on Twitter, second only to Lady Gaga; his 45 million Facebook fans, more than Mitt Romney and Barack Obama combined. But did you know it all started with a golf game?

Back when he was growing up in Stratford, Ontario, Bieber was a regular at the local municipal course. He'd play almost every day in the summer; he says his handicap was a very respectable seven. And then one day, as he wrote in his 2010 memoir, First Step 2 Forever: My Story

Wait, he has a memoir already? With 2 instead of "To" in the title? Sorry, go on...

"I wanted to go golfing with my friends...but I didn't have any money." So he took his guitar and started busking on the steps of a town theater, hoping to make $20, enough scratch for a round. He came home with $200, as well as a new career.

There was also this, teased online:

Midway through a golf game at a private country club, Bieber and his entourage are confronted by paparazzi. Bieber responds by taking out his nine-iron and hitting a golf ball at them. He later tells an employee at the club that "we'll probably never play here again."

Comments

[Ian]

Is that a "respectable 7" in the same way that's what Matt Lauer's handicap was supposed to be?

[rb]

Justin Bieber...wtf? Shack are you desparate for clicks?

[KLG]

Maybe Taylor Swift will take up the game.

[Average Golfer]

@KLG

"Maybe Taylor Swift will take up the game."

Yeah, I 'd just like to see her retrieve the ball from the cup.

[digsouth]

Leave it to Bieber.

So would Taylor Swift be guilty of slow play or sw..i..f..............never mind.

[nospin]

Is there anything less important, meaningful or interesting than Justin Beiber on the golf course? Jesus, can't you find something better to write about?

[Average Golfer]

@nospin

I'll give you Bieber, it's the Taylor Swift talk that caught my attention. Bifurcation discussions can wait. Oh, "i before e, except after c...."

[digsouth]

With Beever being an important componant of popular mmusic, his being a golfer is a VERY big deal: Just as so many popular musicians have brought their hobbies to the public, and a surge in the popularity of XXXX, as a result of such....it goes that many young people will abandon their wee's and Xboxers and go learn and play golf.

Whether you or I like it or not, these young people have an important role to play in the future of golf. Bieber is a big golfing deal; now if he could only get his music deal going...

[nospin]

@ digsouth....baloney.

[digsouth]

@nospin....
thanks, I'll have mine with miracle whip on wheat, and a coke.

[johnnnycz]

Hey...nospin...you should serve Digs a HUGE baloney sandwich yourself and while you're at it attempt to try and see the bigger picture in these times of course closures and free falling participation rates among 12-18yr olds. We need as many youngsters aware of golf as ever before.

My $0.02 is thus:

Any person(s) with 25+ million followers/fans/stalkers/gawkers/etc who willingly and avidly play(ed) our favorite game IS VERY significant regardless of what you may think of said person(s) day job.

Bieber the singer...uh no thanks. Bieber the golfer???? I'd tee it up with him in second if asked...no question. I'd be a great story to tell when I'm almost pushing up daisies.

[KLG]

I really want to play with Alice Cooper, see what that 2-handicap looks like up close...wonder how many of my now deaf-as-a-post contemporaries have taken up the game because of him? I'm guessing the answer is in the single digits.

[Average Golfer]

Cooper evidently took up the game because he drank too much. That in itself is a little contrary.

[digsouth]

KLG--- Cooper took it up because of your contemporaries---you hve it backwards.