It’ll take more than a little rainstorm to dampen the unquenchable spirit of the comical Peter Jacobsen.

When Jacobsen arrived on the first tee at storied Turnberry on Thursday, heavy rains began and he subsequently bogeyed the hole. The downpour stopped, though, as suddenly as it began, and so did Jacobsen’s early slide.

The Champions Tour’s resident funnyman proceeded to make six birdies, one bogey and nine pars to shoot 67. As a result, Jacobsen’s tied for the lead at 5 under with Loren Roberts and Craig Stadler after one round of the Senior British Open.

“Got on the first tee and a little squall came out of nowhere,” Jacobsen said. “Then, when we got to the second tee and second shot on No. 2, it had stopped, so we took our rain gear off and put the umbrellas away and we had a good day.”

Jacobsen isn’t going to let recurring hip problems rain on his parade, either. He had a variety of procedures performed on him last Thursday, including an epidural to fix back pain and platelet gel insertions in his left hip, making him unsure of his playing status leading up to this week’s event.

“My doctor told me to wait until Sunday morning to hit balls to see how I felt,” said Jacobsen, who is currently eighth in the Charles Schwab Cup point race, a season-long competition designed to recognize the Tour’s top player. “So I went out, hit balls Sunday morning and jumped on the plane at two o'clock. It is a surprise for me to have come out and started this well.”

The 52-year-old Jacobsen may have age-related aches and pains, but he is still a kid at heart. He’s the class clown of the Champions Tour and is known for doing impressions of his fellow players, such as stuffing golf balls down his shirt to parody Craig Stadler.

Perhaps to retaliate for the all-in-good-fun imitations over the years, Stadler got in a little good-natured ribbing of his own after the first round.

“He complains about everything,” Stadler said. “But Peter is beautiful. The more he complains about his hip, the better he plays. It’s amazing.

Stadler recounted a time when he and Jacobsen played were practicing for the U.S. Senior Open in 2004 at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis before playing 36 holes on Sunday.

“We're out there hitting balls in morning and he's, ‘Oh, I don't think I can play, Stads. I think it's going to be a twosome.’ And he goes out, shoots 65 and 69, wins by two. So he loves to play hurt. He loves people to feel sorry for him, too, especially the press,” Stadler said.

Jacobsen’s win at that event was his first on the Champions Tour, and he went on to win a second major at the 2005 Ford Senior Players Championship. Jacobsen has come oh-so-close to a third this year with two top-10s in the first three majors.

Jacobsen’s game and his personality are both a perfect fit for the Tour, which prides itself on reaching out to fans and giving them an up-close look at the players. With Jacobsen’s behavior and sense of humor, he is a fan favorite as he interacts with the gallery.

Peter Jacobsen has won two career titles on the Champions Tour. (Getty Images) (AP)

“What I think is important to do and what you have to do in golf is, whenever possible, reach out beyond the ropes and grab a spectator by the shirt and pull them inside the ropes,” said Jacobsen. “That's why special events, pro ams and made for television events are so vitally important to the future of the game.”

Jacobsen remembers watching Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player compete when he was younger. When he and his father would watch the Big Three on TV, they would pay attention to the antics of the players.

“I remember when they used to do the CVS Golf Classic in the States and Gary would putt it out and he walks over, starts doing the commentary on Arnold's putt,” recalled Jacobsen. “And he said: ‘Arnold has a putt here, it's going to break left to right, and Arnold is such a great putter.’ And you hear them talk and give and take, and that's something that's important and we have to continue with that in golf.”

While doing his part to maintain that tradition of amusing fans on the course, Jacobsen is also an entertainer off of it. The golfer has a resume more impressive than some in Hollywood, with a role in “Tin Cup,” two Golf Channel shows, a voiceover for the video game Golden Tee and membership in a band he formed with Mark Lye and the late Payne Stewart.

“That was a fun thing we did,” Jacobsen said of his band Jake Trout and the Flounders, which performed popular rock songs with a golf twist. “When Payne Stewart was killed, we ended that, but we had a lot of fun with that.”

Jacobsen has performed with many musicians from bands such as Huey Lewis and the News, Hootie and the Blowfish, Crosby, Stills and Nash and the Eagles.

“When Huey Lewis and I play at the AT&T Classic, it's the ‘pro am’ but when we get up on stage, it's the ‘Pro Am.’ It's fun,” said Jacobsen. “It's those types of cross promotion and cross branding that I think that are good for any sport. You see that a lot in the States in NASCAR. You see that over here with football and cricket.

“In the States we just have to remember that, you know, it's okay to smile every once in awhile, especially when you're done with the day.”

And that’s what Jacobsen does best. At the end of the day, despite the rain or his hip or bogeys on the course, he’s always trying to make someone smile.