TOUR players talk Halloween

Oct. 31, 2006

By Joan vT Alexander and Laury Livsey
PGA TOUR Staff

This week, the top 30 money winners from the 2006 season will descend on Atlanta, Ga., and the East Lake Golf Club for THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola. It’s one of the most important tournaments of the year, a payoff for a year’s worth of solid play for the year’s top players.

But first things first. Today is Halloween. While TOUR players may not be nervously pacing around the kitchen waiting for dark so they can go out trick-or-treating, they remember the holiday well. Some even admit they still dress up. Here are some of their memories.

CHRIS SMITH

My brothers dressed me up as Groucho Marx. I had the wig and cigar. I was 8 or 9. My brothers loved it, and so did I. I thought it was cool that they were paying attention to me.

HAL SUTTON

My best memory of Halloween is watching my children get dressed up and enjoying it. Each Halloween gets better because they’re all little right now, and they’re all still into it. As for me, I don’t remember a thing I wore at Halloween.

TOMMY ARMOUR III

I went as a zit when I was 12. I was all red, with white makeup on my face. Red shirt and red pants.

PAT PEREZ

I was a stop sign one time. I was really little. Not too long ago, three of us were in Vegas and we went out as cheerleaders. We had the worst, ugliest costumes you can imagine. Blond wigs, so bright they were almost yellow. Bright red lipstick, socks and ugly shoes. The whole deal.

MICHAEL ALLEN

The most miserable costume I wore was when I was a roll of Lifesavers when I was 5. I couldn’t even walk.

CAMERON BECKMAN

I was a hockey player.

TODD HAMILTON

I liked being Dracula because with the plastic teeth, you could be Dracula anytime you wanted.

TIGER WOODS

I remember being Batman a couple of times. What I liked about Halloween was getting a bunch of candy trick-or-treating. But the thing is I didn’t like candy and have never liked candy. So I’d get a bunch that I’d never eat. Then once everyone at school ate all their stuff, I would bring mine in and sell it to them.

BRAD FAXON

I once dressed up in every bit of athletic equipment I had. This was when I was in my 20s. I was either wearing or holding a baseball bat, cricket bat, biker’s helmet, hockey gear, with shin pads, shoulder pads, golf shoes, golf glove, baseball glove, baseball jersey, basketball shorts, etc.

FRANKLIN LANGHAM

I was Elvis one year, and my wife, Ashley, was a groupie.

DAVIS LOVE III

I dressed up as Payne Stewart in honor of Payne.

RYAN PALMER

I don’t think I ever dressed up. We just went around terrorizing the neighborhood. One time we went out carrying golf bags, old Jones bags. I guess we were supposed to be golfers. But our goal was to fill the things with candy.

BRANDT JOBE

One year I was a ghost.

JONATHAN BYRD

I was a pirate one year. I was probably 7. I had the patch. The whole costume was purely homemade, cut-up pants and shirt, a bandana and makeup on my face for fake whiskers.

JOEY SINDELAR

My dad never had to go to war or anything, but he was in the service and that’s why I was born in Fort Knox, Ky., while he was doing his training. He always had the Army jacket with the star on it. He had the hat. And I would paint a moustache on—my dad didn’t even have a moustache—but I guess I felt I needed one to look older, and I did that for two or three years.

JEFF SLUMAN

Halloween was great because of all the stuff you get to do as a young boy. You get to stay out later knocking on doors. We’d just get bags full of candy. We used to stay out for as long as we could. We always knew which houses had the big candy bars. We’d try to go to those places three or four times.

CHRIS DIMARCO

Trick-or-treating was really cool. We would wear our football uniforms, and in between houses we’d knock the crap out of each other. We had shoulder pads, the whole deal. Then we would run toward the next house and tackle each other. There were three or four of us. The bags of candy were the footballs. We were eating candy while we were doing this, so I know we were all sugared up, which was even better. Candy would go flying everywhere.

STEVE JONES

I was a skeleton one year, a nylon skeleton because I was so skinny.

BRINY BAIRD

I was Spiderman.