Looking past good looks

The practice round before the start of the Safeway International outside Phoenix two weeks ago was friendly but competitive.

On the line in a closest-to-the-pin chipping bet: a pedicure.

Natalie Gulbis is right in her element. Competition fuels the golfer who picked up her first club at 4, who was an accomplished gymnast and high-level AAU platform diver as a kid. This is her theater. She hates to lose – at anything, even against best friend Cristie Kerr.

The 23-year-old has made as much off the course as she has on – $1 million last year – cashing in on her Hollywood sex appeal and perky personality.

She has her own reality TV show on The Golf Channel, a 2006 swimsuit calendar that outsells calendars of the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees and Playboy lingerie, and was named one of the top 100 sexiest women (No. 97) in the world by “FHM” magazine.

She cheerily promotes her pinup image – “Wouldn’t you want to be one of the top 100 sexiest men?” she said about her ranking – and embraces her growing popularity that transcends golf.

Competition first

At heart, however, Gulbis, an only child who was raised a sports junkie by her father, is first – and last – a goal-focused athlete driven to compete. Failing sends her into a foul mood. “I really didn’t do anything,” she said testily after a 24th-place finish, her worst of the year, in the Safeway International. “I didn’t make a charge or anything. I missed a lot of drives. I have to clean things up.”

So, she made a beeline back to her Lake Las Vegas, Nev., home and her swing coach, Butch Harmon. “You suck it up,” she said, “and work a lot harder.”

That’s her mantra. She has a voracious work ethic, from a demanding five-days-a-week, 90-minute physical fitness routine to long hours on the practice range. It paid off last year. Gulbis celebrated a coming-out party and reached her target goal – the Solheim Cup team, a biennial, match-play competition between U.S. and European players. “That was huge,” she said.

She was one of the heroes of the winning U.S. team with three points. She also logged 12 top-10 finishes on tour, including career-best thirds at the Michelob Ultra Open and State Farm Classic. But she didn’t win. Instead, she set an LPGA record for most money earned (a career-best $1,010,154, sixth overall) in a season without a victory.

She has three top-five finishes in four events this season and is seventh in earnings with $140,815. But she hasn’t won.

As she heads into the first major of the season, the Kraft Nabisco Championship, which starts today in Rancho Mirage, Calif., her winless streak since she joined the tour in 2002 is at 110 and counting. But who’s counting?

“My goal,” she said, “is not to win one event. One good week is not going to be good enough for me. My goal is to be a more competitive player and improve and be in contention every week.”

She has put herself there after hours of work with Harmon the past two years. He worked with her unique swing – she has an extra vertebra in her back, which allows her to over-rotate her hips and shoulders – to develop consistency. It was also at his golf school where she was introduced to the “hamm” putter and her split-grip, open stance, much like a hockey player firing a slap shot. Bingo. Gulbis improved from 89th to 19th on the tour in putting and from 36th to fifth in scoring last year.

But she’s not satisfied. She has her brand all in place, but she wants the whole package.

Eye on the prize

It has always been that way for her, said her father, John Gulbis, who taught her the game and is at her side at almost every tour stop. “This is all she ever wanted to do as a kid,” he said.

Winning, he said, is important, but not all consuming. “We don’t stress about it. The wins, when they hit, they hit. It’s not the Holy Grail for her, for sure.”

Still, winning is the missing line on her resume, the finishing touch in her crossover appeal.

“America loves winners,” said her agent, Giff Breed of Octagon. “She will win, and it’s important for the brand she does. It’s just a question of when as opposed to if.”

Annika Sorenstam agrees. “She’s so close. It’s just a matter of time,” the LPGA superstar said.

Harmon senses his pupil is frustrated, but her game is ready to strike. “She hasn’t won and has played very well. It’s important for her. It’s all about winning. Once she wins once, you’ll see it snowball.”

Kerr knows all about the journey. She took six years to win.

“She has to keep doing what she’s doing and not think about it that much,” Kerr said. “A lot of people are going to ask her, ‘When are you going to win?’ The more she can put that in the back of her mind and keep doing her business, it’s not very far off.”

Mission Hills Country Club would be a fitting setting. Gulbis played big in the majors last year, tying for 17th in the Kraft Nabisco, fifth in the McDonald’s LPGA Championship, fourth in the U.S. Women’s Open and eighth in the Weetabix Women’s British Open.

“They’re a lot of (Solheim Cup) points,” she said. “It’s a lot of money. The majors are a big deal.”

So is she with fans and marketers. Both flock to her, and she embraces each. “I love it. I love it,” she said of her fans. “If it wasn’t for our fans, I wouldn’t get to play golf for a living.”

“She’s almost too good to be true, but she is,” said Laura Neal of the LPGA. “She’s genuinely interested in her fans.”

Gulbis declines to talk about her relationship with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, whom she once dated.

But she’s comfortable revealing her life in her reality show – “It’s cool for fans to see what I’m like and how goofy and much fun we have on the road” – and pitching her sexy image. She even has her own swimwear line.

“It’s important to market yourself,” said her father. “Nobody else is going to do it.”

Jan Stephenson traveled this road almost 30 years ago and was criticized in some quarters for marketing her glamorous looks.

“Natalie is being groomed correctly,” said Stephenson, a golf course designer in Florida. “Natalie’s handling the celebrity well and not panicking about winning. My only advice is to be a little selective. In the end, my main regret is I spent so much time promoting the tour that it hurt my golf and cost me the Hall of Fame.”

That’s also Kerr’s advice to her friend. “She needs to prioritize.”

Gulbis said she does. Her outside activities, she acknowledges, put a “squeeze” on her life, one reason, she said, she’s not married. “But not my golf.”

Gulbis bought a three-bedroom, 2,600 square-foot home outside Las Vegas with a spa and pool, loves her silver and black 2002 Harley-Davidson truck and relishes waking up at home, barbecuing with family and friends, hanging by the pool and watching sunsets.

But winning tournaments – and pedicures – is what drives her. And not just one.