Did Rich Have More Fun or Double Bogeys at This Year’s American Century Championship?

Thank goodness Rich has a day job, because by his own accounting he sure cannot play golf. But the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe gave him a memory-filled week anyway, one built as much on the fire pit and the karaoke stage as on the scorecard. It is run like a real tournament, and it is a fundraiser too, with 40% of American Century's revenues going to medical research. That is why Mardy Fish, when he won it all, now receives a lab coat. Fish is coming on the show, and Rich told him to bring it.

The golf was, predictably, a two-speed affair. Day one, playing alongside Grant Hill and Vince Carter, Rich doubled a lot of holes and admitted he was out of his lane. Day two was a different man. He posted six pars, five on the front, with his caddie Don locking him in on reads and the greens rolling around 13 on the stimpmeter, which Rich compared to putting on a countertop. On the circus 17th he took a six-iron from 170-some yards and pured it, then walked up the non-lake side high-fiving fans. He and playing partner John O'Hurley even wound up signing a baby's diaper, one buttock each.

The final day, with Trey Wingo and Bobby Flay, delivered his favorite sequence. After a rough start and a ruling on a ball nestled in perfectly manicured wood chips, Rich watched Flay jar a birdie putt, then answered by dropping his own 25-footer for bogey as the crowd went nuts. A hole later he ballooned a drive into the next fairway, right into the path of a threesome in the hunt. He asked Don for the three-wood, took the line, and pured the shot of the day. When he turned around, the group approaching him was Steph Curry and John Smoltz.

Rich credited Peter Jacobsen for a kind word during the coverage and gave a long shout to his swing coach, JT Thomas of Performance Golf, whose ability to simplify things made him a better player even when the results did not fully cooperate. It made for some phone confusion, since American Century's Jonathan Thomas is also saved in his contacts as JT.

The rest of the appeal is the hanging out. Larry David played the Thursday pro-am, and Rich got to introduce Larry David to Larry the Cable Guy in the same breath. Doc Rivers, a first-timer tight with David, later turned up at the Edgewood fire pit in a cowboy hat from Curry's party. Rich spent one night by the fire with Andrew Whitworth, whose enormous shoes Rich swore were burning rubber, and Ryan Fitzpatrick's whole family rolled through.

Then came the one trophy Rich wants most, the Thursday karaoke contest. Last year he felt robbed after Ray Romano followed his New York, New York with a family-choreographed Eminem number. This year he loaded up "That's Life" in a field of about 25, only to run into Anthony Anderson crushing a Frankie Beverly song and the Tkachuk brothers and Matt Boldy popping out their Olympic gold medals to sing Dream On. Jay DeMarcus and Rascal Flatts backed the whole thing, with the winner earning a spot onstage Saturday. Once the gold medals came out, Rich knew. Susie knew too. He did not win.