This is how a fantasy dinner party might go down at Pat Perez's home in Scottsdale, Arizona. Perez is manning an old-school, bubble-topped Weber grill, Corona in one hand, fork in the other. The steaks are on, and he pokes at the glowing briquettes, because it's only the genuine stuff for the grill master. Propane is for wimps.
Milling around Perez as if they're on a putting green, providing nonstop hilarious commentary, are a few of the guys Perez likes to hang with on tour: Steve Elkington, Jason Gore, Tommy Armour III.
Relaxing in plastic chairs in front of the patio's large flat-screen TV, Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain, an Englishman and golf fanatic, trades Ryder Cup smack with current U.S. captain Corey Pavin.
In the Jacuzzi, IndyCar driver Danica Patrick compares scars with former NHL defenseman Brian Savage. They're getting splashed by major league outfielder Pat Burrell and John Daly, who are mixing it up in a game of pool basketball. It's the one court on which Daly can dunk.
What a crew. In real life, they are all friends of Pat Perez, even if they've never been in the same room at once.
So much for the notion that Perez is a brooding, grumpy loner. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and never was that more evident than on the last Sunday of January this year.
After Perez rifled a 6-iron to kick-in eagle range on the 90th hole of the Bob Hope Classic, guaranteeing himself a three-stroke victory after 197 winless starts on the PGA Tour, dozens of family members and friends ducked under the ropes.
Gore and Armour and Burrell and Savage were there, all thrilled to share in their friend's greatest achievement. Like fans ready to storm the floor at a college basketball game, they waited with champagne bottles in hand and, some, with tears in their eyes. It felt nothing like one individual's victory. It was a team triumph.
"This is the moment we all play for," said an emotional Gore, who during tough times in his career had spent nights on Perez's couch. "Pat's like a brother to me. This is pretty incredible."
Pat Perez thought so, too.
"It's about time," he said. "It's about time."
It was about time Perez's enormous talent was legitimized with a victory after seven grinding years on Tour. It was about time the public saw a different side of a golfer burdened with the reputation as the tour's biggest hot head.
"I know how I feel, and I know how my wife (Athena) feels, and I know how my friends and family feel about it," the 33-year-old Perez said a couple of weeks after his Hope victory. "I haven't changed with any of them, and I know their perception of me hasn't changed since I won. We've been a tight group for so long.
"Hopefully, people see that I'm not this crazy, angry guy walking around. They can see that I can play, and that I belong, and that I'm a winner out here now. I just hope people see that."
The highlights of the Bob Hope now replace the lowlights from Pebble Beach in 2002, when a national television audience watched on Sunday as Perez, a rookie playing in only his fourth Tour event, blew a lead and exploded with two episodes of club slamming. The fits were fleeting, but because Perez took so long to win, they were his only public image for years.
"This is redemption,"Tony Perez, Pat's dad, said the Sunday of the Hope. "What this tournament has done is hopefully put Pebble in the background."
The impression that Perez was some out-of-control wild man was a complete disconnect to those who knew him best.
"As a friend, seeing him go through that, it was crushing," said Chris Bello, a close friend and former roommate of Perez's in San Diego. "He was always good and generous to me since Day 1, and to hear on the course what people were saying about him, it made me sick."
Those who are close to Perez have known it for years. Amidst the comfort and security of his friends in his time away from golf, he is funny, thoughtful and generous. People seek his company because he makes them feel good.
"He's real. He's straight up," Bello said. "A lot of people tell you what you want to hear. Pat calls it like he sees it. It comes from the heart. And whether heís around the celebrity types of his regular buddies, he treats everyone the same. No one is more important than another."
Said Perez: "I'm pretty easy to get along with. I like to have fun, as most people do. I just attract people somehow and become friends with a lot of them. I really care about what they're doing, and I think they see that in me."
Among Perez's best friends is his caddie, Mike Hartford, who played on the Torrey Pines High School golf team with Pat. On a squad of kids whose games were mostly honed at country clubs, Hartford and Perez were the muni boys who beat balls on the driving range of what was then a rather roughshod track, Torrey Pines.
"Pat had a great sense of humor -- very, very quick," Hartford said. "And he was such a good player. Everybody wanted to be around him because they knew he was the best in San Diego at the time."
This, though Perez was regularly competing in the San Diego County Junior Golf Association against future Tour pros Charley Hoffman, Bill Lunde and Kevin Stadler. Perez solidified his youth stardom when, at 17, he outdueled Tiger Woods to win the Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines. Greenskeepers and course workers proudly cheered him because he was one of their own.
Hartford was a fine golfer, a former NCAA Division II Freshman Player of the Year at the University of California-San Diego who also won the 2000 San Diego City Amateur Championship on the Torrey Pines South Course.
When Hartford, who earned a degree in Economics, got out of college, it was Perez who offered to caddie for him in five mini-tour Monday qualifiers. Hartford never made a tournament, but he didn't forget Perez's gesture.
"That's the kind of guy Pat is," Hartford said. "I don't know another player on Tour who would caddie for his caddie like Pat did for me.
In the only job he's held outside of golf, Perez worked for Hartford when he started his own landscaping business. "He was a great worker. Very efficient," Hartford said.
Perez has never feared hard work, probably because his father emphasized making his own way. Tony Perez was a salesman for IBM, started the Pro Kids Golf Academy in San Diego's inner city, and now runs another golf program for underprivileged kids, Pin Pals. Tony grew up in San Antonio, the son of a cook.
Friends describe Pat as detailed and meticulous. Hartford remembers Perez being the only player in high school to clean his clubs to a bright shine after every match. At 15, he began shagging balls and washing carts at Torrey Pines. After Perez left Arizona State early, he shuttled club parts between San Diego to L.A. for McHenry Metals founder Gary Adams.
"I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that he is a very special person," Hartford said. "If people got to know him, they would absolutely love him. He has a knack for attracting really special people."
People apparently perceive an ethic and enthusiasm in Perez that they want to nurture.
After forming a friendship with him at their home country club in Scottsdale, Burrell, a former Phillies outfielder now with the Tampa Bay Rays, went out of his way to make Perez feel welcome in the Philadelphia clubhouse. Perez was invited to take batting practice, a locker stall was built for him, and the team gave Perez jersey number 60 to commemorate his best score on Tour.
"Pat acts more like professional baseball player than he does a golfer,"Bello said. "He fits in more. He's totally a clubhouse guy."
Pro golfers say they see themselves in Perez's desire and hard work, and want to take him under their wing. In recent years, Elkington and Armour have mentored him on how to take his mental and physical game to the next level.
Hartford says Elkington, the 1995 PGA Championship winner, counseled Perez about his comportment on the course.
"Elkington hammered home the point about when he watched Jack Nicklaus play when he was a kid," Hartford said. "He told him Nicklaus never disappointed the crowd."
Armour, who turns 50 in October, said Perez needed "serious life guidance."
"Telling him not to do the things I did wrong," Armour said. "You learn by doing the right thing; you learn by making mistakes. It's good and itís bad. He sticks to his guns.
"His patience threshold is not way up there," Armour added, "and that's what I've worked on him the most - patience."
It was a coach of Armour's who took Perez's game to the next level late in the summer of 2008. Frustrated that he had not won on Tour or been able to crack the top 30 on the money list, Perez parted ways with his longtime coach and began working with Mike Abbott, the general manager of The Madison Club in La Quinta, Calif., and an instructor for 25 years.
Abbott said he saw a player with tremendous natural talent, but a broken swing. Perez had no ability to consistently work the ball right to left, which was a huge hindrance on so many Tour golf courses.
Abbott completely took apart Perez's swing, and he said the golfer was hitting the ball better within minutes.
"With an athlete as talented as he is, once he sees the door open a little bit, he wants to run through it pretty badly," Abbott said. "When you know where the ball's going, everything gets easier.
"He's a great guy, too. Everybody says he's got a temper and all of that, but thatís his competitive spirit. In my opinion, it doesn't get in the way at all. He's one of the nicest guys I've met. He just wants to win."
Fittingly, the breakthrough victory would come in the desert, just down the street from Abbott's club.
Perez had waffled about playing in the Bob Hope Classic because he hadn't entered the tournament in two years. But Hartford pointed out that the Palmer Private Course at PGA West had been installed again as the host club, and Perez had fired a career-best 60 there in 2006. He also had a 61 at Bermuda Dunes Country Club, which also was in the four-course rotation.
Perez opened the 2009 Hope with a 28 on the Palmer's front nine en route to a 61. He carded a 63 on the PGA West Nicklaus Private Course the second day to set the Tourís 36-hole record at 20 under par. He tied the 54-hole record at 25-under.
The victory march was hardly a waltz, however. Steve Stricker took the lead heading into Sunday's wind-blown final round, and Perez twice trailed by three shots on the front nine.
It was Stricker, though, who suffered the heartbreaking collapse, making a double bogey and triple bogey to shoot 77 to Perez's 69.
Tour rookie John Merrick of Long Beach charged with a 67, but Perez staved him off. Perez didn't need a birdie or eagle on the par-5 18th to win, and made tournament host Arnold Palmer nervous when, with water all down the left side, he went for the green in two from 199 yards.
"I don't lay up," Perez would later say with a smile.
The crowd roared as his 6-iron shot landed perfectly on the green and trickled to 2 feet.
"No surprise," Gore said with a laugh. "That sucker was going right at the pin. It was totally awesome."
That night, when Perez's gang had retired to a nearby house to party, the friends would pause and stand mesmerized as the highlight of the spectacular final shot was replayed again and again on sports shows.
Toasts were plentiful, and when Pat got up to say his thanks, he also announced he was giving Hartford the car he had won.
Yet another generous gesture.
There is a lasting image Bello has of the celebration: Perez was dancing in the corner, alone, a satisfied smile on his face.
"The happiest I'd ever seen him," Bello said.
When it comes to pro golfer Pat Perez, father Tony definitely knows best. The elder Perez was standing by when his talented son finally clenched his first PGA Tour victory in January at the 50th Bob Hope Classic. But long before that, Tony knew he had something special on his hands.
When it comes to pro golfer Pat Perez, father Tony definitely knows best. The elder Perez was standing by when his talented son finally clenched his first PGA Tour victory in January at the 50th Bob Hope Classic. But long before that, Tony knew he had something special on his hands.
