Drinks Americas Holdings, Ltd. (DKAM)

[sneaky_peaky]

Not much has changed in a year. Well, except for buying one for everybody, he is making one for everybody and EVERYBODY is buying one FROM him.

Pretty funny stuff....

MICHAEL ROSENBERG
Comedy ensues when Kid Rock ‘golfs’ at pro-am
BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • JUNE 26, 2008

There are only two reasons for a celebrity to play in a PGA Tour pro-am. One is that he is a golf nut. The other is that he loves people.

Kid Rock does not strike me as a golf nut.
“You nailed that one right,” he said.

Kid Rock showed up for his pro-am round Wednesday afternoon with John Daly in bib overalls and a white T-shirt. He cracked that “I didn’t know what the dress code was going to be,” but the truth is that if he had shown up in an actual golf shirt with a collar, his fans would have mocked him.

By the end of the day, he had amended his attire slightly: He’d gotten rid of the T-shirt.

“You wanted Kid Rock to golf,” he said. “Kid Rock is golfing.”

Kid Rock did not golf much. On the second hole, he hit his tee shot onto the 11th hole, then left it there. Some people donate their organs to science; Kid Rock gives his golf balls to nature. He has this habit of starting holes with a club and ball and ending them with a beer and cigar.

His main function Wednesday was being Kid Rock, a role he was born to play. He seems incapable of blowing off anybody. On one hole I saw him pose for a photo with the same adolescent three times.

I don’t know how many autographs he signed for the day, but between the first green and the second tee, he signed 58. If you do the math — a few dozen per hole, multiplied by 18 holes — pretty soon you’ll need a beer.

Kid Rock is here to help. At one point Wednesday he promised to buy everybody in the crowd a beer if he made a hole-in-one. He would have had one, too, if only the hole were on the adjacent fairway.

The funny thing is that he wasn’t even sure he’d play in the pro-am.

“I said I might,” Rock said, “And then Daly confirmed for me. It hit the AP wire and I started getting all these calls: ‘You’re playing in the Buick!’ I’m like, ‘I didn’t confirm yet!’ They’re like, ‘It’s in the paper.’ So then if I don’t show …”

He didn’t mind showing. Unlike most celebrities, Kid Rock adores crowds as much as they adore him. He often goes to Pistons games, sits in the front row and winks at the camera when it’s on him. Once in a while, Eminem shows up at the same game, and he always seems like he wishes he hadn’t.

“I’m a people person,” Rock said. “I love people and being around people. That’s just how I am. I think (Eminem’s) a little different. He’s an equally good guy, a great father and everything. I just don’t think he likes the crowds, which is understandable.

“I got in this to make some money and get some girls, originally. Little did I know I would end up on a golf course with John Daly and doing all sorts of charity work and going overseas. It’s been great. I’m very humbled and very privileged.”

If you didn’t know that Kid Rock and John Daly knew each other, you would just assume, wouldn’t you? They are, for better or worse, a perfect match.

Kid Rock had a beer in his hand on the first hole. By the fifth hole, he was on his third beer.

Daly tried to quit drinking once, but he couldn’t figure out another way to get the beer from his hand to his stomach.

How did they meet?

“He came to a show years ago in Memphis,” Rock said. “I remember them saying, ‘Hey, John Daly wants to come to a show.’ And I said, ‘I love John Daly! Rock ‘n’ roll golfer. Perfect!’ And the funny thing was he came by and had like four or five thousand dollars worth of T-shirts. Just bags and bags of them, for his family and stuff. He’s just that type of guy.”

Kid Rock is a member at Oakhurst in Clarkston (”they were kind enough to give me a discounted membership”), but he doesn’t play much. Sometimes he has a tee time set up when he’s touring.

“The hard part is just getting up and doing it,” he said. “By the time the afternoon rolls around and you get up, it’s usually time to go to dinner.”

Kid Rock is no stranger to celebrity golf. He once played in the Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational in the Bahamas — barefoot. There was no PGA Tour Shotlink at the tournament, so I can’t say exactly how far he hit his opening drive. I’ll just have to take his word for it.

“About 12 feet,” he said.

The crowd naturally laughed at him. Kid Rock turned around and said, “Can anybody here do any better …?”

They all screamed yes.

” … after selling 22 million records?”

Um, no.

OK, so he’s not much of a golfer. But he is a heck of a motivational speaker.

“I told (Daly) before we started: ‘Let’s just go out and have a good time, and have fun. Just make sure we (bleeping) win,’ ” Rock said.

For a moment, I thought they would. On the first tee, Rock told the crowd “this is going to be just as interesting for me,” then hit his tee shot.

He crushed it.

“All I know is I cranked it off one,” he said. “Everyone was scared by that first shot. They were like, ‘Oh, (bleep), Kid Rock can golf!’ Which is all I cared about. I should have quit right then.

“That’s kind of been my thing in life. When it matters, I deliver. That was the big crowd of the day. I was nervous and rattled, and I cranked it. So I was more than ecstatic about that.”

Contact MICHAEL ROSENBERG at 313-222-6052 or [e-mail].

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008806260405