GolfPunk Classics: Natalie Gulbis Swingin' Siren

Here  she is, Natalie Gulbis, all the way back in April 2006 in her first GolfPunk photo shoot... 

She drives the ball upwards of 270 yards. Last season she pocketed $1,010,017 in prize money, with 12 top-ten finishes and a place in the Solheim Cup-winning US team. This year she’s flown out of the traps with four top-ten finishes including third at the Kraft Nabisco Championship and fourth at the MasterCard Classic. Make no mistake, Natalie Gulbis has got game.

She has other qualities too. Standing in the locker room of the Bali Hai Golf Club in Las Vegas, she pulls the kind of poses that would make Aguilera blush. “And I was really nervous,” she admits after the camera’s packed away. “It’s not really something I feel is natural to me as a sportswoman.”

You could have fooled us. Athletic, with enough smoulder to peel the paint off the walls, it’s small wonder that she’s rapidly climbing up the leaderboard of American sporting pin-ups.

The US edition of FHM magazine sells an average of 1.3million copies a month. Natalie first appeared in the magazine in November 2004 and had an immediate impact on the readership; she is now a regular columnist. Deputy Editor, Michael Dolan, who was responsible for identifying Natalie as perfect for his readership, points out that unlike in the UK, female athletes do very well in their annual readers’ poll of 100 Sexiest Women. Gulbis was ranked 35th in this year’s 100, two places above the aforementioned Ms Aguilera.

“Natalie is up there along with the likes of Maria Sharapova,” Dolan explains. Other favourites include a softball player called Jennie Finch and swimmer Amanda Beard, who won a gold medal for the US in the 2004 Olympics. “Natalie is at the upper end of the hierarchy of female athletes in terms of recognition from our readers,” he adds, “and her popularity is growing.”

A female golfer on the cover of such an influential magazine would really be something. Dolan agrees: “We haven’t talked about it yet, but I imagine it would be something we would do in the very near future. Her popularity has risen to such a level that it wouldn’t be out of the question at all. As these young stars like Michelle Wie and Paula Creamer make the game more popular than ever before, the better it will be for Natalie. The way things are going she is going to be at the forefront of the game for some time.”

All this is manna from heaven for any ambitious agent. Giff Breed and Kim King, from the powerful Octagon management stable, are charged with handling Gulbis’s affairs.

“We started working with Natalie in the Fall of 2005,” explains Breed. “It was very clear from meeting her that first and foremost among her ambitions is to become the best player in the world.”

“You have a young lady who is very smart, extremely goal-orientated and focused,” adds King. “She is very smart and a very accomplished person who just happens to be a golfer.”

Both are wary of getting too carried away with fancy talk of ‘Gulbis – The Brand’. After all, she’s still to win her first tour event, although her results over the past 12 months suggest it’s merely a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. Nobody, least of all a 23-year-old who has grafted all her life to get where she is today, should aspire to be Anna Kournikova – a millionaire several times over, but with a trophy cupboard bare of silverware.

As a kid growing up in Sacramento, California, Natalie was drawn to golf following her father, John, around the course. She achieved her first par aged 10 on the Pacific Grove course in Monterey. Her Hendrix-loving dad was instrumental in her development as a player and packed in playing the game when she was 12 to concentrate on coaching and accompanying her on the gruelling US junior golf circuit. They drove from coast to coast because the air fares were too expensive. They pitched tents instead of staying in hotels. Not so long ago, Natalie bought him a $35,000 Harley-Davidson bike as a thank you gift.