What’s a guy gotta do to get the attention of Tiger Woods? PGA Tour rookie Andres Gonzales — he of the long, stringy coiffure and awesome Fu Manchu mustache — has been waging a Twitter campaign to get the former No. 1 on the golf course for a practice round.
“@TigerWoods i had a dream last night that we played a round together,” the six-foot, two-inch Gonzales tweeted on September 10. “Obviously a dream, you were way taller than me.” (Woods stands an inch shorter).
@Andres_Gonzales made his Twitter debut telling @TigerWoods that he liked elephants, and he has kept up a one-sided virtual conversation with him ever since. A week after divulging his dream, the 210-pounder with the opposite of six-pack abs turned the heat up on Woods. “Person that is in charge of @TigerWoods twitter, please let him know i am interested a practixe eound at thw frys!!!!” Gonzales pleaded, typos and all.
Why the cyber-Tiger stalking? Because it’s a hoot for the man with career earnings of $71,938.
“I don’t know if he has any clue who I even am,” Gonzales told Golf Channel after posting a first-round 2-under 69 Thursday at the Frys.com Open.
It’s likely most fans don’t know who the 28-year-old from Washington state is either, but the more than 17,000 Twitter followers of the world’s 566th-best golfer enjoy Gonzales’ non-stop quest to tee it up with No. 51.
“I just think it’s fun,” Gonzales, who describes himself as “Half man, half amazing,” said of his good-natured jabs at Woods. “It gets fans interested, some no-name with the biggest golfer in the world. I’m just having fun.”
Most recently, Gonzo tweaked Woods about the putting woes that the former ace alluded to in his pre-tourney press conference and that continued in his first round back on tour since August. “@TigerWoods putting contest on the putting green…NOW!!!” Gonzales tweeted.
The fifth-year PGA Tour pro with the generous mid-section has a serious side as well. He’s growing his surfer-dude curls for a good cause, a cancer charity called Locks of Love. In honor of his father, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2007, Gonzales decided to grow his hair long enough to donate it to the foundation that makes hairpieces for children undergoing chemotherapy.
The facial hair? Gonzales began growing that as a lark.
“The mustache started out as a joke in ’05 and six years later, here it is,” Gonzales said. “”It’s just because I like to look really good.”
Woods, by the way, may be looking for a practice partner after his lackluster start at the Frys, and his flat stick was a big reason for his opening-round 2-over. He needed only 27 putts, but that stat can be conceiving for a golfer who hit only nine greens in regulation, canned just one putt outside the six-foot range, and lost 1.257 strokes to the field on San Martin, Calif.‘s CordeValle Golf Club greens, according to Brian Wacker of PGATour.com.
Hey, Gonzo! You might be able to engage your hero in a bit of putt-putt today, since we have a pretty good idea about where he’ll be before his second round. But you better get there early; Woods tees off on No. 10 at 7:40 a.m. local time.
