Fred Couples

AUGUSTA, Ga. - First paragraphs of stories about Freddie Couples should always include the words "like fine wine. " He is the Opus One of the pro golf tour. With a golf club in his hands, Couples is 52 going on 30. He shot a five-under 67 at the Masters on Friday and shares the 36-hole lead at five-under 139 with Jason Dufner. In senior citizen centers all over the country, they were high-fiving each other with walking sticks and demanding extra warm milk. The problem here is that there are 36 more holes to play.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - First paragraphs of stories about Freddie Couples should always include the words "like fine wine. " He is the Opus One of the pro golf tour. With a golf club in his hands, Couples is 52 going on 30. He shot a five-under 67 at the Masters on Friday and shares the 36-hole lead at five-under 139 with Jason Dufner. In senior citizen centers all over the country, they were high-fiving each other with walking sticks and demanding extra warm milk. The problem here is that there are 36 more holes to play.

It shouldn't be as easy as Fred Couples makes it look. And it isn't. That made Friday another day of contradictions for one of golf's more popular players. He shot a five-under-par 66 at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club and was the 36-hole leader. He strolled the fairways as he always does, with confidence and a smile. His gallery grew like a snowball, rolling downhill. They loved him and he hugged them back with three birdies and an eagle. The sweet, signature swing that pauses at the top, makes a little loop and then strikes the ball as cleanly as any in the game was in fine form.

Professional golfer Fred Couples has listed his second home in La Quinta at $4.195 million. The Spanish-style villa has a courtyard with a fountain. The nearly half-acre site has mountain views, a swimming pool with a spa and a fire pit. Interior features include limestone and wood floors, arched windows, a great room with an oversized stone fireplace, a wine room and two master suites with stone fireplaces and terraces. There are four bedrooms and 41/2 bathrooms. The approximately 5,200-square-foot house is being sold furnished.

Fred Couples has withdrawn from the Shark Shootout for personal reasons, tournament organizers said. Couples, who was to be paired with Brad Faxon, will be replaced by Ryder Cup team member Lee Janzen. Defending champions Tom Kite and Jay Haas will be back. Other teams include John Daly and Fuzzy Zoeller, Scott Hoch and David Duval, Craig Stadler and David Frost, Mark Calcavecchia and Andrew Magee, Peter Jacobsen and John Cook, Lanny Wadkins and Chip Beck, and Scott McCarron and Bruce Lietzke.

Fred Couples nibbled and nibbled at the lead, but never could take a whole bite. And eventually, the Seattle native finished tied for third when he took a chunk out of a eucalyptus tree at the Northern Trust Open. His second shot on the 18th hole at the Riviera Country Club knocked into the vegetation and dribbled down the surrounding slope. It forced the PGA Tour veteran to bogey the hole and forfeit his chance at finishing second.

Freddie Couples, the matinee idol of golf, has just three-putted for bogey from the fringe off the 18th at Riviera, so . . . . Boom! Despite a blistering 67 in the penultimate round of the 1993 Los Angeles Open, Couples has lost a stroke that minutes before had seemed safer than a federally insured deposit. The coolest cucumber on the fairway still holds a share of the lead--he would lose it the next day to Tom Kite--but he isn't happy. You might just say he's teed off.

He's young, he's a millionaire, he's about to be single and if he's not the best golfer in the world, well, then he's probably the best dressed. All right, don't take just anybody's word for it. Try John Ashworth of Charter Golf in Carlsbad, the clothier responsible for Fred Couples' golfing wardrobe. Like this golf sweater? Bet you won't find a hole in one. Needless to say, polyester is not spoken here. "Comfortable, classic, contemporary," Ashworth said. "And golf is such a classic game.

Fred Couples rested on his haunches on the first green. For about 30 seconds he stared at the golf ball in his hand, as if to ask, "What dirty deeds will you perform today?" About halfway through a 15-foot birdie putt, he found out. The ball hit a spike mark, arresting its gentle left-to-right arc toward the hole. It rolled past an empty cup, and Couples had a short putt for par.

Fred Couples, one of golf's top money winners, thought his estranged wife could lead a pretty good life on $17,500 a month. But Deborah Couples said she needs at least $168,000 a month to get her through the polo season. Circuit Judge Richard Wennet listened to the Couples' accountants and checked credit card bills Thursday before deciding $52,000 a month was a fair allowance.

The winning point for Tiger Woods . A perfect record for Jim Furyk . And validation for U.S. captain Fred Couples . The Americans won the Presidents Cup as a team, 19-15, avenging their worst loss ever in any cup competition 13 years ago on a Royal Melbourne course that lived up to its reputation as among the greatest tests in golf. Yet even as they gathered around the gold trophy at the closing ceremony Sunday afternoon in Melbourne, Australia, all of them dressed in red shirts and blue blazers, it was hard to ignore the singular achievements.

Fred Couples finished off John Cook with a nifty wedge shot to three feet on the third hole of a playoff Sunday in the Seniors Players Championship at Harrison, N.Y. Couples won his first senior major title, closing with an even-par 71 to match Cook (70) at 11 under on Westchester Country Club's West Course — a longtime PGA Tour venue where Couples estimated he has played about 100 rounds in 30 years. Peter Senior (71) was third at 10 under. Couples joined Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd as the only players to win the Players Championship on the regular and senior tours.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Fred Couples is 51, has a back that hasn't stopped aching since October and for a time wouldn't travel anywhere he couldn't drive. Yet there he was Friday at Augusta National, cruising along in his accustomed position within arm's reach of the midway Masters lead. "Here, I would be playing even as a cripple," the 1992 champion quipped after a 4-under-par 68 moved him into a tie for seventh place, five shots behind leader Rory McIlroy . "I love this place.

Fred Couples birdied the first hole at Riviera Country Club on Sunday, making a five-footer and smiling. He birdied the second hole too, his sweetly soft chip from just off the green trickling in. The third? Birdie, an 18-foot putt dead center. The roars for Couples from the gallery, lined four- and five-deep and mostly all pulling for the 51-year-old with the bad back and the textbook swing, created a buzz at the Northern Trust Open, even in the morning chill. After his third birdie, Couples had taken the lead and for a moment seemed ready to make history.

Fred Couples is a sentimental favorite to win the Northern Trust Open on Sunday, a 51-year-old with emotional loyalty to the Riviera Country Club course where he has won two titles. Kevin Na is another sentimental favorite, a local kid from Diamond Bar High who is hoping his first PGA Tour win might give his father a happy helping of hope as he battles leukemia in Korea. Couples and Na are both at nine-under-par 204 after three rounds, and that's almost good enough to lead.

Grandpa is leading the Northern Trust Open. If you were an unfamiliar visitor to the game and came to Riviera Country Club on Friday, you would wonder why that painfully achy guy who was constantly stretching and twitching and twisting his back, wincing and grimacing and expelling his breath in painful puffs was out there swinging a golf club with all those bouncy-stepped young fellows. And then Fred Couples would bend over a putt, maybe one of 94 feet, and just sink it. He really did that on the first hole for an eagle that kicked off a second round of five-under-par 66, good enough to give him a two-shot lead over everybody else at eight-under 134. Couples is two shots ahead of 28-year-old J.B. Holmes, who shot a 69 and was also eight under before making a double bogey on the 18th hole.

The former wife of golfer Fred Couples died after jumping seven stories from a chapel roof on May 26, the golfer's current wife confirmed Friday. Deborah Couples, 43, was reported missing from her Corona del Mar home last Saturday, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Mike McDermott said. She was suspected of being depressed, according to a missing persons report.

It shouldn't be as easy as Fred Couples makes it look. And it isn't. That made Friday another day of contradictions for one of golf's more popular players. He shot a five-under-par 66 at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club and was the 36-hole leader. He strolled the fairways as he always does, with confidence and a smile. His gallery grew like a snowball, rolling downhill. They loved him and he hugged them back with three birdies and an eagle. The sweet, signature swing that pauses at the top, makes a little loop and then strikes the ball as cleanly as any in the game was in fine form.

Fred Couples is 51 years old, with a back so painful that he said sitting and sleeping sometimes seem impossible. Corey Pavin is 51 years old and coming off his job as captain of the 2010 Ryder Cup team, a job that is for guys mostly done playing on the PGA Tour. Couples won the tournament at Riviera Country Club in 1990 and 1992. Pavin, a former UCLA star way back when, won it in 1994 and 1995. And for a moment or two Thursday afternoon during the first round of the 2011 Northern Trust Open, there was Pavin alone in the lead at five under par and Couples two shots behind.