Nationwide Tour Insider: Rice looks to make noise

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Soon-to-be NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice is playing in the Fresh Express Classic this week.

Jerry Rice needs a favor, but it might take some doing to make it happen.

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Rice, one of the best wide receivers in NFL history, has become so taken by the game of golf that he finds his fascination hard to explain. But the favor he needs on Thursday when he tees it up in Nationwide Tour's Fresh Express Classic at TPC Stonebrae is a louder atmosphere.

When he was carving out a hall-of-fame career in the NFL he did his best work when the fans were the loudest. Now, he finds the quiet of golf almost a distraction.

"I'm going to try and get the galleries going and whoever is playing with me might get upset but I need noise," said Rice, who received a sponsor's exemption. "That's the type of environment I'm accustomed to so it's going to be a lot of fun. I look forward to having those nerves on the first tee and trying to hit the ball straight down the middle."

Make no mistake about it, though. The ultra-competitive Rice, competing on the Nationwide Tour for the first time, isn't there to be a sideshow.

"This isn't some reality show or anything like that," Rice said. "The reality is I'm going to try and compete with those guys out there, and I know it's going to be hard and I'll kind of be out of my element but I love a challenge."

The Nationwide Tour is making its lone stop this season in Northern California this week. With five tournaments already in the books, the season is shaping up to be another fight to the finish to earn a PGA TOUR card for next season.

Rice, 47, is looking forward to seeing just how good the Nationwide Tour players are.

"I'm not out there just to be a celebrity or anything like that I'm very competitive and I want to do well," Rice said. "I think the thing is you are going to have to hit fairways. The rough is going to be pretty high so just keeping it straight. My strategy is I've played the course and on the tee I just want to try and hit fairways."

Hitting fairways is something Rice can do in practice, but what about when there are crowds around? He says his nervousness "will be off the charts" when he goes off the first tee on Thursday.

When Rice was making 1,549 catches in a brilliant 21-year career where he spent his prime with the San Francisco 49ers, there was nothing he couldn't do on a football field. But even he admits that won't mean a thing once he puts on his golf shoes.

"Going across the middle was a lot easier," Rice said. "Golf is a lot harder than football. With football that came easy to me but this game of golf doesn't."

Rice discovered golf by accident one day in 1987 when his personal trainer brought a couple of clubs and golf balls to a workout session. The trainer wanted to see how Rice's hand-eye coordination was so he gave Rice a club and said hit the ball.

"I tried to hit the ball and I basically couldn't do it," Rice said. "And that really (ticked) me off."

From there, Rice said he started leading a double life of a football player and avid golfer.

"I got addicted to it and I was hitting golf balls all the time," Rice said. "I would hit balls early in the morning every day before work with the 49ers, then after practice I would come back and hit more. It's just a great game."

For somebody who was at the top of football for so long, golf was something that brought him back down to earth in a hurry.

"It's the type of game that humbles you big time," Rice said. "You feel like you have it mastered then that all goes away and you can't do anything right."

Rice, who has played in several celebrity tournaments, was one of the hardest workers in the NFL. He also showed off his work ethic by finishing runner-up on the hit show "Dancing with the Stars" and has brought that same commitment to golf.

Rice hasn't ruled out a second life as a pro golfer. He says that getting the chance to play on the Nationwide Tour will really test the limits of his golf game and he hopes to be accepted by the other pros.

"I think once they get to know me and things like that they'll realize I'm serious about this game," Rice said. "This is a totally different world for me, but when you look at the guys on the Nationwide Tour a lot of them are living out of their cars traveling week to week trying to play golf.

"I have great respect for those guys."

Rice's best finish as a pro came last season when finished 10th to win $10,000 in the American Century Celebrity Championship at Edgewood Tahoe. He recently lost to Lawrence Taylor, another former NFL great, in a match on the Golf Channel.

In preparation for his Nationwide Tour debut Rice has been working on his short game, hitting the range as much as possible and playing golf nonstop.

Despite all of his achievements in football and the nerves he says he felt right before playing in a Super Bowl, this will be totally different.

"My level of nervousness will be at a max of about 10," Rice said. "But the funny thing about it is I was always nervous before every football game. And I'm the type of individual and I focus better when I'm nervous so that's a good thing."

While Rice would ultimately have to rely on teammates when he played football he doesn't have the luxury in golf.

"I respect the game of golf and respect the players on that Tour, but this is a chance for me to try and compete at a high level," Rice said. "There are no teammates - if you don't play well you can only blame yourself."

John Dell has covered golf for the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina for the last 15 years. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.