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ctor Brian Baumgartner hits a tee shot during the final round of ARIA Resort & Casino’s Michael Jordan Celebrtiy Invitational golf tournament at Shadow Creek on April 7, 2013 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Isaac Brekken\/Getty Images for Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational)<\/p>\n
getty<\/p>\n
Rules are rules, and for comedic actor Brian Baumgartner, rules are to be followed, especially when it comes to golf. \u201cI have a standing rule with my family that if I am in town, home on a Friday, I play golf.\u201d <\/p>\n
While he\u2019s most recognizable as the lovable if dimwitted “Kevin Malone” from NBC\u2019s The Office, Baumgartner is also a staple on the celebrity golf circuit. You\u2019re almost as likely to see him on the links as you are on television, where now-classic sitcom runs in perpetuity nearly 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, during our second meeting at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions, Baumgartner shared that personal rule as one way to balance his busy schedule and the flow of life. When he is back in San Diego with his wife and daughter, Baumgartner makes a point to prioritize his time on the green.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sacrosanct that when I\u2019m home\u2014and I\u2019m not home on Fridays a lot\u2014but I hit the course,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Often referred to as the HGV, this tournament pairs elite entertainers, broadcasters, and stars from the NFL and NBA with the LPGA Tour’s premier talent. Traditionally held during the final weekend of January, the event serves as the official season opener for the LPGA and features players of the women\u2019s game who won at least one LPGA event the previous year.<\/p>\n
“When I\u2019m here, I get to play four days in a row with great players and other athletes who love golf as much as I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
When not on the road for specialty golf events like the HGV, Baumgartner says he plays golf easily once a week, \u201cprobably more,\u201d on average, and plays with a select group of other enthusiasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, I will play 50 times a year, probably more. And I play every Friday when I\u2019m home\u2014but I am not home a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a group that plays together, down in San Diego. I play with Charley Hoffman; if he\u2019s not playing on the PGA Tour that week, he plays with us. Plus, (USA soccer legend) Landon Donovan, and just a bunch of great, great guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like any avid golfer, Baumgartner has his go-tos and favorite courses. With the exception of one location, the 53-year-old actor seems to prefer golf courses in the western United States.<\/p>\n
Related story: Timothy Simon proudly calls himself a \u2018golf sicko\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve played (southern Utah\u2019s) Pine Valley. My folks are in Hilton Head, so I play Harbour Town a lot. My favorite course in the world is Shadow Creek (in Las Vegas), where I\u2019ve played a lot. There\u2019s Edgewood in Lake Tahoe, and all the courses, really, in Southern California.\u201d<\/p>\n But it wasn\u2019t until he turned to acting right out of college that Baumgartner picked up golf. He said he got the bug for both when he was right out of college. Before he moved to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Baumgartner was a member of the Hidden Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I became a (professional) actor, my parents were incredibly supportive\u2014to my face,” Baumgartner said, joking somewhat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first show I was doing in Minnesota, they came up to see me, and it was about -10 degrees, and there were 14 people in the audience. And they told me years later that they were in the cab on the way back to their hotel, asking each other, What is he doing?\u201d<\/p>\n SMU grad and actor Brian Baumgartner with the Southern Methodist University Mustangs after the team beat the Arizona Wildcats to win the 46th Annual Trust & Will Holiday Bowl at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego, CA. (Photo by Karl Anderson\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n Baumgartner noted that his professional stage debut occurred roughly a year after he earned his theater degree from Southern Methodist University. In the early days of his acting career, he honed his golf game on a shoestring budget almost exclusively at public municipal courses.<\/p>\n \u201cI took it up, and fell in love with golf right away. And then when I moved to Los Angeles, I played a lot. But I wasn\u2019t a member of a club anywhere, so I would go down to San Diego a lot, and also out to Palm Springs,\u201d Baumgartner said, in part because, \u201cthere\u2019s not a lot of public courses in Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n That said, he let on that he enjoys the dryness of the desert of golf in Palm Springs. “And, San Diego is even a little more humid than L.A., but I like that too, in terms of playing and how it makes the ball fly.\u201d<\/p>\n So what creative endeavors is TV Land\u2019s favorite office drone up to\u2014when he\u2019s not playing golf?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll do whatever is there creatively,\u201d Baumgartner said. \u201cI had a blast this past year doing Suits LA.\u201d <\/p>\n In the NBC legal drama and second Suits spin-off, Baumgartner appeared as himself across several episodes. He shared the screen with fellow actors and comedians Patton Oswalt and Enrico Colantoni, known for his roles in the sci-fi\/comedy film Galaxy Quest and NBC\u2019s Just Shoot Me!.<\/p>\n Baumgartner was also recently featured as the \u201cworld\u2019s most famous accountant” in a fun national ad campaign during Super Bowl LX for financial technology company and spend management platform Ramp. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve done some stuff earlier this year for Ramp, they\u2019re a big, new tech company,\u201d he said of the campaign. \u201cIT was a great time, and a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n When I asked Baumgartner about the enduring popularity of The Office\u2014which remains a television fixture through syndication\u2014he admitted that it is still a bit surreal to see his own face on screen so frequently.<\/p>\n VIDEO: Baumgartner hams it up for a Super Bowl ad<\/p>\n “I guess by now it\u2019s normal. But it was weird at first. Especially when I am traveling, and I see The Office on a hotel TV. Or on Comedy Central, where it seems like it\u2019s playing every minute. But it\u2019s great that fans in general are pretty supportive.\u201d Baumgartner lets on that his TV fame, in turn, makes it all the more fun to do golf events like the HGV.<\/p>\n Lastly, when asked who he likes to play golf with most, Baumgartner mentioned both some Hall of Fame-caliber athletes he\u2019s swung clubs with, plus a few other famous faces.<\/p>\n “In this tournament and others I play throughout the year, I have gotten to play with and become friends with a lot of the regulars you see in golf. Like Roger Clemens\u2014it\u2019s always really fun to play with him. Plus, Brian Urlacher, Don Cheadle, and Dylan Dreyer from the Today Show.\u201d<\/p>\n Baumgartner concluded, \u201cIt\u2019s the diversity of the people that come out here,\u201d that makes golf so enjoyable. \u201cI am a huge sports fan too. So, getting to know and hanging out with those guys over golf makes it really fun for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Read Frye\u2019s golf chats with Veep\u2019s Timothy Ryan<\/a> and NBA great Ray Allen<\/a>.<\/p>\n ##<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ctor Brian Baumgartner hits a tee shot during the final round of ARIA Resort & Casino’s Michael Jordan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[306208,306209,64,63,295330,306207,306205,306206,755,481,6333,85],"class_list":["post-632419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-andy-frye-golf-stories","tag-andy-frye-golf-writer","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brian-baumgartner","tag-brian-baumgartner-celebrity-golf","tag-brian-baumgartner-golf","tag-brian-baumgartner-hgv-golf","tag-golf","tag-los-angeles","tag-nbc","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}