That name sounds familiar!

I was just skimming through the Tag Surfer when I came across this. Golf Digest just came out with a list of “the best .. golfers from the world of sports”. Most of those names were unknown to me and I was just about to move on when I saw the 23rd name on the list.. Pete Sampras!? woah! That he was playing golf was fine, but that he’s considered one of the better celebrity golfers, now that’s something!!

The complete list is here. Pistol Pete is joint 21st and very close to cutting his handicap down to nothing.. Further down, the list also has some other tennis players like Gigi Fernandez, Michael Chang (!!!), Todd Martin, Jim Courier, the one and only Ivan Lendl and perhaps a few others that I didn’t recognize.

SI: Have you ever played golf with Tiger?

Sampras: No, just a few hands of black jack. We were in Las Vegas doing an interview for ESPN and we played black jack and had dinner together

He’s also back in competitive tennis, even if it is only the Champions Series (shouldn’t that be Champions’?) and, so far, has a perfect 3-0 record there! Maybe if he wins the final tomorrow he’ll be tempted to consider a comeback into ATP?

Sampras: The offer is not the problem. It’s the desire for me to do it and the grind of it all. People have mentioned to me: You should come back. There’s not many great players today and it would be exciting, and give the sport a real shot in the arm. But they haven’t walked a mile in my shoes. Realistically, I only play one way. That’s to win. I won’t jeopardize that feeling to come back just to come back. It has to be for a reason. My competitive side and curious side, I have thought about it. Realistically, it’s not going to happen.

Sampras bowed out of tennis in perhaps most fitting manner possible.. winning the 2002 US Open against Agassi. 12 years prior, he had won his first Grand Slam title at the same place, against the same opponent. Who would ever want to spoil such a dream exit?

The excerpts were from Sports Illustrated.