ATLANTA – As congratulatory videos go, Larry David’s for Billy Andrade was, well, pretty…pretty…pretty good.
Andrade, 58, is set to receive the Payne Stewart Award, presented annually by the PGA Tour to a professional golfer who best exemplifies Stewart’s steadfast values of character, charity and sportsmanship, this evening.
The PGA Tour posted a video of David, presumably in his office, congratulating the award winner.
“I heard you won the Payne Stewart Award. That’s fantastic news. So well deserved,” David began. “And you know what’s interesting is you were one of the finalists for the Larry David Most Selfish Man of the World Award. It was right down to you and a couple of other people. Of course, I won it for the 35th year in a row. It’s tough to beat me there. You have to be a little bit more of an —hole. That’s the only advice I can give you. But we’ll invite you to the dinner.”
Andrade threw his head back in laughter as he watched the video.
It turns out that Andrade and David are good friends, originally meeting through the Farrelly Brothers, who are best known for the comedic hit movies “Something About Mary” and “Dumb and Dumber.” In fact, Andrade made a non-speaking cameo as a doctor during Season 6 of David’s hit HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“They stuck me with a doctor’s outfit and a stethoscope. I was just in the background when (another doctor) said a very bad word and the look on my face was just utter shock,” he recalled. “Only two people called me and asked me if I was on the episode. It was John Huston who has never called me before, or maybe ever since, although we’re good friends, and my college roommate, Jerry Haas, the coach at Wake Forest. It was such a big appearance that I got two at least two calls.”
Andrade has played a bunch of golf with David and confirmed he remains obsessed with the game.
“Last time I went to his house for dinner in March I walked in and he had to show me this tip he’d gotten that day,” Andrade said. “He wanted to know if he should try it. It turned into a 10-minute lesson before we’d even had a drink. But it just shows how much he loves the game and just wants to get better like everybody else.”
And what’s it like to tee it up with David?
“It’s like being on the show,” Andrade said.