I had no idea who Cooper really is - or at least is now. The scariest thing about spending time with offstage Cooper is trying to figure out, premeeting, what I should wear for heading out onto a golf course with him. A pale green straitjacket (sleeves dangling, of course)? Sherbet-pink bondage pants? A sun visor with chains? After all, until that first moment I meet him at the Riverview Golf Course in Mesa, Arizona, he is still an angry rock god to me - not Coop, as his friends call him, a 59-year-old father of three who loves to shop (he has 17 televisions), prefers golfing in the earliest hours of Phoenix daylight when he's home, and goes head-to-head with Kenny G - yes, that Kenny G - at pro-am golf tournaments. His recent memoir, Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict, is as much Cooper's rules for a great game as it is a romp through a life in rock.

And even though a quick premeeting Google search of the terms Alice Cooper and golf puts my mind at ease, I am relieved to see him wearing a standard-issue sun visor and polo shirt when he arrives at the golf course with his longtime teacher and friend, golf pro Jim Mooney.

JUST ABOUT the only things Cooper and his stage persona have in common are a name and a mischievous sense of humor. Actually, Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) is pretty sure that Alice wouldn't have much respect for his offstage life. "I don't have lunch with him. I don't talk to him," says golf Cooper of the stage villain. "I know what he's going to do because I control him, but I am totally entertained by him myself. When you get to be the Sheriff of Nottingham and not Robin Hood, when you get to be Bela Lugosi and not Van Helsing - that's the most fun thing in the world."