How pro athletes use their sports to excel in Tahoe celebrity golf tournament
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Elite athletes like Stephen Curry apply mental resilience and routine to excel in golf.
- Familiarity with swing mechanics in sports like hockey and baseball also helps.
- Personal coaching and consistent practice boost performance at Tahoe's celebrity event.
It’s easy to understand why professional athletes would have an advantage when it comes to excelling at golf as a hobby. It starts with inherent athleticism and hand-eye coordination. That’s paired with high-level focus and preparation.
The financial resources spent on top-end coaching and swanky country club access doesn’t hurt, either.
The American Century Championship, the annual celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe happening this weekend, is one time when some athletes can put their efforts spent on golf on display for the thousands of fans in attendance and a national television audience.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to see four-time NBA Champion Stephen Curry find himself in the mix as of Saturday atop this year’s leaderboard after winning the event in 2023. Basketball fans familiar with the Golden State Warriors’ star know his famous pregame routine, where he hits shots all over the court dazzling fans who pack arenas hours before tip off.
It’s not all that different on the golf course, albeit not quite as flashy.
Curry’s preparation on the driving range at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course requires a similar level of focus as his basketball warm up. He even has a his own personal golf coach, Alex Riggs, watch every warm-up shot and film some with his phone, going over video with Curry to offer thoughts on his swing. Riggs is based in Dubai, which shows how much the event means to Curry.
Anyone who’s played golf understands the mental challenges it provides. That’s not lost on the athletes either, and they often channel what they’ve learned from their day jobs to get them through 18 holes and grow their games to the point of competing to win in Lake Tahoe.
Curry was asked this week about how basketball has helped his golf game.
“I think out of my career, I’m like 43% 3-point shooter. It might feel like I don’t miss, but I do 57% of the time. What do you do on the next shot? That’s how you tap into it,” Curry said.
“If I miss a 3 and I get it back, I have the same if not more confidence that the next one is going in. So if you miss a drive or miss a putt, whatever the case is, how quickly can you move on to the next shot? You do it at the highest level at your professional sport ... you should be able to do that out there.”
Curry in Friday’s first round at the ACC had the equivalent of a cold-shooting first half. He made three bogies and just one birdie on the front 9, looking like he might struggle to stay remain in contention. But as he has throughout his NBA career, he got hot down the stretch.
Curry birdied three of the last five holes, finishing with 21 points in the modified Stableford scoring format, going from the middle of the 90-player field to tied for third after a birdie on the 18th hole. He finished the round shooting a 73, right near his scratch-golf handicap for someone who has dabbled in the plus range in recent years.
Former baseball, hockey stars
For some athletes, the reasons for improving their golf can be more cut and dry.
John Smoltz, a Cy Young Award winner who pitched in the Major Leagues for 21 seasons and is in the Hall of Fame, was asked the same question. For him, being in a rotation and starting every fifth day gave him time to improve his golf game between outings. Smoltz entered the weekend tied for eighth in the ACC.
“I know for baseball and pitching, it’s just about time. We’ve got the most time,” Smoltz said. “We had 21 years of playing golf (when not pitching). We made 36 starts a year. And the rest of those opportunities, we played golf. It helped us stay in the game. We didn’t try to get mechanical. We didn’t try to make it another thing that we had to worry about; we just went out and had fun.
“It grew on us, and all of us that played the game in our sport realized that golf has the longest expiration date. So that’s really what drives everybody to that level.”
Former A’s and Cardinals hurler Mark Mulder won the event three straight times from 2015 to 2017 and began the weekend tied for 12th.
The leader after Round 1 on Friday was former San Jose Sharks and Dallas Stars stalwart Joe Pavelski, who retired from the NHL in 2024. He scored 23 points thanks to 14 pars with three birdies and just one bogie (pars are worth 1 point, birdies 3, eagles 6, hole-in-one 8, albatross 10 — bogies are worth none and double bogies or worse are minus-2). Pavelski shot 70.
Growing up in Wisconsin, Pavelski said learned to play golf during the warmer months of summer which timed up well with his hockey schedule.
“(My) dad got us into some of the public junior lessons, the Friday three-hole junior deals, just learned to love to play the game then,” Pavelski said. “I was always able to kind of get my game to a pretty respectful level in the summers, and then you’d go back for the season and try to play when you could, especially being in San Jose. Then in Dallas, there were some days where we had some decent weather.”
Fundamentally, a hockey slap shot and golf swing are similar. Pavelski noted the impact positions of hitting a golf ball and hockey puck are similar. That might explain why Pavelski is considered a favorite to win the ACC, which has been won by hockey players five times since 1990. Dan Quinn, who spent 14 seasons in the NHL with eight teams, won the event four times. All-time great Mario Lemieux won the event once in 1998. Pavelski tied for the lead in 2022 but lost in a two-hole playoff to former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
“You definitely understand the competitors that are out there and the golfers and their skill level that they can turn it on, especially with the Stableford deal,” Pavelski said.
Playing to win in Tahoe
For many of the athletes, the competitive nature of the ACC is what keeps them coming back. Oklahoma City Thunder wing man Alex Caruso, who helped his team win an NBA Championship last month thanks to his lockdown defense, scored 18 points in the first round and began Saturday in sixth place.
Caruso said he tapped into his own competitiveness, which was running hot from the recent NBA playoffs. Caruso and the Thunder played in seven-game series in the Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets and the NBA Finals vs. the Indiana Pacers.
Caruso, who also won a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020, the COVID pandemic season, is appearing in just his second ACC after making his debut in the tournament last summer. He finished tied for 61st with negative-9 points. So he beat his personal best by 27 points in just one round after spending time working to improve his golf game.
“You’ve got to be really competitive to get to the top of any sport, of any field,” Caruso said. “So starting with that, you have to be really competitive to kind of be your best, and that’s more or less what golf is. It’s you against the course. It’s you against yourself, how good can you be?
“For me, that’s what it really is, is the mental part of the game moving on to the next play, and, in golf, moving on to the next shot. That’s a big thing for me that I found success in basketball in getting to the NBA and staying there. That’s something that I think has helped me translate into golf.”
Of course, the ACC is littered with football players, too. Current and former quarterbacks like reigning MVP Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Tony Romo, Sam Darnold, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Trevor Lawrence are in this year’s field. Chiefs star Patrick Maholmes has played in recent years, as has former 49ers signal caller Steve Young. Romo has won the event three times.
Additionally, this year’s field also includes two of the NFL’s most famous tight ends, Travis Kelce and George Kittle. The latter is making his debut at the event after taking up golf regularly over the past two years.
Kittle said he’s tapped football to help with his golf game.
“Two (ways),” he said. “Trust your technique, no matter what it looks like, just trust the technique that you’ve learned, and then just hit it as hard as you possibly can, and nothing can go wrong.”
Carolina Panthers receiver Adam Thielen has also been a regular on the ACC leaderboard. The 12-year pro has appeared in the tournament eight times and finished in the top 12 four times, winning $81,957 in prize money. Instead of football helping with golf, he benefits from the opposite.
“I don’t think football helps me much with golf, because when I have a bad play in football, I just go hit somebody. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well in golf,” he joked. “Obviously I take a lot from competitive golf to what I do for my day job. It’s just one way that I can really work on (the mental side) of my sport, sports mentality and just how to handle adversity.
“In football, you’re not out there by yourself. You got other teammates that you can have a bad play and no one will ever know. In golf, it’s on you. If you hit a bad shot, it’s your fault. And so I think it really helps me translate to the football field of how I can control my emotions and how I can go out and move on from play to play.”
This story was originally published July 12, 2025 at 11:33 AM.
