18 Holes With: The Fun Golfer interview with NFL Super Bowl Champ and Legend - JOE THEISMANN
The next Fun Golfer 18 Holes with Interview had me chatting golf with a Super Bowl champ, NFL MVP and a true NFL legend! Few quarterbacks in NFL history have blended toughness, intelligence, and leadership quite like JOE THEISMANN. Best known for guiding the Washington Redskins to victory in Super Bowl XVII and earning NFL MVP honors in 1983, Theismann built a career on precision, poise, and an unmatched competitive edge. But beyond the gridiron, he’s long been a passionate golfer...someone who approaches the game with the same strategic mindset that defined his football career. In this exclusive conversation, Theismann opens up about his love for golf, how the mental side of the sport mirrors quarterback play, and why stepping onto the first tee still gives him that familiar rush of game-day adrenaline.
18 HOLES WITH…NFL Icon JOE THEISMANN
1. First I just have to say thank you! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat golf with me. I really appreciate it. As a fan growing up watching you in both the CFL and the NFL, I'm looking forward to talking with you right now.
Thank you. I'll tell you I just, you know, you have touched on my favorite subject.
To start things off…lets go right back to the beginning! When and how did you get involved in golf?
Actually when I was a kid growing up, I grew up in New Jersey, and I was looking for a summer job and I just wound up caddying a little bit. I started carrying a bag and you know, you get a chance and hit some balls and I guess you could say I was fairly athletic. Being athletic and being a golfer don't necessarily mean the exact same thing, but I think that there are similar traits to it. I just started to play a little bit and I really fell in love with the game. I didn't play a lot because I didn't have the means. My mom and dad's combined income was $12,000 a year when I was a kid growing up, I grew up in a small town. There wasn't a golf course nearby. So I just sort of did that for a while. About 13, 14 years old, I played a little bit, but I really, really didn't take up golf actually until I got to the University of Notre Dame. There's a course on campus. There's a different one now, but there was an 18 hole golf course right on campus and I remember starting to play there a little bit more. Probably the first memories I have of playing golf is, you know, I'm a young 18 year old kid and I just swing as hard as I possibly could, hit it all over the ballpark and I was playing this older man. He could have been 60, he could have been 70, and all he did was knock it down the middle and you know, he hit a drive, hit a second shot, maybe it was a little short, maybe he hit the green and I don't remember the score, but he was a whole lot better than I was at scoring. And that was really my first opportunity to play the game and sort of get an idea of how you're supposed to play it.
There's nothing more personal, I think, in sports than golf. You can read all the books you want, you can read all the certain things…there's basically three or four fundamental things that you have to do. You have to take the club back flat, or I should say, take it back with a pace, not slow, but take it back with your own pace. 'Cause you watch John Rahm, or you watch Hideki Matsuyama and I think everybody has a different way to sort of set it. I think the game is personal to your body. What can your body do to be able to hit the ball where you want it to go?
And it's the greatest mental game there is. I mean, because every other sport, if you're playing soccer, the ball's coming at you, you either have to hit it or hit it with your chest or kick it. Baseball, it's coming at you at 90, a hundred miles an hour. Football, you just drop the ball, basketball, you just catch it. In golf, you hit a shot and for the next three to four minutes, you walk and you mentally try and figure out what you did, what you're going to do and what club you're going to hit. What's the lie look like? What are the hazards around the green? Is it elevated? Not elevated? You've got like 8 million scenarios to run through your head. And time to think about it. It just makes it so much more complicated because, like I say, all the other sports are basically reactionary.
And the other thing is too, this is one where you have nobody to blame but yourself. My youngest son caddies for me at the American Century Tournament and I constantly blame Patrick and he'll look at me like, dad, I didn’t swing the club!
2. Ha…I love that. Now, you obviously spend a lot of time on the road now with your speaking engagements and other activities, do you take your clubs with you when you travel?
No, I don't, actually. Most places I stay either have an affiliation with a course or they have one right where I'm staying and I don't have a problem with rental clubs and I don't have aspirations of going out and setting a course record. But the most important thing to me is the grips. If the rental clubs have decent grips, I can have a good experience. If it's not, I don't enjoy it. If they're slick, which a lot of them are, but if you can find a decent set of clubs with good grips, you can get out and, you know, enjoy it. I can shoot high 70s, low 80s every now and then. If I putt, I can get lower.
That's another thing, too, you see all kinds of different swings and you see all kinds of different grips. I think I have tried anywhere in the neighborhood of 50 different grips (laughs). There's the claw, there’s one finger, there's two fingers, there's left hand below, there's, you know, overlapping fingers, there's interlocking. Gosh almighty (laughs).
And you get around this time of year and now they're starting to overseed courses, which means you have to hit a little harder. I've got a staple in my left shoulder, so I can't turn the shoulders, you know, (they've) been nailed together. So I can't really make the turn, (and) I'm older to a point where my back is an issue. I almost got hit by a car seven months ago and I blew out the joint. And I think I got the bicep tendon a little bit. So you work around things because I get a kick out of watching golf shows and I watch them and you see this swing and you think 'I would love to do that'. I would love to be able to make that kind of a turn. I would love to be able to keep my left arm straight. I'd love to be able to stay still over the ball. (laughs)
3. Being a former NFL player, you naturally have a competitive side so is golf your new competitive outlet, or is golf your relaxing escape?
Well, it can be both. When I play in the American Century Tournament in Lake Tahoe, I still want to be competitive even though I can't hit the ball. You know, it took me a long time to understand that if you're playing in a foursome or you're playing golf, you're not playing the people in the group with you…you're always playing the course. The course presents the challenge, not the people you play. Yeah, sure, you get bets going and that's why you have handicaps because everybody's different. I call myself a competition junkie. I love to compete. I'll give you an example. Let's say you're in one car and I'm in another car and we're at a red light. It's on. As soon as that light turns, I gotta beat you off line.
Yeah. You can't take that out of you. It's there.
It's there. I can't. You're right.
4. You’ve played in a few charity golf tournaments, so which is harder…staring down an NFL Blitz as a quarterback, or hitting your drive on the 1st tee box in front of a gallery of fans?
Well, you know, it's funny. It's a great question because people have this perception that we see the rush coming. You have to look past the rush. You have to focus past that, right. Standing on the first tee, by yourself, with a gallery lined up on both sides thinking, oh my God, I don't want to hit someone. That's what goes through your mind. But I would say lining up on the first tee.
5. You NFL QB’s can be a bit superstitious or habitual, do you have any golf superstition you do…like mark your ball a certain way, or use a special ball marker when putting?
Oh, yeah. I'm probably one of the most superstitious people there is. I used to have a routine that started on Saturday night in football. I would have a banana split at night. And if they didn't have it, I'd go down to the kitchen and get it myself. And then we used to drive. Mark Moseley, Dave Butz and I used to drive to games together. Dave drove, he had the van. Mark used to sit in the passenger seat. I would lay down in the back. I would read People magazine cover to cover, leaf through it. And then when I got to the stadium, I would undress in the same way and hang my clothes on certain hooks. And when I got dressed, I put my uniform on the same way. And just as I went out of the stadium, the last guy dressed, when I went out, I used to spin my helmet twice like a little six shooter. And I put it on and then we had a Redskin logo right above the entrance and exit to the locker room. And I used to hit that for good luck. Now in golf what I do is I tuck the tee up under my cap on the left side. I keep my tees up there. I circle the number on the ball and my bag has to be a certain way in the cart. I set it in to make sure I can get to the balls and stuff. I don't put the eye black on anymore (laughs).
Any special ball marker?
Actually enough, I have a Canadian coin. I don't know which one it is, but it's just the one I like the most. Like anything else, if you have good luck with something, you want to stick with it, you want to stay in that routine. It frees your mind up. And if something happens to that routine, it becomes very disconcerting. It can throw your game off.
6. Being a Canadian I’m very familiar with your time in the CFL in the early 70’s with Toronto and of course your Super Bowl 17 win. You have had some amazing plays in your time, so, what is more satisfying to you…a long pass to your WR facing double coverage, or draining a long 25+ foot birdie putt?
Oh, no question. Draining the long putt. I've had three hole in ones (so) I've broken through that. You know, it's really funny. You've heard the term, the mind's eye. When I stand over, I've read this, I don't know whether it was Nicklaus or somebody said it, when you stand over a putt, you can actually visualize the path that the ball should take to put it in the hole. Now that's your body. That's your mind's eye saying it. So when you line up a putt, you've got to feel for the speed of the green, and then you strike it where you want to and it goes in. Very few things as gratifying as that.
7. Finish this sentence for me…One thing I especially love about golf is…?
…the challenge. I love the challenge of the game. I love the mental part of it. And it's going to be different the next day. And the next day after that, the next day after that.
8. Now the flipside…the most frustrating thing about golf is…?
…consistency. Not being able to be as consistent as I would like. Just to be able to repeat, you know, swing and repeat, swing and repeat. I think that's just frustrating as all get out, because you get over the ball, you hit a shot and you like it. Now can you repeat that? Yeah. You'll even see that with the pros. So to be able to repeat is the big thing.
9. This question gets asked a lot, but it’s a fun one – what three people, anyone you want, would form your dream golf foursome?
Well, I've been blessed to play with presidents. I've been blessed to play with the greatest athletes. I've said this before, its my dad, God rest him, and my two boys. Yep. Joe, Patrick and dad. Someday I might in heaven, it'll mean a lot to me.
That's the front 9...now we grab a snack, make the turn and hit the back 9 rapid fire questions!
1. Your favorite city to play golf in?..........Florida
2. You’ve already answered this one, but what is the closest you have come to a hole-in-one? And you said you have 3 of them already?
Yup, I’ve got 3 of them. the last one was 9 years ago.
3. Well, I guess your due for another one then! You’ve played with and against some of the best football players in the world, who is the best football player you have played a round of golf with?
Al Del Grego, a kicker for the Tennessee Titans, Al was incredible. And Jim Brown is another one.
4. Would you rather: always hit your drives 350 yards, but always land in the rough, or 250 yards but always land in the middle of the fairway?
250 in the middle of the fairway, and I’d have to hit 2 shots to get to 250 (laughs).
5. Pick one golf super power: Your ball never goes in the sand, your ball never goes in the water, or your ball never goes in the rough?
The ball never goes in the rough. I’ll deal with everything else after that, but at least it gives me a chance.
6. Music in the golf cart while playing – yes or no?..........Yeah, I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve played in front of 100,000 screaming people, a little music’s not going to bother me.
7. Golf cart driver, golf cart passenger or golf course walker?..........First of all I’m a golf cart driver, then I’m a golf course walker.
8. Do you allow gimmies on the green or make friends putt it out?..........Depends on how much money’s on the line (laughs). If I’m getting ready for a tournament I play everything out, but I believe in gimmies. It speeds up pace of play.
9. If I had a magic golf pass and we could golf any course in the world, what course would you pick for us to play at?..........Obviously Augusta, but the other one in the world would be Old Head in Ireland. It’s just so majestic, my gosh, it’s incredible.
Joe, that’s all I got for you but this has been an absolute pleasure and one of the most fun conversations I’ve had talking golf. Thank you so much for your time, I truly, absolutely appreciate it.
Your sure welcome, thank you buddy!
*Parts of this interview have been condensed and/or edited for space and clarity