While some Celtics have fallen hard for golf, not all share the love

While Jayson Tatum has joined the camp of Boston Celtics in love with golf, some teammates have a more ambivalent feeling towards the sport.

With Boston Celtics All-Star forward Jayson Tatum going on his seventh consecutive day of hitting the links in Disney’s Wide World of Sports complex in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, you’d be excused if you thought some of the people he’s had come out with him share the same enthusiasm for the sport.

Given team president Danny Ainge was outed in “The Last Dance” as having played golf with His Airness during a 1986 playoff series, and rookie forward Grant Williams has recently picked up the game, it’s easy to see how one might come to such a conclusion.

But while there are indeed a number of Celtics new and old with the itch to play the popular low-intensity pastime, many others are just along for the ride — if they are even on the links in the first place.

 

Veteran forward Gordon Hayward recently related he’s not especially adept or especially interested in the sport, and at Thursday’s post-practice media availability, starting point guard Kemba Walker echoed similar sentiments.

“I’m terrible, bro — honestly, I’m awful,” opined the UConn product.

Center Daniel Theis sounded a bit more interested than Hayward or Walker, but revealed he too had just picked up the sport.

“I went yesterday my first time, and the lightning stopped me after like 30 minutes,” Theis explained. “So I tried today again … just trying a new hobby, going out there — I haven’t done it before. So, my video is pretty good; probably better than I played all day, so I’m trying to get better every day.”

There well may be a big uptick in the popularity of the sport when all is said and done with the Disney restart, as it seems one of the more popular recreational activities being dabbled in by the team and league more broadly.

And while at least a few Celtics may agree with novelist Harry Leon Wilson when he said over a century ago (via Teed Up) “golf … seems to have too much walking for a good game and just enough game to spoil a good walk,” the itch seems to have taken hold with Tatum at least.

We’ll see if it gets to anyone else in the ‘bubble’.

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