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Golfers like to debate the best players to never win a major.
In basketball, one of the players at the top of the list of those never to win an NBA Championship ring is Charles Barkley.
In the middle of his 16-year career, Barkley was the anchor of several excellent Phoenix Suns teams, including the 1992-93 juggernaught - Barkley would be named league MVP - that had the misfortune to run into peak Michael Jordan in the Finals, losing in six games.
Barkley seemed to get a small measure of redemption this past Monday, not on the basketball court, but on the golf course. He and Suns teammate "Thunder" Dan Majerle won an event at prestigious Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. Majerle posted a triumphant photo on Twitter.
We finally won something 😀 pic.twitter.com/R1z4eOyDIN
— Dan Majerle (@DanMajerle) November 14, 2022
No word on whether Michael Jordan was in the field.
In his retirement from playing basketball, Barkley has become the ultimate celebrity Everyman Golfer. His at times profound struggles with the game are something to which millions of us can relate, even if they've been far more public than any of ours will ever be. But the humor and determination he's shown - remember his turn on The Haney Project? - are positive examples for any golfer who gets discouraged by a run of bad play. In this recent case, he seems to have turned a corner and played some of his best golf when it counted most. Or his partner carried him to victory. Or he got an enormous amount of strokes.
Congratulations, Sir Charles!
Comments (1)
I wonder if Sir Charles has changed his swing, actually, for the better. I've empathized with his struggles, which are the essential struggles--as you've well observed--for all golfers, no matter what skill level.
He's a very likeable basketball commentator with strong convictions and insights, and can be witty on golf, as well, as he was earlier this year at "The Match." More than anyone else in the booth, he provided the laughs. And levity is a valuable commodity in golf, as in life.