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John Smoltz will be in the field for the American Century Championship next month at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Club in Nevada, and he is looking to leave as the champion.
The Baseball Hall of Famer and FOX Sports MLB broadcaster finished fourth in the celebrity tournament in 2024 and tied for 12th in 2023.
Smoltz explained to Fox News Digital in a recent interview he has “no excuses” this year for him not to at least be in contention to win the tournament.
“I’ve been doing it now, I don’t know, 13-14 years, I got two brand new hips, I training getting stronger and no longer losing 30 yards to all these young whippersnappers who just bomb it. So, there is no excuses for me not win at some point even though I am 58. I’ll be the oldest winner to ever win the American Century Championship. I am already proclaiming it, I’m not going to say it is this year but I will be the oldest winner at some point.”
Smoltz suggested he would be even more sure of himself if he was able to “figure out how to put those greens.”
“I finished second a couple times, I finished top 10 a lot, top five, but it comes down to you have to make birdies, and I just haven’t made enough birdies,” he said. “If it came down to stroke play there is no doubt I would always be right there, but you still have to make birdies. So I’m working on some these things as we speak, I am doing all these interviews and Zooms from my golf club, Hawks Ridge, putting in the time putting in the work, and putting in my shoulders have been horrible until two months ago, I’m getting stronger, I am training for that.
GOLF LEGEND ANNIKA SORENSTAM TALKS CHARITABLE EFFORTS AHEAD OF AMERICAN CENTURY CELEBRITY TOURNAMENT
“I have no excuses, I can walk 16 miles now with two new hips, in the past I was broken down trying to play a 5-and-half-hour golf round, and it was very difficult to do, and I know that sounds like a bunch of excuses, but I can’t go through the airport without the thing going off, so I got new metal in my body.”
Smoltz, like many athletes and celebrities who have participated in the tournament, circles it on his calendar each year.
“I think this is the greatest time of the calendar in the middle of what I do and probably everybody else does,” he said. “An event that brings together 91, or whatever it is, different personalities, different walk of life, and we all get to test our skills and mingle together at Lake Tahoe, it is fantastic. American Century does an incredible, incredible job putting this on well past 30 years, and I’m fortunate to be a part of it. I love it, and obviously I want to win it.”
Smoltz won a World Series in1995 with the Atlanta Braves and the National League Cy Young Award in 1996. When an out was needed, he would be called upon to get it.
However, he admitted there is a pressure that comes with playing golf that he has never really experienced on the mound.
“It is not even close – golf is more nerve-racking than anything I have ever done in baseball,” he said. “You can load the bases up and get a 3-0 count on the greatest hitter and I still rather be there than necessarily losing your swing coming down the stretch and everybody wondering why you hit that shot. So, golf is all about you and mother nature and there’s no teammates to bail you in or out.
“And, you know, I played a team sport my whole life, so some of the mixed results. You can pitch bad and win, you can’t play golf bad and win so I think golf has its own mental toughness that it ranks by itself even though it isn’t a physical demanding sport that some would argue, and I would argue it is physically demanding. But it is not in the realm of basketball, baseball, hockey or football. So, the issue is everybody who played the physically demanding sport want to play this game as long as they can and play it a lot longer than their sport allowed them to play.”
The festivities for the American Century Championship begin on July 9 and run through July 13.
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