one morning in In the winter of 2005, RJ Caswell found a 17-year-old between classes in the hallway of Charlotte Christian High School in North Carolina. Caswell, in his early thirties and known throughout the school as the only staff member who wears a tie every day, is in his freshman year coaching the varsity team after two years of middle school coaching, and needs help. The new team that took over was decimated by graduation and is now made up of five freshmen. Caswell had never spoken to adults before, but the player’s fame precedes him.
Caldwell approaches the son of an NBA star with a humble request.
“Do you play for us?” Caswell asks.
The coach believes he has raw talent, and if the young player keeps working, he can certainly excel in the college ranks.
Shortly thereafter, a skinny teen named Stephen Curry became the MVP at Charlotte Christian High School… golf team.
After leading his high school golf team, winning conference championships and becoming known for huge trips off the tee, Curry’s legend will only grow. He has been playing with celebrities like Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, and even former President Barack Obama. He was playing in events featuring PGA stars, and as a golfer, he did more than just play. That success, of course, would pale in comparison to the NBA Hall of Fame career led by two MVPs, four titles with the Golden State Warriors and more 3-pointers made by any player in history (3390).
However, something else happened along the way: a clique began to form. It will be loaded with other great 3 point shooter games, some of which were among the best ever.
Naturally, Carrie would notice. They all will.
“It seems like every good shooter I know enjoys golf too,” Kyle Korver, an avid golfer and ranked fifth on the NBA’s all-time list of triple shooters, told ESPN.
Picked up by some early, others mid-career, and still others after retirement, these elite and exclusive collections have expanded.
The question is why.
“It’s No. 2 on my list of priorities in my life outside of my family — my obsession,” said JJ Reddick, ESPN analyst and 18th-most NBA 3-pointer with 1,950 marks.
“I was playing every day,” former NBA guard J.R. Smith, who sits behind Riddick for 19th on that all-time list with 1,930 3-point games, told ESPN. “When I picked it up, I was playing before games. I was playing before practice. I got it wrong right away.”
Then there’s Ray Allen, No. 2 on the all-time three-point list with 2,973, who, like Riddick, calls golf his “obsession” and says, “In many ways, it saved my life.”
Leading this group of elite pitchers turned golf enthusiasts is Curry, who on Thursday will team up with fellow long-range veterans Klay Thompson to play against fellow Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey at a charity golf event — Capital One Match – at Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas.
The Splash Brothers pairing of Thompson and Curry stands as the greatest combination of 3-point shooters on the court, which begs the question: Why does golf attract so many of the best 3-point shooters in the NBA? Why are they often so good at it? What is behind this strange association between snipers on both the field and the court?
Curry, when presented with the puzzle one afternoon in the postseason this past, pauses. At first, he said he wasn’t sure. After a moment, links seem to appear.