When Kyle Schwarber stepped up to the first hole at the Waste Management Annexus Pro-Am Wednesday, it was clear he hadn’t forgotten his day job. His stance is pure MLB slugger — feet planted wide, hands gripped tight, bringing the same intensity he brings to home plate at Citizens Bank Park, home of his Philadelphia Phillies.
You’d just never know it.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Schwarber said. “I try to approach a tee shot the same I would an at-bat, but it’s just different.”
The baseball-to-golf pipeline is nothing new, with plenty of MLB players picking up the game in retirement or in the offseason. Some players attempt to mold their swings into something more “textbook.” But rather than fighting his baseball background, Schwarber said he uses it to his advantage. Instead of learning golf’s mechanics from scratch, he’s leaned into what already works for him.
“I try to get advice here and there,” he said, “but if I try to think too much, I’m not going to be good. I’m just going to come up here, whack it and have fun.”
Safe to say, “whacking it” is working out just fine. A “Schwarbomb” was unleashed on the third hole, where his drive landed well north of 300 yards.
“The only thing that translates is hand-eye coordination,” Schwarber said. “The speed of the swing probably translates a little bit more. You think when you’re in the (batting) cage, you can tell yourself you’re going to hit the ball where you want it to go. But it’s just so different.”
What makes Schwarber’s story unique is not just his baseball-like technique, but also his family connection behind it. Standing beside him as his caddie was his father, Greg, who first introduced him to golf when Kyle was 9 years old.
“We used to play very low-key stuff,” Greg Schwarber said. “I’m not a good golfer, but I enjoyed it and just tried to show him the basics.”
Those father-son outings have grown into something much more. Now, as a professional baseball player, Schwarber finds golf as an escape during the long MLB season. “It gives us that thing to do when we’re on the road,” he said. “We get an off day, we all try to go out golf and have fun.”
Today, just like a good caddie and father should, Greg is holding Kyle accountable.
“I told him if he misses the green on 16, I’m throwing his clubs in the water,” Greg said.
Schwarber admits this was his first time doing anything like this. And he asked for advice from tour pro Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who paired with him Wednesday.
“Watching Chris,” Schwarber said, “the way that he was striping the ball, I go, ‘How do you guys do that on the first tee?’ and he’s like, ‘How do you hit a ball in front of 40,000?’
“Yes, fair. But it’s cool to see how these guys come out here. And this isn’t even packed for him right now. I’m sure throughout the whole week, they’re going to be having crazy rounds.”
Izzie Begley is a graduate student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber give slugger’s golf guide at Phoenix Open
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