National Football League

Jets' Sauce Gardner clarifies 'golf is harder than football' post: 'I still believe it'

Published Jul. 24, 2024 9:15 p.m. ET

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Sauce Gardner is one of the NFL's best at shutting down wide receivers. The New York Jets cornerback found trying to ace another sport a bit tougher this summer.

The two-time All-Pro picked up some golf clubs and hit the course during the offseason after getting the itch to play after having some fun during a University of Cincinnati alumni outing last year.

And let's just say it wasn't quite the same as swinging at driving ranges and golf simulators.

"Man, every time I hear the word, ‘golf,' I don't know," a smiling Gardner said Wednesday after the Jets' first practice of training camp. "It was just a blessing to have that side quest, part of my offseason."

The 23-year-old Gardner posted videos on his social media accounts of his swings, using YouTube tutorials to help, and his progress through various courses. Two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau responded to one of Gardner's posts asking for tips, saying he would give him a lesson to "get you dialed in."

Gardner raised some eyebrows last month when he wrote on the social platform X: "Never thought I would say this, but golf is harder than football."

For a guy who has made the Pro Bowl in both of his NFL seasons and never previously played golf, that makes sense. But was it just the frustration from a few — OK, several — bogeys?

"I still believe it," Gardner said. "I'm glad I can clarify it a little bit more. Like, if you had to start from the beginning from, like, not knowing how to play football and not knowing how to play golf, I feel like it'll be harder for you to learn golf. ... I'm just talking about the learning curve and everything.

"And it's one thing to be able to hit on like a simulator and then going out there on actual golf course and going through all the things that you've got to go through. I don't even want to talk about it because I had some horrible days."

One of them included being scared off the course by a coyote.

Gardner did break 90 once right before training camp, a personal best.

"That's a good start," he said with a smile.

But how's his putting coming along?

"Horrible," he acknowledged. "Horrible."

Gardner, who enters this season ranked as the NFL's No. 1 cornerback by The Associated Press in a preseason survey, found some similarities between golf and football — particularly with bouncing back from a poor shot or play.

"It's got to be one of those things where it's like, that play's over with, just like with golf: That shot's over with," he said. "It just helped with my mental a lot. Just being able to go out there and, in golf, you just hear nature and it's quiet, you know? So it really helped me like slow my mental down.

"And I try to make that apply to the football field, especially if I have a bad play or something like that, just come back down, tone it back down."

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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