Over Danny Woodhead’s voice, every few minutes, came the sound of a club smacking a golf ball—that distinctive It was a Thursday in June, and the former NFL tailback was at his home course, the Omaha Country Club, a few weeks after falling one leg shy of qualifying for the U.S. Open. It was mid-afternoon, his round was done and he’d see his kids soon.
And that’s where I asked if, in the midst of this athletic rebirth, his eyes are on the PGA Tour.
“Honestly, that’s not really something that I’ve thought about a lot,” he answered. “I’ve just thought about trying to get better every year. Not surprising, after playing under Eric Mangini and Bill Belichick, I’m just trying to get better and see what happens … Or, I can’t say that, because if I was that good to where you know you should be there, then it’s hard to say no. But I love my life, Albert. I love being around my kids, I love being around my wife. There are so many years that I sacrificed time.
“And I knew that, and they knew that. Now, I love that I get to be at my kids’ events, I love being around my family. That’s what’s sick about golf, is you can try to compete and do different things, and as you get better, you can try to qualify for certain things and still do what you love.”
Over the next month, plenty of NFL players will play plenty of golf. Lots of guys can play a little. Woodhead, very clearly, can play a lot.
But in his answer to the question of whether he plans to try to go pro in a second sport—something that’s become more realistic with time, even if it still would be a big-time long shot—was lying the real wisdom that Woodhead’s found. Every year players leave the NFL like he did four years ago, after his March 2018 release from the Ravens. Every year, a big percentage of them struggle to deal with it.
That’s the thing about all this. On the day I called Woodhead, I figured we’d just talk about how he’s somehow who turned himself into a very legitimate threat to at least get tee times at golf majors. In talking to him, I figured out that, for his football peers, he has a lot more than that to give, and show, them.
The fact that he’s pretty damn good at his second sport is only a jumping off point for it.
