The Rick Rhoden Path: Could Steph Curry's Next Great Challenge Begin After Basketball?

[American Century Championship recap]

There was a brief moment Sunday morning when it felt like the tournament might get interesting again.

As I walked toward the seventh hole at Edgewood Tahoe after a slow start to the day in the nearby media room, I glanced at the large leaderboard. One Wardell Stephen Curry II had climbed to 51 Stableford points.

Mardy Fish, who ended the first round with an eagle to propel him past Joe Pavelski and Annika Sorenstam at 52 points, sat at 54. Sorenstam held what turned out to be a brief lead with 55.

Four points! It was a deficit of eleven when the day started. With more than half the round still to play, that gap didn’t feel as impossible as it did in the morning.

Then I saw Victor Keys, one of the Warriors’ own video producers, walking past, setting himself and his equipment up for the eventual putt at that hole.

“He's off to a good start,” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied, “but he just hit the water.”

Moments later, the leaderboard changed. Curry’s double-bogey on the sixth hole dropped him two points, and from there the uphill climb became even steeper.

Over the next several holes I watched a few birdie opportunities slide past the cup. The tee shots remained strong. His approach play was solid, but golf has a way of magnifying the smallest mistakes. Before long, it became less about chasing Fish, Pavelski and Sorenstam and more about preserving another impressive finish.

Third place. On paper, it doesn’t jump off the page the way his unforgettable victory in 2023 does, but after spending another four days at the American Century Championship, I couldn’t shake a different thought.

What if we’re looking at the wrong comparison?

A Different Kind of Competitor

Throughout the week, one observation from our photographer Bianca Rhodes of B.Marie Photography stayed with me.

“I think it’s been a little different so far because Steph wasn’t goofing around as much and it seemed more serious the past two days.”

Rhodes has photographed Curry at Edgewood for years. She knows what relaxed Steph looks like. This year felt different. Not joyless. Focused.

Steph’s own comments throughout the tournament backed that up. After Friday’s opening round, he didn’t spend much time talking about birdies. Instead, he talked about bouncing back from adversity.

His favorite moment wasn’t a spectacular shot. It was saving par on the famous 17th hole after avoiding another big mistake:

Later, he explained something that may have been the most revealing quote of the entire week:

The idea of how do you pace yourself over the three days... not get too ahead of yourself when you get on a birdie streak and not get too deflated when you have a double... that emotional discipline is tough.

Then he made the comparison that, not being a golfer at all myself, but born to love the game of basketball, I could actually resonate with:

I play a sport that if I turn it over, I can go back and try to get a stop... Out here... you’ve got to stay in the moment as much as you can. It’s really hard out here.

That doesn’t sound like someone treating golf as an offseason hobby. That sounds like an elite competitor trying to solve a different puzzle.

Why Third Place Might Actually Be More Impressive

It’s easy to forget just how unusual Steph’s situation is. Fish and Pavelski have devoted enormous amounts of time to tournament golf. In fact, both regularly play in the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions every January — Pavelski won it in 2025 and Fish did so just six months ago. Steph obviously can’t partake in that yet.

His calendar is still built around an NBA season, playoff runs, international commitments (more so nowadays Li-Ning China tours than actual basketball — I’ve been told nothing is imminent this summer in China so far), recovery, and training.

He skipped the ACC entirely in 2024 because of the Olympics. Last year, he arrived after recovering from a hamstring injury, a Warriors playoff run that included a grueling seven-game series against Houston and, well, not having played at Edgewood since his 2023 championship.

This year? He still finished third, not because celebrity golf is easy, but because Steph Curry is extraordinarily competitive.

The Rick Rhoden Blueprint

During Thursday’s media session, Fish mentioned a familiar name to longtime followers of this tournament: Rick Rhoden. “The best athlete golfer in the world,” Fish said.

Most sports fans remember Rhoden as a Major League Baseball pitcher, mostly for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Golf fans might know him differently. After retiring from baseball at age 36, Rhoden devoted himself to golf.

He won his first American Century Championship at 38. He would go on to become the tournament’s most decorated champion, winning it six times. He came remarkably close to earning full status on the PGA over-50 seniors’ circuit, now known as the Champions Tour, eventually competing in multiple Champions Tour events through sponsor exemptions and qualifiers before later enjoying tremendous success on the celebrity golf circuit.

That raises an intriguing question: What happens when Curry eventually has the same luxury Rhoden did?

No NBA training camp, no 82-game season, no playoff series. Just golf, twelve months a year.

It’s difficult to imagine someone as obsessive about improvement as Steph not taking another leap once basketball is no longer demanding nearly every day of his calendar.

Will that mean multiple American Century Championship titles? Could it eventually include a serious run at PGA TOUR Champions qualifying?

Nobody knows, but after watching him this week, it feels like a possibility.

The final day wasn’t only about scores. Our photographs captured something else entirely. The hugs with longtime caddie Jason Richards after good shots, the constant joking between the two, Steph pausing to sign golf balls before tossing them to kids lining the ropes, a dunk at the basketball hoop near the 17th tee, family traditions continuing with Dell and Seth Curry — even as Dell claimed this year’s Curry family championship belt.

Afterward, Steph reflected on what mattered most:

The memories you create with the week you spend here is awesome… Golf's given me so much... the camaraderie... meeting new people... I think so much good comes out of it.

That’s exactly what Edgewood feels like every July. The competition is genuine. So are the friendships.

Third place won’t be remembered the way 2023’s championship will, but years from now, if Curry is lifting another ACC trophy — or chasing a place on the PGA TOUR Champions circuit — we may look back on the summer of 2026 a little differently.

Not as the year he finished third, but as the year it became clear that golf wasn’t simply his offseason passion anymore. It looked like the early blueprint for whatever comes after basketball.

Just remember there’s one caveat to Curry following in the footsteps of Rhoden onto the PGA TOUR Champions circuit: because that would effectively establish Steph as a (senior) pro, he would lose his eligibility to play at the American Century Championship.

Then again, the HGV is in January so before Curry ever earns pro status, fans might be able to add Orlando to the current amateur celebrity tournament list that has Tahoe on it.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and I’m certainly no Nostradamus, but let’s be grateful we can enjoy Steph’s presence in nearby beautiful Tahoe every July, whether or not that’s for another ten to fifteen years or so… 🔮

⛳️🫶💙💛