Beyond the gridiron: Lou Holtz and his love for golf

Lou Holtz was best known as a football coach but golf was a close second in his heart. Holtz, who died on Wednesday at age 89, was a single-digit handicapper, hosted a SiriusXM radio show called "Holtz in One," and was a member at Lake Nona Golf & Country Club in Orlando and Augusta National. When he won the member-member at Augusta National in 2005, he said, “I’m on the plaque on the wall, which is my greatest accomplishment.”

Holtz was a head football coach at the collegiate level at William & Mary, North Carolina State, Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina, and in the NFL with the New York Jets. When he was hired at William & Mary as assistant football coach in 1962, the school made him the golf coach to boost his salary by $300.

“I didn’t even know how to keep score,” Holtz once said. “My only job was to make sure we didn’t get in an accident to or from the match.” 

Golf became his guilty pleasure and he developed friendships with several players, including Lee Trevino, a former neighbor of his in Hope Sound, Florida. Holtz had a story he liked to tell about the 1986 Masters.

“I have a copy of the April 21, 1986, issue of Sports Illustrated. I'm on the cover with the blurb, ‘Can Lou Do It?’ I'd just arrived at Notre Dame, and with spring football underway I was the focal point of that week's coverage. It's a special issue to me because it's the only one in existence. When Jack Nicklaus shot 30 on the back nine that Sunday and won his sixth Masters, they tore up the cover with me on it and put Jack on there. The people there sent me the cover — the entire issue, actually — that never made it to the newsstands. If there's a reason to be kicked off the cover, I guess Jack winning his sixth Masters is a pretty good one,” he recalled to Golf Digest.

Holtz’s “My Shot” included these gems:

“I was telling a friend how when I go to the range and look down at my pile of 150 balls, a certain thought always goes through my mind. ‘I'll bet I can guess what the thought is,’ he said. ‘How about, These balls represent 150 opportunities to hit the greatest shot of my life?’ I said, ‘Not quite. I look at those balls and think, I just know I'm going to have a different swing thought for every one of those balls.’ "

“If I'm coaching on the sideline and see my halfback step out of bounds as he runs past me, you can bet I won't tell the official about it. On the other hand, if I'm playing golf and I'm in the woods and my ball moves at address, I'd call a penalty on myself. What's the difference in the two games? In football, it's the job of the player to play, the coach to coach, the official to officiate. Each guy is charged with upholding his end, nothing more. In golf, the player, coach and official are rolled into one, and they overlap completely. Golf really is the best microcosm of life, or at least the way life should be.”

Holtz also loved being able to entertain people and to give others the thrill of a lifetime at Augusta National. Veteran pro turned golf commentator Charlie Rymer recently posted on social media how Holtz often joined Golf Channel’s Morning Drive for a segment during the fall and one time he asked him what he was doing on a certain Tuesday in March. 

I read where Coach Holtz is in hospice care. Let me tell you about my experience with him. He would come on Morning Drive at Golf Channel on Fridays in the fall. I did a couple of segments with him. One on golf. One on football. He was incredibly nice to the entire staff.…— Charlie Rymer (@CharlieRymerPGA) February 1, 2026

“He said to invite two folks from Golf Channel that do the ‘real work,’ not another lazy announcer like me, to come up and play Augusta National. I asked a couple of buddies, a young producer and a statistician. Both great guys. Until they had our names at the gate and let us in, they thought I was playing a cruel joke,” Rymer recounted.

He was not. 

“Coach hosted us for dinner and overnight in a cabin. We played the par 3 and the big course. He spent time with my buddies finding out about them and mentoring them. He entertained and educated. He was gracious and kind. He told us it was his honor to host us and that we couldn’t pay for anything except what we purchased in the pro shop. It was a day and a half I will remember my entire life. There is no telling how many times he has done similar for others. I learned so much from being around him.”

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Remembering Lou Holtz and his love for golf, Augusta National