Hootie & the Blowfish: Why We Love Golf

Members of the Grammy Award-winning band Hootie & the Blowfish reflect on when, how and why they got involved in the game, and why they love it so much to this day. Hear the thoughts of Mark Bryan, Darius Rucker, Jim “Soni” Sonefeld and Dean Felber in this video.

Charlie Rymer: It’s really cool that you guys don’t like golf, you love golf. And I really don’t understand that because I have seen all of you play and you’re all horrible – especially you, Mark. Why do you love this game so much?

Mark Bryan: I don’t know, it’s so painful that I do. But I do. It’s like … It’s that whole “keeps you coming back” thing because every now and then I’ll flush one and feel like I’m Dustin Johnson in that moment.

Charlie Rymer: Yeah.

Mark Bryan: Then the next three (shots) just suck and I’m in the marsh, you know. But that, when you get on that little run, if you make a par three or four holes in a row and you feel like, “Wow, I can actually do this,” it keeps you coming back, as they say. No question about it.

And I played sports all my life, this is one that I’ll be able to play until I’m old. I can play with both of my parents, I can play with my kids. There’s just nothing not to love about golf. You can be outside the whole time. The list goes on and on.

Darius Rucker: I hate to correct you but this is one you can play and you’re old, not when you’re old.

Jim “Soni” Sonefeld: Back in the day when we just had a van we’re driving around playing small gigs and we didn’t have much money, but we also didn’t have anybody interviewing us, we golfed a lot. And this is one of the places that we always, we were assured to get in golf round before the gig that night and so, they sort of convinced me, “You should start golfing,” and that’s probably ’89, ’90, around there.

Mark Bryan: We used to ask our manager to, like, “Hey. Have them book a round a gold around the show,” and they would. They’d be … If we were coming to play here, we’d ask them to give us a round of golf.

Dean Felber: We’ve always embraced golf since we started hanging out and it’s like Soni said, when we were on the road, it was a savior to get us outside and kind of get some sanity on the day. Back then, we were playing three-hour shows and playing until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, so four or five hours on the golf course during the day was just a real big break.

And then to be able to get back to golf the way we had been through Monday After the Masters and Junior Golf, that’s just amazing to see what that’s turned into.