The tennis Hall of Famer and 2003 U.S. Open champ is now aces on “Served,” his nothing-but-net podcast. He can talk the walk on a golf course too.
GOLF: You picked up golf pretty late. How’d you get the bug?
Andy Roddick: When I retired from tennis [at age 30], I got on a run where I was playing golf, like, five days a week for two years, when I was unemployed and not really doing much of anything. I would shoot out the door and be on the first tee by 8:00 a.m. pretty much every day.
G: Was it therapy for you?
AR: [Laughs] Yeah, I think so. In my last years on tour, I was trying to hold onto my ability, which is different and probably not as happy a process as actually getting better at something. So I think that was fun for me.
G: Who are the tennis pros we’d be most surprised to know tee it up, not counting Mardy “With a D” Fish?
AR: Fish is the best. He’s, like, a plus-a-million handicap. [Ivan] Lendl is great, apparently. Tim Henman is a plus-handicap. I play a lot with Jim Courier, who’s a low single. Rafa’s gonna be scratch very quickly. Apparently, Andy Murray went from an eight to a two in September, right after he retired. Carlos Alcaraz hardly plays at all, but his swing is so annoyingly perfect already.
G: What’s the lowest your handicap has been?
AR: I was barely scratch for a cup of coffee because of, like, two fluke rounds. I normally sit between a two and three.
G: You’re now heavily invested in golf: a co-owner of Sweetens Cove and a posh simulator start-up called Intown Golf Club, plus you’ve got a piece of Whoosh, a software firm whose app helps streamline golf course operation. With the Whoosh hookup, can you get some of us onto Augusta National?
AR: I don’t think I can get myself onto Augusta.
G: And yet, at the Masters in 2011, you caddied for Zach Johnson in the Par 3 Contest. Um, how?
AR: It was completely random. We shared a sponsor at the time, and they were like, “Zach doesn’t know who’s going to caddie for him at the Par 3.” And I was like, “I’ll do it!” I’m sure he has a million people who’d do it, but you shoot your shot, right? And they said, “Yup.” I’d never even been to Augusta before, and my instructions were to just find my way to the clubhouse and linger by the big tree. Zach had won a Masters at that point, so within four minutes of my being at Augusta for the first time, he came out, said hello, and we went straight to the Champions Locker Room and had lunch. It blew my mind.
G: Airdropped directly into golf heaven.
