John Smoltz got in his car, called his wife and started screaming.
The Hall of Famer described May 31 as the greatest experience he’s had away from baseball.
“I started yelling, ‘I made it!’ and it just seems like it’s a dream,” Smoltz said on a conference call Tuesday, recalling his qualifying for the U.S. Senior Open. “It was the most emotions I’ve ever gone through in my life.”
It’s quite a statement for a pitcher who has taken the mound in three postseason Game 7s.
Smoltz left his Georgia home around 5:15 a.m. and said he didn’t leave Planterra Ridge Golf Club until 8:45 p.m., as he was waiting to hear if he had qualified. He said it was the first time as a golfer he felt as comfortable as he could about how he played.
“Only thing I can tell you is based on everything, this was the greatest feeling I’ve had in a long time, since winning the World Series Championship,” said Smoltz, a 1995 title champ. “I still wake up trying to calm myself down knowing in a couple weeks I’ll be playing in Colorado.”
Smoltz will take his clubs to The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs on June 28, but that hadn’t sunk in yet last Thursday. The eight hours of waiting had the former Brave mentally and physically fatigued. He said he was inside his own head due to a combination of being away for 10 days, flying and playing on a course he had never seen.
Midway through his round, Smoltz admitted his mind began to wander.
“The emotions I started to have when I walked through the bunker are not emotions you’re supposed to have. You’re not supposed to be thinking about qualifying for the U.S. Open until it’s actually over,” Smoltz said. “It’s similar to when I was pitching and I started answering questions in my mind and the game wasn’t over and it didn’t end well.”
But this time it did.
The 2015 Hall of Fame inductee emerged from a three-man playoff to secure the final spot in the 38-year-old tournament. There were three available spots in the 18-hole qualifier: Jack Larkin and Sonny Skinner sealed the deal with a 4-under 68, as Smoltz finished one stroke back.
The 51-year-old, now a baseball analyst for MLB Network, will be working all week leading up to games this weekend. And he says his mind is anywhere but with baseball.
For Smoltz, the major pitching career moments in his life — like the eight All-Star Games, the eight World Series games pitched — were normal and what he lived for.
Golf, on the other hand, is new. Though he is hoping to bring his success from the diamond onto the links.
“I’m going to bring my competitive edge, there’s nothing I do that doesn’t have the fiercest, or at least the most attention to detail,” Smoltz said. “I am going to try and remember to have fun, but I am going there with, like anything that I ever do, with a goal.”
Smoltz added that his goal, realistically, would be to putt a 275, though he’ll gladly accept better. He hopes to slow his game down, as he believes having a “slow heartbeat” is key.
To help calm the nerves, which Smoltz admitted he has on every first tee in a tournament, the 1996 Cy Young recipient hopes to have the same mental toughness that served him so well on the mound.
“I’ll be nervous. It’s real easy to play casual golf and know that most of the time when you play with your buddies you got two balls to hit on the first hole,” Smoltz said. “Baseball is so much different, I never felt pressure in the big games in the moment, but golf you don’t have anybody bailing you out so you’ll get exposed.”
Smoltz’s “love and respect for the game” — again, golf, not baseball — has him sneaking out of Fox and teeing off in between meetings. Though it wasn’t until his first year as a professional baseball player (1988) that Smoltz found golf.
“Now I’m hooked.”