The Match Analysis: Steph Curry Proves to Be Overrated
By Tim Letcher
While Charles Barkley and his new swing drew much of the attention on Friday at The Match, Steph Curry had a storyline of his own.
While the main storyline from Friday’s The Match: Champions for Change was the new swing showed off by Charles Barkley, there was something else that stood out as well. Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry came into the event with a lot of hype but was unable to live up to that billing.
Curry entered Friday’s event at Stone Canyon Golf Club in Oro Valley, Arizona, with an official handicap of +1. To put that into perspective, Phil Mickelson, who actually IS a professional golfer, has a +5 handicap. So, in theory, Mickelson would beat Curry by roughly four shots over the course of 18 holes.
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Here’s the problem with that. Curry is not that good of a golfer. Naturally, he wouldn’t be. This is a hobby for him, not his full-time job. He is a very gifted athlete who has developed a good golf game.
But notice the word is good, not great.
Yes, he played on the (then) Web.com Tour in 2017 and had a respectable showing. And perhaps Friday just wasn’t his day. But it certainly appeared that Curry should be more like a two or three handicap rather than a +1.
It wasn’t that any one area of Curry’s game was particularly that bad. He hits a long ball off the tee, although it does tend to get away from him occasionally. His iron play is good, but he did have some distancing issues on Friday. And his putting was average, at best. That probably goes with not playing as much as he would like to, which usually results in the loss of touch in the short game for most non-professionals.
This all means nothing, except that Curry and his partner, former NFL MVP Peyton Manning, were drubbed by Barkley and Mickelson 4 and 3 in Friday’s modified alternate shot, match play event.
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Curry will soon return to the job that he’s really good at, being an All-NBA guard for the Warriors and that’s what he’s paid to do. He showed again on Friday that golf is, and should remain, just a hobby for him.