Two-Sport Athlete
While Sam Lafferty's main focus is hockey, he's also a gifted golfer
Growing up in Hollidaysburg, Pa. - which is about two hours away from Pittsburgh, just outside of Altoona - Lafferty first fell in love with hockey at the age of 6 after watching the Penguins' playoff run in 2001.
That sport was his main focus growing up, which turned out to be a great decision, as Lafferty was able to make a career out of it after being drafted by his hometown team in the fourth round (113th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft.
But Lafferty also displayed a natural aptitude for golf after his father Andy started taking him out on the course, and ended up pursuing that sport as well.
"The seasons just kind of went hand in hand, so I would do a lot of golf in the summer and hockey the rest of the year," Lafferty, 26, said. "My dad was big into golf, so it started out as a family thing, and then it's actually pretty popular in Pennsylvania. I feel like everyone loves it. I could always get a game with somebody."
And fortunately, the timing of the respective seasons worked out perfectly for Lafferty all the way through college, where he was able to play both hockey and golf at Brown University.
"When I went to Brown, I wasn't 100% sure if I'd be able to do golf," Lafferty said. "But it just kind of worked out that when the hockey season was over, that's right when the spring season started out for golf. So I was able to walk on and play a few tournaments in the springtime, which I was really lucky to be able to do, because it was a blast."
Balancing two Division I sports along with academics at an Ivy League school may seem like a daunting task, but Lafferty said it actually ended up being pretty manageable.
"I was only ever doing one sport at a time, which helped," Lafferty said. "Then the athletes definitely helped each other out because we were all in similar classes, so we'd study together. It wasn't too bad. My major was business econ. A lot of the players did that one, and it was pretty interesting, so that's what I went with."
Lafferty may not be a professional golfer, but he's one of the best amateurs around, as he's technically considered a scratch golfer. The lower the course handicap, the better, and a scratch golfer can play to a course handicap of zero on any and all related courses.
That helped Lafferty make the decision to try and qualify for the U.S. Amateur Championship, which concluded on Sunday at the Oakmont Country Club. The course, which is located about 20 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, has hosted more combined USGA and PGA championships than any other course in the U.S.
In 2016, it hosted the men's U.S. Open shortly after the Penguins captured the Stanley Cup. A few players, including Sidney Crosby, Nick Bonino and Justin Schultz, brought the trophy to Oakmont and posed for photos with golf pros like Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy.
It's a course that Lafferty has played before, and one that ranks at the top of his list along with California's Pebble Beach, which he got to golf earlier this summer during a vacation to the West Coast. So the locations of both the championship and the qualifier were appealing to the Pennsylvania native.
"I saw the U.S. Amateur is at Oakmont, number one," Lafferty said. "Obviously, it's a very historic course in Pittsburgh. Then the qualifier happened to be on a course that I knew really well that I grew up playing at, and it's actually a course I'm a member at now. So it just kind of worked out."
That course is called the Sunnehanna Country Club in Johnstown, about an hour from Hollidaysburg. So Lafferty flew home and stayed with his dad for a few days while he attempted to qualify.
Lafferty made it past Day 1, but did not advance past Day 2. He finished tied for 43rd, golfing a 75 in Round 1, 77 in Round 2 and finishing plus-12.
"I played fine, didn't quite qualify," Lafferty said. "It's a lot of really, really good players. But it was still just a really, really fun experience."
Lafferty has since returned to Phoenix, where he lives and trains during the offseason and tries to hit the links about four or five times a week.
"Definitely on the weekends, and then in the afternoons once all the work is done," Lafferty said. "Just try to head out to the course and play kind of like an evening round."
As a hockey player, Lafferty's game is built on speed, which means golf is a nice change of pace for him and one of the biggest reasons he enjoys it so much.
"It's a little bit slower and it's a really challenging game, but it's really fun if you hit good shots," he said. "You gotta be patient. And obviously, the ball's not moving, so you think it'd be a little easier, but it's still pretty challenging and there's just so much to it."
And not only does Lafferty love to play; he loves to watch as well.
"It seems like everyone's kind of got their own style," Lafferty said. "The way they swing, the way they go about it and stuff like that. I would say my favorites are Brooks Koepka, Louis Oosthuizen, Dustin Johnson, Collin Morikawa… I'm a big fan of Justin Thomas, too, and he's a big Penguins fan, so love seeing him do well."
There's certainly plenty of mutual respect between golfers and hockey players, as many of the Penguins are passionate about golf.
"I think part of is just like the seasons, how they coincide really well together," Lafferty said. "And then I think there's some similarities with the swing and everything. And you also have to have good touch. So I think hockey players just kind of pick it up pretty naturally."
