Steph Curry celebrating a made shot before it goes in is always fun in basketball.
And, as we learned Friday, it’s fun to see on the golf course, too.
Thanks in part to draining a sensational twisting-and-turning birdie putt on the 12th hole, Curry ended the first round of the three-day American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe at the very top of the leaderboard.
Curry’s approach shot on the par-3 12th left him about 40 feet from the hole and up on a ridge. But the basketball sharpshooter displayed some finesse on the golf course, hitting his putt away from the hole and letting it ride the groove of the ridge straight into the cup.
This putt by Steph is unreal 🤯 pic.twitter.com/ds8YyWPxYw
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) July 14, 2023
On the Peacock broadcast, Curry was seen walking away from the putt and didn’t even look as the ball went into the hole, displaying the same prescient sense that he so often shows on the basketball court.
While the putt on the 12th was the highlight, the most important part of his ascent to the top of the star-studded field was his scorching hot start, scoring back-to-back birdies on the second and third holes, followed by an eagle on the par-5 fourth.
In the Stableford scoring system, which assigns a point value to each result on the course (six points for an eagle, three points for a birdie, one for a par, zero for a bogey, etc.), Curry finished with 27 points to lead the entire field. It’s one point shy of his single-round record at the annual Lake Tahoe celebrity tournament.
Joe Pavelski, the former Sharks captain and current Dallas Star, was in second with 23 points, with Anaheim Ducks player Alex Killorn in third at 21 points.
The Curry family also has its own internal competition in which Dell gets a 12-point handicap and younger brother Seth gets a 45-point handicap while Steph gets none. Seth leads that race for bragging rights after finishing with five official points on Friday. Dell had 18, placing him tied for seventh in the overall competition and second in the family battle for a championship belt.
Others with Bay Area ties had decent days in the tournament. Former Raiders star Charles Woodson is tied for 13th with 16 points, and his former Packer teammate and Cal alum Aaron Rodgers is tied for 20th at 13 points. Also tied with Woodson was John Elway, NFL Hall of Famer and Stanford alum.
Former 49ers quarterback Alex Smith had 12 points, faring better than 49er legends Jerry Rice (4 points) and Steve Young (minus-12 points). Steph Curry’s teammate with the Warriors Andre Iguodala finished at minus-1 point. Former A’s star and three-time winner of the tournament Mark Mulder had 10 points.
The second and third rounds of the tournament at the Edgewood Golf Course, nestled right up next to Lake Tahoe, will be broadcast on NBC from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and on Sunday.