How were you introduced to golf?
Probably as young as I can remember, probably 3 or 4 years old. My dad grew up playing the game. He turned pro at a pretty young age. It’s how he met my mom. He was playing on the PGA winter tour, living out of his van. He left Victoria, British Columbia and drove down with another pro to Florida to play in that winter tour, trying to make a cut, trying to make enough money to live. He actually met my mom down there in Daytona Beach. He did that for a little bit but just realized that the grind of playing tour golf, trying to make a cut, make a living, wasn’t as glamorous as maybe people thought. So he went back home with my mom to Victoria, B.C. to become a teaching pro.
Just growing up around the golf course, being around my dad who was a teaching pro … you’re constantly there, constantly having a golf club in your hand. You’re at the driving range, the putting green, driving around on the course, that’s sort of how I grew up around the game and fell in love with it at any early age.
When did you start playing competitive golf?
Probably around 11 or 12 years old, I started to play some tournament golf in the area, starting with the junior club championship. Then I started to go into the city and started playing our provincial tournaments. I probably competed in the tournaments until I was 15.
What are some of your favorite memories of those competitive days?
Tournament golf is a different animal. Looking back on it, just putting everything out, the pressure of playing with people you’ve never played with, knowing that every swing is important, and the pressure of that at a young age. I learned a lot playing tournament golf at such a young age. Just knowing all the different intricacies of the rules, the honesty part of it, filling out someone else’s scorecard, all that stuff. I learned so much about the game and about competing, and the pressure, and handling that. I was fortunate enough to win our city championship, I think I was 13 years old. That was one of the great individual accomplishments of my golf career. I was a junior club champion a couple of times at the club I was a member at. You take a lot of great learning lessons and values from playing tournament golf at a young age.
When it came down to choosing hockey or golf, I assume it was an easy choice, right?
Honestly, it was a tougher decision than you might think. I love the game of golf and loved to play it. I had a bit of success as a junior golfer. But the competitiveness of hockey, the team sport aspect of it, the physicality of it, sort of sucked me in. So I had to make the decision to focus on that, even in the summers, so I didn’t have as much time to play golf and practice it.
What are some of the similarities between golf and hockey?
There’s a lot. You ask anybody who knows a hockey player, and there’s usually a safe bet that if he plays hockey, he plays golf, and he’s a pretty good golfer. The similarities in the (golf) swing and the motion of shooting a puck are I think what make hockey players such seamless golfers – that motion, your hip rotation. The seasons of it, right, the hockey season goes through the fall and winter and usually wraps up in late spring or early summer. So a lot of hockey players are off during that time, so it’s a great time to play golf. There’s no contact. You don’t have to worry about being body checked into the boards. I think there are lot of similarities not just from the swing and the mechanics of it, but I think hockey players just enjoy playing the game and getting out on the golf course.
What was it like growing up around the game considering your dad was a teacher and eventually a college coach?
It was really cool. My dad was such a good player. He held the course record at our home course for a while. He shot 63 there. With your dad being able to play as well as that, and just watching him out on the course, it was great. And he was so involved in the golf community. He opened a driving range with Russ and Geoff Courtnall, who were two longtime NHL players. I remember being there for the opening of that, and watching Russ and Geoff take slapshots with their hockey sticks at golf balls, which was really cool. Then I remember growing up, and he started the University of Victoria golf program from scratch. Canadian university golf is not a huge thing, nothing like the United States and collegiate golf here. At the time, there were only handful of teams across Canada. So to watch him grow that from the ground and have them competing for national championships, the recruiting part of it, as a young kid I just watched in awe, not only of his playing, but of his teaching and coaching at U-Vic.
When you transitioned from a player to a coach, what kind of mentor was your dad and how did you help you make the switch?
He helped me a lot. We would just have different conversations. The sports are very different from a coaching perspective. There’s a lot of individual teaching. Team collegiate golf is very individual, but you’re also shooting for a team score. So we would have discussions and talks about how to get through to certain players, recruiting, team players versus individual players and how that works in a team dynamic. There were all these different things that I’d pick his brain on that helped me along the way. Little bits of advice, little tidbits of coaching insight that he could share with me from building a program. It helped me a lot.
How much do you get to play together?
Well, my brother (Kayce) is a big golfer down in South Carolina, a member at Camden Country Club, a Donald Ross course that’s a hidden gem. My dad is getting a little older, so we’ve started an annual dad-sons golf trip to take him to locations that he has always wanted to play but has never had an opportunity to. We started that last summer at Pinehurst, we played No. 2 a week after Bryson (DeChambeau) won the U.S. Open. That was an incredible experience. We’re heading to Kohler, Wisconsin to play Whistling Straits this year. We’re trying to build this bucket list of courses that Dad has always wanted to play so we’re able to share those moments with him as his two sons.
How much do you get to go out and play during the offseason?
I try to get out as much as I can. I’m trying to become a member somewhere, working on that right now. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited to some different courses in the area. I love to play. Any opportunity that I can get to get away from the job and get out with a friend, I am always open to that. I always enjoy the time on the course. To be able to get away from the rink and get away from the grind of the NHL offseason and all that we have to do, I try to get out as much as I possibly can.
What’s the strongest part of your game?
I’m going to say my putting, that’s where I can gain a few strokes during a round. I’m usually good for one or two 20- to 25-footers a round. You’ve got to practice if you want to become a really good player, and I don’t have the time to practice as much as I would like. But the hands and putting, just from handling the hockey puck throughout the year, I think the hands translate to golf, just that touch around the green comes back around the quickest.
(Best score: 69 as a 14 year old. Now if I break 80 or I’m right around 80, I’m happy with that.)
Have you had a chance to play many Virginia courses?
I’ve played a few. I’ve played Washington Golf & Country Club, which was a great experience, very close here in Arlington. I’ve played Army Navy. I’ve also played Belmont (Country Club in Ashburn). And this was before I was with the Capitals, but I’ve played Keswick. I also had a chance to go out to RTJ and see the LIV Tour, and that was a great experience. It’s been a long time since I had a chance to go out and see Jon Rahm and those guys play live. That was pretty cool.
Which Capitals’ player is best at golf?
John Carlson plays a lot in Maryland over at Chevy Chase, and he’s a really good player. Dylan Strome is an excellent player as well. And Osh (T.J. Oshie), when Osh is healthy, he’s right there with John. As an alumni now and being retired, I’d give an edge to Osh. But current player? I’d say John Carlson.
Fun anecdotes from playing in charity outings?
I played in Craig Laughlin’s cancer benefit, which is a great tournament every year. … They do a fun thing every year. On the 10th hole, they put a hockey net out in the fairway. So you have to try to hit a low stinger into this hockey net, and it counts as a hole-in-one in the tournament if you hit it into the net.
Switching to hockey, what was it like having a front-row seat to watch Alex Ovechkin’s historic run to break Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record?
You had to pinch yourself at times through the season. You would get into practice mode, game mode, into your daily responsibilities. Every once in a while, someone would remind you, or you would sit back and you would think about it. And you’d say, oh my gosh, we are witnessing one of the greatest accomplishments in sports history, in the moment. You would just have to shake your head and go, ‘Wow, this is incredible.’ Then you would go back to work, to the next game, the next practice, the daily grind.
When he broke his leg in that Utah game, right when he was on pace to break the record, you’d start to think that maybe it wasn’t meant to be this year. … When he came back from that injury and he started to score almost every other game, he got closer, and you thought it was doable this season. As it got to single digits, you could really feel it every day coming to the rink, the energy. Every time he got the puck in a scoring situation or any time he touched the puck on the power play, there was sort of a hush over the crowd and over our bench. It was something that you felt and something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life, being able to be a part of sports history and O’s chase of the greatest record we have in our sport.
What was your reaction to how the Capitals announced that you had won the Jack Adams Award?
I was really caught off guard. I knew I had a end-of-year wrap-up interview downtown (at Monumental Sports Network studios), which I thought was a little odd. Wasn’t really sure what was going on, because I didn’t do one the previous year. Everything was normal. The questions they were asking, I figured they were just getting some footage for the network. Then when they asked me to turn around and everything was very centered on me, I knew something was up. When my family, my wife and two kids, walked in with the Jack Adams Trophy, I was truly shocked. The really shocking part was after my family and closest friends, the most important people in my life, all of a sudden come walking through the door. I couldn’t wrap my mind around how all of these people got here and I didn’t know about it. We’re talking people traveling thousands of miles from all corners of the continent, I just couldn’t believe it. My dad travelling from the Pacific Northwest to be there, it was just special.
How have expectations for the Capitals changed both internally and externally after the success of last season?
It’s a great question. They have changed. After my first year, where we sort of squeaked into the playoffs, the narrative was that we were going to have to go through a rebuild, after 2018 (the Stanley Cup year) and with our veteran players getting to an age where they were going to retire. I think with making the playoffs, and some of the moves we made last summer, with the draft picks we had and guys like Ryan Leonard coming in, the development of Alexei Protas and Connor McMichael, the ability for John Carlson and Ovi and Tom Wilson to still play at a high level, all of a sudden we were able to compete at a really high level and play at the level of some of the best teams in the National Hockey League. So I think last year changed the trajectory. We went from having to rebuild and get a lot younger and wait a few years to become a Stanley Cup contender to making some moves to where we felt like we could compete a lot quicker and be a Stanley Cup contender that we and the outside world anticipated two years ago. It’s exciting. We still have a lot of work to do. We know that we still have to build through our prospects and our young players and develop them because they’re going to be a key part of our future. But we also have a solid foundation with the players we brought in last offseason and the players we’ve already developed inside our organization.