“That’s What I Get Paid To Do”: Steph Curry Blacked Out After Hitting Hole-in-One

Steph Curry is, to put it mildly, a pretty good basketball player. The all-time leader in 3-pointers made and free throw percentage, Steph’s resume stacks up to just about any basketball player in history. He has four rings, a Finals MVP and two regular season MVPs. Just last summer he put Team USA on his back and carried his country to a gold medal win.

You don’t become one of the greatest basketball players of all time without putting in the work, and Steph’s practice routing and work ethic are both legendary. He’s also a husband and a father of four, and a business mogul, to boot. Somehow though, he’s also found time to become an incredible golfer.

Steph is so good at golf that people believe he may make a run at the Champions Tour after his basketball playing career is over. On last night’s appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, he spoke about that, and about the the time he sunk a hole-in-one at the American Century Championship in 2023, an event he would go on to win with a walk-off eagle putt.

Fallon’s audience laughed as he showed a picture of Steph running down the fairway in exultation after sinking his tee shot. “What’s a better feeling, a hole-in-one or making a game-winning shot?” Fallon asked.

“Well making a game-winning shot, that’s what I get paid to do,” Steph said. “Supposed to do that, but a hole-in-one, you can’t make that happen. That’s maybe a little bit of skill, mostly luck, so I celebrated as if, I blacked out basically.”

Steph didn’t have the presence of mind to do his “night night” celebration, although at that point there was a lot of golf left to be played, so it may not have been appropriate yet. Instead he put his arms out like he was an airplane, and he also put his playing partner in an awkward situation.

“My playing partner who was with me, he had to hit after me, but I ran all the way to the green. He chased me halfway down the fairway. He didn’t know what to do, he was like, ‘Wait, I have to go all the way back?'”

That was the first time anyone had made a hole-in-one on the 152-yard seventh hole of the American Century Championship, and it was just the fifth hole-in-one ever recorded at the event.

Curry was paired with NHL player Joe Pavelski of the Dallas Stars. Pavelski said at the time, “You see it land, and it just disappears. It was pretty cool. We were trying to get to Steph. He just kind of spins out of it and takes off. He’s got some good speed on him.”

Without his skates on, Pavelski found out what so many NBA defenders already know, that it’s not easy to stay with Steph once he decides it’s time to go.