THE GRIEF WEIGHED on Drew A. as he laced his golf shoes in the men’s locker room at Gulph Mills Golf Club.
A recovering alcoholic, he sat in silence, emotions swirling from a hospital visit with his mother. She was on a ventilator suffering from COVID-19. Her days, Drew knew, dwindled. The next goodbye could be his last.
“I walked out to the range to hit balls, and Andrew, who I was meeting for the first time, saw me, put down his club, walked over and gave me the biggest hug I’ve ever been given. That was a defining moment for me,” Drew said. “It’s not about the golf. It’s being able to be vulnerable and feel safe at the same time. Here’s a dude who I never met in my life. He’s welcoming me in and giving me a hug like I’ve known him for 25 years. It’s a reminder that you’re in the right place.”
The Wilson-Smith Golf League is the place. Launched in 2001, it is an outlet for those in sobriety to experience the game in a socially safe space.
“We’re trying to get outreach because we realize now more than ever, addiction, alcohol use disorder or substance use disorder, has become more prevalent than ever. Finding healthy outlets to deal with that are hard to come by. This is certainly one of them,” Peter H., founder of the Wilson-Smith Golf League, said. “Picture yourself, a 40-year-old guy and you have an alcohol problem. You get help and you get sober. You’re a big golfer. So, you come out of a rehab, you come home and say, ‘I can’t go to my club anymore. I can’t play golf with my buddies anymore. A big part of my social existence is now, if not gone away, definitely on hold.
“They say in recovery that you have to change one thing … everything. If you go back and hang around with the same people you hung around with, then you’re going to get the same result. You’re going to drink or use. So, what do you do? We provide an outlet for those people.”
The Wilson-Smith Golf League included 12 individuals upon formation; 130 recovering alcoholics or addicts participated in 2023. To be eligible for the Wilson-Smith Golf League, an individual must bear a minimum of 90 days of continuous sobriety, access to a club (public or private) to host matches and an established USGA Handicap Index. It is a competitive platform that features four matches over a five-month period. Venues vary depending on hosts.
“I had a chance to watch it grow quite a bit,” Jim C., a member since the league’s inaugural year, said. “For people who are newly sober, finding a way to enjoy an activity where you used to drink can be challenging. What will happen sometimes is if you had a regular group of people that you golfed with, just going to that golf course brings back certain memories or triggers. There’s this apprehension to do that again. We get sober to live, not to live in a cave. But we need to help people who are newly sober figure out how to do that. It’s really about helping others see that there’s nothing you can’t do; You just need to have someone show you.”
THE WILSON-GOLF LEAGUE SEASON, which runs from April through October, featured 13 flights with five teams of 10 in each. Team members match on a number of variables: Handicap Index range, length of sobriety, age, geography, club access. Age range is 23-83; some sober as long as 50 years or as short as 90 days.
“At the beginning of my journey [to sobriety], I was very alone. I didn’t tell anybody. Being a part of the league, I have a community of people I can talk to about all of this stuff, and no one bats an eye,” Beth M., who joined the Wilson-Smith Golf League this year, said. “It’s a place where I know I have community. Hopefully I can be a part of it for a while.”
Golf and sobriety cosmically intertwined for Beth. The day after she firmly decided to stop drinking, she picked up a golf club for the first time. It transpired in December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when golf emerged as a recreational outlet for many.
“It’s funny to think about how the timing worked out. I became a golf addict,” Beth, 27, a GAP member, said. “[The COVID-19 pandemic], to me, saved my life. It forced me to come home and deal with [my alcoholism]. It forced that bottom for me.
“You can masquerade a lot of what you’re doing in college and attribute it to your age. I was partying. Everyone was partying. When I got home and was drinking in secret in my parents’ house, I was alone. I couldn’t stop. That, to me, was unmanageable. Knowing that I have no control over what I’m doing right now was unbearable. I couldn’t live with myself in that space.”
Golf also represented a figurative starter pistol for Drew on his journey to sobriety.
“After the practice round for the [2020] Member-Guest, I drove home blackout drunk. I woke up face down in front of my kitchen refrigerator at 2:30 in the morning,” Drew, a GAP member, said. “I woke up thinking, ‘I got a problem.’ I told myself that a million times. I was really starting to think that I needed to figure this out. I didn’t drink the next day at the tournament. I was filled with guilt and shame. I had a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old at the time. I didn’t drink that next day because of how sick and guilty I felt.”
Drew fought the urge to drink during the tournament’s final day. The urge ultimately won.
“I ended up the same place I was two nights prior,” Drew said. “I drove home blackout drunk, woke up the next morning and my wife said, ‘I’m surprised you drove home. I figured you would have Ubered.’ For whatever reason then, I was like, ‘I’ve got a problem. I shouldn’t have driven last night. I need to get help.’”
At the suggestion of his cousin Kevin, himself sober for 13 years at that time, Drew attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting (virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic). A connection there connected Drew with the Wilson-Smith Golf League.
“The fellowship of the league that first year of sobriety saved my life. I don’t know if it would’ve been sooner rather than later, but it would’ve killed me at some point, the way I was going and drinking. I owe my life to these guys,” Drew said.
Like Drew, Taylor K. joined the Wilson-Smith Golf League through a connection he made during an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in 2009.
“My first year of sobriety was really difficult. I was struggling to enjoy life without drinking. I was feeling sorry for myself,” he said. “I remember vividly going to Broad Run for my first match. I get there and meet [a pair of brothers] on the first tee. These guys were the happiest, most joyful guys. It was amazing because I was in such a down mood. Here I see two guys who are loving golf without drinking. It was just an amazing day. They became close friends of mine. I’ll never forget it. That was my introduction. It kind of got better and better from there.”
At age 17, Taylor consumed his first alcoholic beverage. He drank until he vomited and passed out. Taylor’s alcoholism grew progressively worse to the point where he drank during the day at work.
“Vodka was my thing,” Taylor, 52, a GAP member, said. “I had a routine. I would literally leave my office in King of Prussia, Pa. drive to the liquor store in Devon, Pa. and grab a bottle of vodka. I would literally sit in the parking lot, empty the water bottle out and fill it with vodka. I’d throw the bottle in the dumpster and drive back to my house. I would do that every single day. I drank every day for the last six, seven years of my drinking.”
“Recovery and golf are very similar in that they’re based on an individual’s own efforts in self-modification.”
THE LAST STRAW, sort of, came in 2007. Out to dinner with another couple, he and his wife indulged. Taylor more so, and for much longer that day.
“My son was flying into Philadelphia International Airport. [My wife] couldn’t go get him, so I had to leave to go get him. I was wasted,” Taylor said. “I got pulled over doing 120 mph through Media, Pa. on my way to the airport. I was arrested, car impounded. And my 11-year-old son was sitting in the airport at midnight with no one to pick him up until my wife finally figured out that I wasn’t there. It was a disaster.
“I’ve had multiple DUIs before that. Multiple car wrecks. I always seem to get out of it with minimal circumstances, but my wife threatened to leave me. [I pretended] being sober for the next 20 months, promising myself I wouldn’t drink. You set these limits, then you blow through them as an alcoholic. It’s a disease like cancer.”
During this sober-but-not-really-sober phase, the pain became unbearable. Taylor attended a meeting and heard a speaker share his pain with the audience. More specifically, the pain between waking up and getting a chance to drink.
Taylor approached the speaker afterward.
“I spilled my guts out for two hours. I raised my hand and said I was an alcoholic. I think I meant it for the first time,” Taylor said. “I can’t explain why it worked that time.”
A dissertation on the effectiveness of the Wilson-Smith Golf League is as heartfelt as an acceptance speech at the Oscars.
“If I kept going down the road I was going down, it was going to continue to get ugly. It was almost becoming I was fighting drinking. You are who you surround yourself with,” Drew said. “Then I hooked up with [the Wilson-Smith Golf League], and a whole new world opened up to me.”
The Wilson-Smith Golf League, in turn, is creating room for more resources. It was incorporated into a pair of 501(c)(3) corporations — the Wilson-Smith Golf League of the Delaware Valley and the Wilson-Smith Golf League, a national organization. A story that appeared in The Golfer’s Journal in 2020 generated an abundance of phone calls, Peter H. said. “This is unbelievable. Is there anything like this in my town?” The recurring sentiment.
“We started a league with 14 guys in South Florida,” Peter, 67, a GAP member, said. “We have interest in the Baltimore district, in the [Metropolitan Golf Association] area, in Chicago. I can see where there are young adults who need help recovering, who need some assistance to participate in the game of golf simultaneously while trying to move ahead in life.”
For more about the Wilson-Smith Golf League, visit wilsonsmithgolf.org (anonymity is protected).
“Our door is open. We’re there to help people. The only way we stay sober is by helping other people stay sober,” Peter said. “Recovery and golf are very similar in that they’re based on an individual’s own efforts in self-modification. My self-awareness, my honesty and who I am as a person is paramount in both things. In recovery, as in golf, it’s the same personal navigation. It’s progress, not perfection.”
“For someone reading this article, you’re not going to be alone if you’re working on a sober lifestyle,” Jim, 54, a GAP member, added. “We’re in the Member-Member. We’re in the Member-Guest. We’re in the club championships. We’re everywhere. You don’t want to go through the criteria needed to be in this league. Once you’ve gotten to the other side, you hang onto it with a lot of gratitude because you have a common love of golf and a common bond of sobriety.”