Michael Jordan's love affair with the game of golf dates back to his college days at the University of North Carolina, where he once had an unlikely run-in with another famous Tar Heel: Davis Love III.
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Michael Jordan once broke a future golf Hall of Famer's driver, and it may have affected the golfer's career
The incident happened when Jordan was first learning the game as a UNC student.
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In 1984, Jordan and Love were decades away from becoming Hall of Famers in their respective sports. One day in late March, Love and Jordan's roommate, Buzz Peterson, decided to play golf, and Jordan, despite his inexperience with the game, decided to tag along. The three became golf buddies, often playing together at the UNC golf course.
That's where Jordan made an innocent mistake that may have had far-reaching effects on Love's golf career. During one round, Love ran off to retrieve something from his dorm, and Jordan decided to try an experiment using one of the three-time All-American's clubs.
According to Helen Ross of PGA Tour.com:
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Love probably wasn't happy to return to a broken driver, but everything worked out for the best. The North Carolina native got a new model and soon enjoyed a meteoric rise through the professional ranks, ultimately becoming one of the most successful golfers of the 1990s.
"[Jordan] will still tell you we set him up on it," Love said. "… And actually he probably did me a favor because the driver that I replaced that one with through a friend of my dad’s is the one I used from 1985-1997...Michael had a huge influence on my driving career. He broke the gamer, so I had to go get a new one."
Love won 12 PGA Tour events over that span, including a PGA Championship and a Players Championship. He was also one of the circuit's top 20 players in driving distance in every year from 1986 through 2001, so it's possible that he owes Jordan a big thank you for breaking that old driver.
One of the sport's top prospects, Love appeared to be on a path to stardom either way, but golf is a game in which the smallest adjustments can have huge effects. If nothing else, it's fascinating to think of what might have been if Jordan hadn't decided to test out his friend's clubs.
This year's PGA Championship is being held in North Carolina for the first time in over 40 years. Love is in the field as a participant, while Jordan, who owns the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA, could show up as a fan.
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