WATCH: Nick Saban talks golf, football on links with Alabama legend

The PGA Tour is heading to one of the biggest events in all of golf this weekend, TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville, Florida. Before the tournament, two Alabama legends got together on the course to tee it up, Alabama head football coach Nick Saban and former Alabama golfer Justin Thomas.

“You’ll always be a PLAYERS Champion!”@JustinThomas34 🤝 The 🐐pic.twitter.com/552GmASwDu

— Alabama Football (@AlabamaFTBL) March 9, 2022

One of the things Saban always noted is that he told Justin Thomas the same things he tells his players. The only way you have to defend something is if they take it away. They can’t take last year’s win away from you, so just to go out there and have fun. Thomas won the event last year after a historic seven-stroke comeback after 36 holes. He closed the tournament with rounds of 64 and 68 to squeak past England’s Lee Westwood by one shot.

Thomas has already established himself as one of the best players in the world, but it will be tough for him to accomplish as much as Nick Saban has in his career. Better yet, it will be tough for any coach or athlete to ever accomplish as much as the Alabama football coaching legend has in his storied career. Regardless, it is pretty cool to see Nick Saban in a different environment other than the football field.

Earlier in the off-season, Saban made several different coaching moves, including moving Sal Sunseri as a special assistant to handle the transfer portal.

Saban on Sal Sunseri and his new role

“Sal (Sunseri) is going to be a special assistant to the head coach for me. I think there’s a lot of things going on in college football, the landscape has changed dramatically, you guys all know that. Whether it’s the portal, having people on top of the portal, you almost need a staff of people – just like you have a staff of people for recruiting to find out who the best players in high school are – you also have people responsible to do evaluations in terms of who’s in the portal.”

“And also tracking how guys getting into the portal actually do. I think it’s a little bit of a fad right now to think if I get in the portal and all my issues and problems are going to be solved. But yet it’ll be interesting to see how many people really benefit in a positive way from taking advantage of the opportunity to get into the portal. And we’re going to track those kinds of things. So Sal’s going to be involved in a lot of those things. He’s going to be a special assistant to me to help me in a lot of ways in the changing landscape of college football,” Saban said.

It should be a fun and exciting tournament at TPC Sawgrass this weekend!