Eric Musselman shares story about playing golf with his father, watching Pink Panther

Prior to Arkansas’ season opener this week, Eric Musselman gave an impassioned speech comparing basketball to golf. Practice is the “driving range” in the analogy and the games are, in turn, the “course.”

“You go to the driving range and what do you do? You hit balls, you practice,” Musselman told his team. “And you’re practicing for what? To go play nine or 18 holes. So what have we been doing this whole time we’ve been together? Practicing. We’ve been on what? The driving range. Now, you’ve got to go play. You can’t sit on the driving range your whole life. You’ve got to go play the holes.”

The kicker to that speech is his golf experience didn’t go very well.

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Musselman shared a story showing how little he hits the links. When he was growing up in San Diego, his mom told his dad to take him to Torrey Pines to use the clubs that were sitting in the garage for three years.

It didn’t go as planned.

“We played one hole,” he told reporters on a Zoom call. “It took a long time.”

After they got off the green, Musselman’s dad asked him if he liked golf. When Musselman said no, his dad took matters into his own hands to make the most of the day.

They ended up calling it quits in a big way.

“He took the clubs and he threw them in the water,” Musselman said. “Then, we went to a movie and then when we got back, my mom asked how the golf game went. My dad and I looked at each other and we said we loved it even though we went and watched ‘The Pink Panther.’ That was the movie we watched that day.”

It sounds like Musselman’s mom bought the story about enjoying the day on the course. However, she didn’t ask why he and his dad didn’t have his clubs when they got back to the house. To this day, Musselman said he thinks she still believes they played a round of golf and didn’t notice the clubs were missing.

But even though Musselman’s experience on the course didn’t necessarily go as planned, he still knows the lessons golf presents. He put that into basketball terms during that pregame speech.

“What happens during the course of playing 18 holes?” Musselman said. “Sometimes, the ball will go where? Into a sand pit, right? What do you have to do? You’ve got to figure out a way out of the pit. You know where I’m going? You can’t pout if the ball goes into the woods because you’ve got to go play another hole.

“Tonight, we miss a shot, we’ve got to keep playing. But eventually, you’ve got to go play the holes, right? This is one of 30 on our resume. We only get 30 opportunities to stamp on our resume. Thirty, that’s it. So, come March, this is 1/30th of what we’re dealing with.”

Arkansas will continue its 2022-23 season against Fordham Friday at 8 p.m. ET.