The old adage says that “athletes want to be rappers, and rappers want to be athletes.” Well, the category of athletes that rappers take inspiration from has extended to golf in recent years. Rappers have gotten older and garnered more disposable income—which means they are hitting the links even more.
Is this a call for Wyndham Clark to hop on a Cash Cobain beat? No, absolutely not. But we have enough soft evidence and stray anecdotes to sort the crowded field to see which rappers are the best golfers. And it’s definitely the right time for us to survey rap’s burgeoning relationship with golf and take a guess at who’s the nicest on the green.
Our process isn’t fully scientific, but as it stands, here’s the list of the game’s best golfers, approximated by handicap.
But before we get to the best, here are some people who just missed making the list.
WHO MISSED THE CUT
Drake’s bad at basketball and football, and apparently not too sharp betting on soccer or UFC. The man has not earned any benefit of the doubt when it comes to athletics. The same seems to be true for golf. To his credit, he’s honest about his lack of golf ability, writing “I’m trash at this sport but the drinks are hitting” during a recent outing. It’s probably the most relatable thing he’s said in years.
Quavo was a dominant high school quarterback, and while we haven’t seen him on a full 18 holes, it appears that he can ice tray the long putt.
Lil Baby’s golf career is off to a relatively early (if casual) start, and he’s getting his sons extra reps at TopGolf. We should give this one some time and look out for any signs of a fall off.
Sada Baby, aka Skuba Woods, made a bold prediction on his first golf outing, claiming he was about to “drop 50. Nineteen assists. Thirteen rebounds. However it goes, I’m about to have all that shit.”
10. Big Boi
Estimated Handicap: Definitely lower than 3000
First, let's wall off fact from fiction. In the 2007 film Who’s Your Caddy?, Big Boi plays C-Note, a mischievous figure who is trying to join the Carolina Pines country club. We’re assuming Daddy Fat Sax is a method actor and got some decent playing time in prepping for the role. It also seems like he’s good luck on the greens. He enthusiastically followed late-career Tiger Woods across all 18 opening holes of a 2018 Tour Championship outing, and Woods crushed a 65 as a result.
9. OMB Peezy
Estimated Handicap: 251
The Sacramento firebrand dons custom OMB Polo fits and even does that sweater tied around the shoulders thing, irrefutable evidence that he’s good at golf. In a self-released 2022 video, Peezy gives his course tips and they are as follows: “call fore and take all the food and drink they offer you.” If you adopt these fixes to your game and still find yourself over par, well, that’s on you.
8. Rick Ross
Estimated Handicap: DA BIGGEST
Rick Ross is on the board here due to sheer commitment. After getting into the game due to the urging of Dwyane Wade, we’ve seen him water his private course and even play East Lake with the PGA Tour in 2021. Rozay Woods has also played with Blake Griffin and his Luc Belaire custom golf balls can apparently be yours for the right bid. The putt celebration is also predictably immaculate. “We gotta encourage the Black golfers, let’s encourage the younger brothers and let them know it’s not really an intimidating sport. It’s something we need to get involved with,” he said on IG.
7. Freddie Gibbs
Estimated Handicap: Definitely not -3
Gangsta Gibbs told us in 2020 that he picked up golf at the peak of COVID-19 quarantine. Getting reps out at Palm Springs, Gibbs claimed that he was “trash,” but also estimated his handicap at a -3. We’ll split the difference here.
Way back in 2015, he said that he was spending SXSW smoking weed and playing putt-putt. But his full swing has definitely improved, as seen on the driving range earlier this year and inside Dodgers Stadium last month. Don’t be surprised if he moves up to the top of this list with a few more years under his belt.
6. Snoop Dogg
Estimated Handicap: 187
We trust that the horticulturally-inclined Uncle Snoop is solid at golf. In 2017, he told Men’s Journal that he’s been around the game his whole life and received private instruction from PGA pro Seema Sadekar. He’s been to The Masters, and told Golf Digest he hopes they “invite more people like myself who are cool and who are hip-hop.” At 52 years old, he’s still in shape running the 200 meter with Team USA in Paris. And he’s for sure the only golfer to hit Augusta with a custom Tanqueray gin bag for his clubs.
5. Uncle Luke
Estimated Handicap: 2 live
In his youth, Uncle Luke was famous for his love of butts; he’s into putts now, having picked up golf for stress relief at the advice of a doctor. His brother, Stanley Campbell, has adopted a personal mission of expanding black-owned courses in Florida. His longtime friend, Wendell J. Haskins, is the founder of the Original Tee Golf Classic, and he played the inaugural fundraiser in 1999. Uncle Luke told Skratch in 2019 that he once directed his tour bus in Georgia to stop at Augusta National, where he hit balls off the side of the course. He’s still actively playing as of this summer, and the swing remains fundamentally sound. “The actual concept of a golf tee, an African-American invented that,” he said at the Original Tee Golf Classic. “We are a part of this rich game.”
4. DJ Khaled
Estimated Handicap: 14
DJ Khaled golfs in a decidedly DJ Khaled way. Per Golf Digest, one of his custom PXG drivers is called “We the Best,” a nine iron is named “MAJOR KEY,” and other clubs have his sons’ faces imprinted on them. He plays in ultra-rare Jordan XIs, and had a 14 handicap measured in 2023. If yelling “let’s go golfing!” was the primary objective of golf, Khaled would be fitted for a green jacket right now. His celebrity tournament in Miami last year included golf superstar Bubba Watson, and he’s apparently part of the recurring PAR BOYZ squad with Mark Wahlberg and retired MLB player Reggie Sanders.
But the former Terror Squad DJ seems to get way more out of all this than mere sport. “I love golf because it’s like my connection with God. It’s kind of like my one-on-one time with him,” he said in that same Golf Digest interview. Khaled told ESPN that he golfs five-to-seven days a week, aims to make the PGA Tour one day, and has recently been practicing with California pro Michael Block. Anyone who pays for the Ryder Cup to be flown 3,000 miles intercontinentally deserves our trust at tee time.
3. Macklemore
Estimated Handicap: 10.5
Macklemore takes lessons, played Pebble Beach with Langton Griffin at a pro-am, hung head-to-head with scratch golfer Hally Ledbetter and has his own golf line called Bogey Boys. The Seattle Times reported his handicap index at 10.5, and the drive is consistently coming in around 280 yards, impressive considering he started playing in 2018. “I hate going backwards, but I love digging myself out,” he said. “It’s been said more eloquently by others, but when you’re playing poorly, you feel like you are never going to get it back, and when you’re playing well, you feel like it’s never going to go away.”
A recent capsule with Adidas confirms that he’s still taking golf quite seriously. His favorites players, according to Sports Illustrated, include Brooks Koepka, Jason Day and Peter Malnati. “There is a frequency and a vibration in whatever space that I’m in that is so polar opposite to what a golf course has to offer. And that’s why I love it,” he said.
2. ScHoolboy Q
Estimated Handicap: 10
The South Central superstar and Black Hippy alumnus is our undisputed clubhouse leader when it comes to golf culture. Earlier this year, Groovy Q told the Safe Place Podcast that he made enough money off the game to fund a five-year hiatus from music. That bread came from endorsements and advertising, not tournament purse winnings, but it’s still quite impressive. He told the PGA Tour that the greens helped him find internal peace. At the Calabasas Country Club with GQ, he succinctly declared, “bruh – golf is life.” He’ll laugh off the gnarly misses, like his first shot of the day with Brice Butler. But that loping, controlled drive usually connects—see his Pelican Hill outing from 2022. His short game can be pure finesse, and he celebrates with boundless swagger. “I wanna make golf fun for everybody, know what I’m saying? When I first came into golf, people were super uppity to me,” Q told Golf Digest. As for official numbers? “I’m a 9 handicap at my best. I play to it about every two years.” Apparently, all this started over a smoked-out bet that the rapper couldn’t hit a birdie in two years of trying; he did it in 10 rounds, sealed with a 70-foot putt. Who else is more qualified to hit from the blue tee box?
1. Scarface
Estimated Handicap: 9.5
Scarface’s golf prowess has been well-documented for years now. He detailed his commitment and intensity for the game with Billboard in 2015—no drinking or smoking and no extraneous conversation, with full use of GPS and the Golf Buddy app. “Ain’t nothing soft about the sport,” he said. “Golf teaches you class and character.” According to his memoir, Diary of a Madman, he picked the game up in 2006 at the peak of Tiger Woods’ celebrity and at the urging of his young daughter. Golf helped him lose more than 100 pounds, and he uses custom clubs from Callaway. He told the Houston Chronicle in 2015 that he was a 10 handicap and routinely plays into the 80s, a number that has probably improved with time. With the irons set, Brad Jordan definitively Grips It! On That Other Level.