Gerald Henderson is certainly known as a driver, able to knife through defenses and take the ball to the hoop with ease. However, he might be even better at hitting the driver.
Henderson, who is averaging 6.1 points per game in his first year with the Blue Devils, is also a talented golfer who played in a number of national junior tournaments and at the varsity level in his early high school years.
"In his freshman year, he had a two or three handicap, which is very impressive for his age," Henderson's high golf coach Edwin Shafer said. "He could hit the ball a mile."
Henderson picked up the game at age six, when he began to go out to the practice range with his father, Gerald Henderson Sr., a former NBA player himself. As he got older and as his game matured, the youngster began to compete in local and national tournaments.
In 2002, Henderson placed 20th in his age group at the Callaway World Junior Golf Championships, shooting a three-round combined score of 219 on the same course that hosts the PGA Tour's Buick Invitational.
Henderson even notched a hole-in-one during a round of a local junior tournament that he won.
"Yeah, it was a par 3, 119 yards, hole 18," Henderson said. "I remember it like it was yesterday."
Even more thrilling for Henderson, however, was a one-on-one lesson that he received in 2002 from golf superstar Tiger Woods. Selected through a program that supports minority golfers, Henderson traveled to Walt Disney World in Florida and got a 10 minute lesson from Tiger. Even at age 14, Henderson was taller than Woods, so the four-time Masters champion suggested that Henderson widen his stance.
"That whole thing is a blur to me because I was just mesmerized that he was there. He doesn't even look real," Henderson said. "That was probably one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me."
In high school, Henderson continued to play both sports, focusing on basketball in the winter and golf in the summer. Shafer said Henderson had actually received interest from some collegiate golf coaches who believed he could play both sports in college, but the level of commitment and time required to improve in golf began to take a toll on Henderson's basketball development.
"Probably at 15, I was better at golf than I was at basketball because I devoted my whole summer to it," Henderson said. "I pretty much put basketball down for half a year. The beginning of my freshman year, I was playing catch-up [in basketball] because I hadn't played all summer."
In order to better prepare for basketball season, Henderson decided during his sophomore year to give up competitive golf and focus on hoops. He began to run track in order to get into better shape and began to devote his summers to the AAU circuit instead of golf tournaments.
Although Henderson now plays golf only leisurely, his father, who is a near-scratch golfer himself, said that the lessons learned from golf have applied to his son's development as a basketball player.
"There is a certain discipline that you have to have [in golf], and I think that's where it ties into basketball," Henderson Sr. said. "When you are shooting free throws at the end of the game, its like hitting a shot into the green that you have to have in order to save par. That mental aspect is pretty much directly related."
Additionally, Henderson has benefitted from the chance to experience tough situations in pressure-packed tournament golf before facing similar situations on the basketball court.
"In terms of the golf he really kind of blossomed early, and he played quite a bit of tournament golf," Shafer said. "He learned to deal with [pressure] and balance it. If you've been there in golf terms, you've done it a lot. Learning to deal with that pressure mentally surely would help him in the game of basketball."
But in the end, golf is a lifetime sport, and Henderson plans on continuing to play for fun in the future. Although he has not gotten a chance to tee it up while at Duke, he has played the Washington Duke course before and plans on picking the clubs back up when basketball season ends.
"Right after school, I'll probably hit the links a lot," Henderson said. "I love to play, but I just don't take it as seriously as I used to. But it's definitely a fun sport, and it's relaxing to me."
And when he returns home, his father will be ready and waiting to challenge him.
"If he were to get out there today, I would beat him hands down," Henderson Sr. said. "But after about a week of him practicing, he would probably get me."
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