“I can play golf every day for the next four months, and I love it, man. You know, I play golf every single day, or I go fishing. I love doing nothing.” Charles Barkley had his retirement plans set in motion. After agreeing to a new contract, those plans have been delayed indefinitely. Chuck’s liking for golf goes back to his playing days when he and Michael Jordan used to spend time on the course. Despite the decades of experience, the Suns legend should stop golfing.

It was none other than Pedro Martinez who advised the TNT broadcaster. “I want to say hello to Chuck and Ernie and tell you how proud I am of both of you for doing such a great job in the podcast. But you know what, Chuck, I heard that you’re not good at golfing. Even though I know it’s entertaining, you’re not doing good, man.” But the baseball icon did not stop there. As he was gardening in his backyard, he suggested what Charles Barkley should do instead of putting in.

“You’re more than welcome to come and clip my flowers with me anytime you want. We will have a great time in my backyard. You can bring Ernie, and we’re going to have a great time. We can barbecue, have drinks, yeah.” Martinez roasted Chuck’s ability and asked him to quit. If that was not enough, he told him to switch to gardening. Barkley did take up that offer, but with a condition of his own.

“Pedro, I tell you what, I’m gonna bring Ernie with me, and I’ll let him cut the flowers, and I’m gonna do the barbecue or the drinking part.” Sadly, Sir Charles won’t clip flowers and will assign the duty to Johnson. Charles Barkley refused to do so because of his beliefs. He joked, “Hey, gardening ain’t no damn hobby. I keep telling you, gardening is not a black-tivity.” So, Chuck won’t give up his golfing, especially not for cutting flowers.

From bad form to spending a moment with the legend, a deep dive into Charles Barkley’s renaissance on the course

We don’t have to remind you about Chuck’s awkward swing. It was the legend Tiger Woods who mimicked Sir Charles’ signature swing: a start, an awkward pause, a mid-swing bend, and somehow… a finish. Since then, it was a running joke, and even the Suns legend’s performance did not change that narrative. But the determination to change it burned in Chuck’s heart. He did so with the help of legends of the game.

In 2009, Barkley teamed up with Tiger’s former instructor Hank Haney for the Golf Channel’s The Haney Project, logging over 1,500 practice swings in two days as Haney diagnosed the root of Barkley’s hitch: an overly upright backswing that stymied clubhead release. Haney emphasized the physics of “lag” over the quick-fix of eliminating the hitch, teaching Barkley to feel the clubhead’s arc and trust the body’s natural unwinding. An approach Haney later called “understanding flight through swing plane,”

“He took me and Dwyane Wade and Grant Hill down there, and we stayed. It was right before March Madness. It was two of the best days of my life… Getting to play a month before the Masters and stay on the property… It was unbelievable.”

After Haney’s six-month overhaul, Barkley still struggled to maintain a smooth drive under pressure. So in 2018 he enlisted short-game maestro Stan Utley. Utley’s breakthrough came just 40 minutes into their first session when he had Barkley pitch one-handed, revealing that Chuck’s athletic hands could “throw the clubhead with the wrists” and lay off the choke-down lag that bred his hitch. Over two years, Utley eradicated the hitch by retraining Barkley on wrist hinge and release, then fine-tuned his chipping by teaching “face control” for high floaters and low checkers around the greens.

The culmination of these efforts arrived in April 2025, when Peyton Manning invited Barkley, Dwyane Wade, and Grant Hill to Augusta National for a rare pre-Masters stay-and-play. Barkley called it “two of the best days of my life,” marveling at Augusta’s SubAir course-drying technology and the privilege of walking the hallowed fairways a month before the tournament.

From Haney’s physics-based overhaul to Utley’s wrist-first corrections, Barkley’s game has shed its caricature-swing reputation. At 62, the 11-time NBA All-Star has traded ridicule for respect. And he won’t be going back to gardening as a replacement hobby anytime soon.