JR Smith is Hosting an Exciting New Golf Podcast, ‘Par 3,’ Alongside Ben Baller and Stephen Malbon
There’s a reason why a lot of current, and former NBA superstars love the game of golf. Take it from two-time NBA champion JR Smith, who picked up the sport 13-14 years ago at a fundraising event back when he was playing on the Denver Nuggets. After 16 years in the NBA, Swish decided to head back to school and enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University in 2021, where he joined the Aggies’ golf team.
When we caught up from Smith in January (throwback to SLAM 143 when we photographed him on a course) to talk about his new golf podcast, Par 3, which he hosts alongside producer, actor and jewelry designer Ben Baller and Stephen Malbon, who co-founded Malbon Golf, he told SLAM that he got “hooked” on golf pretty quickly and soon developed a deep fascination with learning more about it and, specifically, how to improve his skillset. Back for SLAM 143, we even photographed Smith on a
“I tried to translate it to basketball,” Smith tells SLAM. “I really started learning how to work on certain skills as opposed to just trying to hit shots. I started working on my short game, started working on trying to work the ball left to right, right to left and different swings. [I started] watching a lot more videos looking at Tiger [Woods], watching Taylormade—those videos gave me a lesson here, lesson there, [but] everything else was pretty much self taught.”
Next thing Smith knew, he was all in: buying the gear, checking out different courses and thinking constantly about how to get better and better.
“At that point, I really realized I really had a problem,” he continues. “Because then I started going into different pro shops and started playing really, really good courses, or buying up all the gear—I got a closet right now that pretty much looks like a pro shop from different [stores] all over the country. And it’s just game that I really love…I feel like golf is a sport that you can always improve [in] and continuously get better. You never really have a cap.”
On the Par 3 podcast, not only will Smith, Ben Baller and Malbon dive into their personal journeys and how they’ve developed a love for the game, but they’ll also share hilarious commentary and dive deep into the culture of the golf from fashion and trends to some pretty wild stories, like Smith picking up a few pointers from the late, and great-Moses Malone. While there’s a lot of misconceptions surrounding golf, Par 3 is here to re-define what the “golf life” truly means by offering a unique perspective.
