Best Celebrity Golfers, Ranked by Handicap

The best celebrity golfer is former NFL quarterback Tony Romo, whose game is strong enough to have earned PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour starts and US Open qualifying attempts. Right behind him is NBA guard Steph Curry, a roughly scratch player who has competed twice on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour. After the athletes, entertainers such as Justin Timberlake, Alice Cooper and Kenny G carry the lowest reported numbers.

One warning before the rankings: almost every celebrity handicap you read is self-reported, not posted in an official system anyone can verify. So this list separates the players whose scores were tested in real competition from the ones whose numbers rest on their own word.

The verified elite: athletes who compete

The only celebrity handicaps that are truly checkable belong to people who have entered sanctioned events, because you cannot fake a scorecard in front of the field.

Tony Romo sits at the top. Since retiring from the NFL he has played PGA Tour events on sponsor exemptions, competed on the Korn Ferry Tour, and tried to qualify for the US Open, all of which demand a near-scratch or plus-handicap standard. Whether he shoots the low scores under that pressure is another matter, but the access alone marks him as elite among non-pros.

Steph Curry is the closest challenger. He played the Ellie Mae Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour in back-to-back years and later won the 2023 American Century Championship, the marquee celebrity event, with an eagle on the final hole. His game is roughly scratch and, crucially, proven in competition.

Ranked by handicap

This table ranks well-known celebrity golfers by their best commonly cited handicap. The verification column is the important one, since only the athletes’ figures are backed by competitive scores.

Celebrity	Known for	Reported handicap	Verification
Tony Romo	NFL quarterback	Near scratch / plus	Competition-proven
Steph Curry	NBA guard	Roughly scratch	Competition-proven
Alice Cooper	Rock musician	Low single digit (self-reported)	Claim only
Kenny G	Saxophonist	Low single digit (self-reported)	Claim only
Justin Timberlake	Musician / actor	~6 (self-reported)	Claim only
Mark Wahlberg	Actor	Single digit (self-reported)	Claim only
Bill Murray	Actor	Mid-range, pro-am regular	Claim only

The entertainers below the athletes are all skilled recreational players, but their numbers move around between interviews and cannot be pulled up in an official database. Take them as ballpark, not gospel.

The entertainers worth knowing

Alice Cooper is the surprise. The shock-rock veteran has played nearly every day for decades, has openly credited golf with helping him beat addiction, and consistently reports a low single-digit handicap. Among musicians, few log more rounds.

Kenny G is the other saxophone-and-sand-wedge name, long reported as one of the lowest-handicap entertainers in the business. Justin Timberlake is a committed enthusiast who once co-owned a course and has said he plays to around a 6. Bill Murray is less about the number and more about being the most beloved face at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Basketball legend Michael Jordan is famously obsessed with the game and gambles heavily on it, but his actual handicap is reported inconsistently and has never been officially posted, so any single figure for him is guesswork.

The event that actually ranks them

If you want to see celebrities tested against each other, the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe is the closest thing to a proving ground. Held every summer, it gathers dozens of athletes, actors and musicians and scores them over three days, usually in a modified Stableford format that rewards aggressive play.

The leaderboards there back up this article’s order. Athletes with real speed and competitive instinct, such as Steph Curry, former tennis pro Mardy Fish and a rotating cast of NFL and NHL names, tend to dominate, while entertainers fill the field behind them. It is the rare setting where a celebrity’s golf gets scored in public rather than described in an interview, which is exactly why it is the most honest measure of who can actually play.

What “good” really means here

A celebrity who genuinely plays to a low single-digit handicap is better than the vast majority of amateurs. For context on how rare that is, our guide to what is a scratch golfer shows that only about 1.6% of handicapped golfers ever reach zero, which is why Romo’s and Curry’s competition access stands out.

If you want to see how these figures stack against ordinary players, what is a good golf score sets the benchmarks, and for the professionals these amateurs admire, our list of the greatest golfers of all time covers the real ceiling of the sport.

The takeaway is simple to apply: trust the handicaps that were earned in front of a scorer, and enjoy the rest as good stories.