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QuickTake:
I spent an afternoon on the range with Derek Radley, who talked about physics, bowling, naming his kids, giving golf tips to Dan Lanning, and a memorable time his wife ignored his golf advice.
The anxiety first struck when the gates to the Oregon golf team’s private facility at Emerald Valley Golf Club swung open.
This was supposed to be a fun story: The University of Oregon women’s golf team is No. 3 in the country, they have the No. 1 amateur in the world in Kiara Romero, and they’re once again using a roster loaded with international stars to make a run at a national title. I profiled Romero last year. And I’ve written a few times about the ways in which Derek Radley has built the program since he took over seven years ago.
Of all the Oregon coaches I cover, though, I was probably least familiar with Radley, the person. In an effort to explore that, I pitched UO on an interview with the coach — while we hit a bucket of balls.
Should be a good time, right?
They agreed, which led to me meeting Radley in the parking lot of The Jake — Oregon’s $2.3 million facility that opened in 2023. It’s an incredible space surrounded by putting greens, driving ranges and skills courses that give off a professional Topgolf vibe. Inside are golf bays, sensors, undulating putting greens and a whole lot of trophies.
Now, I’m an OK golfer. I’ve never had a true lesson, but I mowed the fairways at Palmer Golf Course during the summers in high school and have been able to put together enough of a game over the years to think I wouldn’t completely embarrass myself during a little chip and chat.
As I pulled my tattered bag filled with mismatched irons out of my car — and removed an unopened 12-ounce ghost of rounds past — I had one prevailing thought: Who did I think I was?
The feeling only grew as I noticed all of the men’s and women’s team members around the facility practicing with their fancy gear, matching bags and controlled swings.
“You brought your clubs, right?” Radley said. “Good, I brought mine knowing you’d be here.”
There went my out.
I heard a member of UO’s staff say something about this being their “White Whale,” and I noticed the surrounding Oregon golfers tracking us as we walked toward the range.
Then they started whispering to each other. Then pointing.
My heart sank. I wasn’t supposed to be the entertainment.
Then I realized I wasn’t the whale. It was Radley.
“What are you doing?” one player asked.
“Are you golfing?” yelled another.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“They’ve never seen me hit before,” Radley said.
Before I could ask why, I learned the answer as Radley got a call on his cell phone from his wife, Sara. They have three kids at home. Between recruiting trips, tournaments and coaching Little League, there’s not much time for golf outside of golf.
He plays in one charity tournament a year in Arizona but is otherwise content letting the Ducks star on the tee — to good effect: Radley’s Ducks have placed in the top five of every tournament they’ve played since the start of last season.
But on a rainless day in early March, the eyes were on us as we picked up our buckets of balls and arrived on the range.
“I sold sunshine for six years,” Radley said of his time as an assistant at Arizona. “Anybody can play in 80 degrees and sunshine.”
He suggested we begin with our wedges.
“Perfect,” I said before promptly skulling a shot when he wasn’t looking.
“I don’t have a driver.”
I then watched as he took a slow, smooth swing that lofted a ball about 100 yards down the range. It looked perfect to me, but Radley grimaced.
“Oh,” he said. “It’s been a minute.”
To be fair, he’s the expert.
Radley started playing golf when he was 13 in Cleveland, Ohio. He walked on at Ferris State University in Michigan, eventually becoming a tournament winner before graduating with a degree in professional golf management. His life in golf truly took off once he met his now-wife, the then Sara Brown.
He gave her a couple of swing pointers before she appeared on a reality show on the Golf Channel. Soon, Radley was Sara’s swing coach, caddie and boyfriend.
“My nickname out there was ‘three-in-one,’” he said.
Sara played several years of professional golf with Radley on the bag — an experience that taught him a lot about planning a round, attacking a course and, well, managing professional athletes.
Radley is proud that he’s able to call Sara his wife — especially after a moment during the final round of a 2010 LPGA Q-School event, when her tour card was on the line.
After hitting a drive into the water on a par-5, Radley suggested she play it safe.
“She asked me how far it was, and I told her it was 120 to the 100-yard marker,” Radley said. “Then she looks at me and says, ‘How far is it to the pin?’
“I reluctantly told her 220 yards. She said, ‘Give me my 3-wood.’ So I gave her the 3-wood and she absolutely lasers this shot out of this bad lie, probably 30 feet from the pin. She walked back up the bank, flipped me the club and said, ‘Don’t ever tell me to lay up again.’”
Radley was ripping shots by now.
Players came and went to get their glimpses as Radley pured — at least to my untrained eye — his 5-iron. He started taking requests, showing off a low draw, a high fade and the different stances needed to take advantage of the physics put into a ball.
That’s the stuff that gets him excited about golf. He loves trajectories and spin rates and numbers. Maybe that’s why, in the little free time Radley does have, you might catch him at the local bowling alley.
“In Cleveland, when there’s 4 feet of snow on the ground, you bowl or you play basketball — that’s it,” Radley said. “My dad’s dad, Bob Radley, was an engineer and my family has always told me I’m wired like him. In bowling, if you really get into it and break it down, it’s such a science with different oil patterns and release patterns and movements. In golf, it’s the same way.”
Twenty minutes into hitting, Radley was in a groove, alternating between shots and taking moments to finish up stories. He told me that his three kids are all named after golf things — Palmer, Ryder and Azalea — and that none of them currently like golf.
He told me about how Oregon football offensive coordinator Drew Mehringer sends him home videos of his golf swing to help him with his shanks, and how he got in the ear of Dan Lanning before the head football coach had the ceremonial tee shot before a charity tournament.
“It was just an iron, so I told him to put it up on the tee so at least it’ll get airborne,” Radley said.
“Did it get airborne?” I asked.
“Yeah, he hit it OK.”
If Lanning or Radley had the time, the two could probably get the coach’s swing in a pretty good spot. Swing coaching is in Radley’s background, but oddly enough it’s not what he spends much time doing with the Ducks.
All of the players have their own private swing coaches who know the intricacies of their games far better than Radley ever could. If he sees something obvious that needs to be fixed, he’ll say something, but there’s a lot of suggesting things to the swing coaches, who can then work with the athletes privately — even in a separate FaceTime-equipped studio in The Jake.
Radley’s job centers around recruiting, game planning and making sure an eight-player roster with athletes from four different countries feels at home.
“On the golf course, not only are we great at bringing snacks and everything else that they need, but also just being there for them to help them feel comfortable in pressure situations,” he said. “We can do everything a caddie can do, except carry the clubs.”
“I feel like the coaches truly care about the players and care about us as humans — not just golfers,” said Romero, who had Radley on the bag last summer at the U.S. Women’s Open. “They’re trying to develop us as people, and they care about us not just on the course.”
Romero was earlier inside The Jake watching TV just outside the kitchen. But as Radley and I got toward the end of our buckets, it was just me, Radley and assistant coach Krissy Carman left at the facility.
“This was my interview today,” Radley said. “I had to hit some golf balls.”
“Is this why you sent them all home early?” Carman joked.
I was out of questions, had more than enough to work with and had managed to get through the afternoon without Radley ever really having to look at my swing. This was all just an interview device, right? No sense in letting an expert see a car wreck if it can be avoided.
But then the coach called me on it.
“OK,” he said. “We can’t get you out of here without me seeing you take a few swings.”
I tried to temper expectations.
“I haven’t golfed in forever,” I said. “I’ve never had a lesson.”
“I was about to say, getting a lesson is actually [your plan] in all this,” he said.
I grabbed my 5-iron, wiggled in my work boots and ripped a shot 200 yards straight as an arrow. (I’m making sure my editor leaves this in to have it on record.)
“Dude, are you kidding me?” Radley said.
I did the same with the next ball. And, unbelievably to me, again with the third.
Radley took a moment, then gave me his review.
“Honestly,” Radley said, “you can have fun playing golf. That was always my goal in teaching people — just give them enough so they can have fun.”
What Radley didn’t know was that it was the first — and likely only — time in my life I’ve hit three balls in a row that pure. And while there’s no question luck played a large part, that hour of getting to know Radley and listening to him talk about golf and life sure did make me feel comfortable enough to rip it under pressure.
