CASTLE ROCK — Here’s a switch: Brandon Stokley hung Peyton Manning out to dry.
“I take all the responsibility for that,” Stokley, the ex-Broncos receiver and Front Range radio staple, told me after the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am on Wednesday at Castle Pines Golf Club. “That was my fault. We shouldn’t have hit the driver there, we should’ve hit the wood.”
Only Peyton Bleepin’ Manning could win a pro-am with one of the worst shots known to man. On the first hole of the morning, the Broncos icon lined up in the tee box on No. 1, drew the club back and let go with one hand, accidentally topping a ball that landed about 50 yards away.
“Anyone see where that went?” Manning cracked, turning back to the gallery. Who’d all been there. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
“One of us!” the crowd chanted. “One of us! One of us!”
Bloodied but unbowed, PFM walked over and gave Stokley, his good pal and caddie, a high-five.
“It’ll take the blame for that,” Stokley said with a chuckle. “It was on the receiver, it was on his caddie, for that 50-yard topped shot.”
In Stoke’s defense, there was a reason Manning’s clubs weren’t top-of-mind at that moment. See, the former Broncos wideout was doing the math in his head as to how many golf balls they’d have left to give away by the end of the round. The plan for Manning, once he’d finished a hole, was to retrieve the ball, sign it, and present it to a kid in the crowd. A souvenir for life.
No good deed goes unpunished, of course, and Stokley found himself doing a mental supply count fairly early into the round.
“I got worried after three holes, because he’d lost four balls in three holes,” Stokley recounted. “I said, ‘Buddy, you can’t give out (one at every hole). We’ve gotta start rationing the golf balls a little bit or I’m going to be digging into Wyndham Clark’s bag, stealing his golf balls.’”
They did it anyway.
“I mean, we all like to try to put ourselves in challenging situations, right?” Manning said when asked about his muff heard ’round the world.
“So I knew playing this course was hard. With Stoke clubbing me and reading my putts, it made it even harder. So no, not an easy course to walk, much less carrying the bag. So I appreciate Stoke answering the bell, and (it was) fun to be out here with a friend and (a) mate.”
•••
This was supposed to be fun, right? Country star Luke Bryan played nine holes in the group of another Broncos legend, John Elway, then tapped out in favor yet another Front Range broadcasting institution, Altitude’s Vic Lombardi.
Now Vic and Elway have known each other for decades, and given each other grief for about as long. So No. 7 decided to up the ante a little bit, giving Lombardi a few strokes and putting $100 on the line for the guy who finished with the better back nine.
Lombardi birdied 16 with a great putt, inching so close he could almost smell the Hall-of-Famer’s money.
“He hit a bunker on 18 and he was about 180 (yards) away and I said, ‘OK, I’ve got a chance, there’s no way he’s going to get on the green,’” Lombardi said.
“This shot, he pulverized and hit perfectly, right over the pin. And I’m like, ‘There’s no way I can do that here. There’s no way I can do what he just did.’”
Vic bogeyed 17 and double-bogeyed 18, and that was that. Elway pulverized his way to par on the back nine; Lombardi wound up 4-over.
A dang proud 4-over, mind you.
“Oh, he gave me grief,” Lombardi laughed. “On every shot, he gave me grief.”
During the post-round media scrum, Vic snuck in over my left shoulder and handed Elway a crisp $100 bill. This one’s for John.
“It’s always easy,” Elway said, flashing that trademark Elway smile, “to take Vic’s money.”
•••
Manning was money down the stretch, by the way. PFM made a heck of a birdie putt on 17, Stokley said.
“Just trying to be a good coach, I finally got him to calm down,” the caddie said.
Manning probably got the better end of the deal, truth be told. Stokley wound up hauling PFM’s bag on his back for 18 holes, roughly nine miles, up and down hills more suited for pack mules.
Castle Pines is 6,400 feet above sea level at hits highest point, with 400 feet of elevation change along the way. By the turn, you and your lungs aren’t on speaking terms anymore.
“Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize what I was getting into,” Stokley said.
Nine miles? That’s love, my friend.
“It was extremely challenging,” Stokley recalled. “I wanted to do it. I’m flattered he asked me to do it. I had a blast doing it.”
If you thought Manning and Stoke were fun to watch at Empower Field, you should see them on the green. Brothers who’ve been giving each other crapola for two decades now, warriors refusing to cede, competitors to the last.
“We’ve had some epic battles,” Stokley said. “It always got to be by the third or fourth holes, we were arguing. We’d stop talking for about 15 more holes until the end of the match and at the end of the match, we’d always shake hands and say, ‘Congratulations,’ then go and have a cold drink and then it’s over.
“That’s what I love about him. You see it on the football field — it’s the same on a golf course. He’s never out of a hole. He’s going to find a way to make a 50-foot putt. He’s behind a tree, he’ll get up and down. That’s why I love competing against him.”
Naturally, Manning ended his day by sinking a sweet 12-foot putt. Another ball. Another autograph. Another smiling youngster, bouncing up those steep hills with a skip and a smile.
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish, right?” PFM quipped. “That’s all that matters.”
One of us. Same as it ever was.
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