International Team Captain Mike Weir talks with Wayne Gretzky during Thursday's Four-ball matches on day one of the 2024 Presidents Cup at The Royal Montreal Golf Club in Montreal on Sept. 26.Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images
It is always an adventure to meet Wayne Gretzky. Even for journalists he knows, a one-on-one opportunity with him is rare. Once he gets started, though, he is chatty and friendly and a slight concern for publicists who would prefer that he stick to a script.
On Friday afternoon he sat down with The Globe and Mail for a 40-minute interview in the lobby at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Montreal. He found a quiet place to talk at the end of the bar; associates sat beside him as they ate lunch, the Great One did not eat or drink.
He was quickly engrossed in conversation, mostly about the way hockey and golf have become intertwined in his life.
He wore a Hockey Hall of Fame ring on one finger and a pass to the Presidents Cup golf tournament around his neck. He would need it later when he participated in the Michelob Ultra Hole Challenge at Golf Saint-Raphael, a short walk from the Royal Montreal Golf Club where the four-day Presidents Cup is under way.
As part of the Ultra Hole Challenge Gretzky and PGA professional Michael Block would get 45 chances each to sink a hole in one on Friday night from a tee 90 yards away. Gretzky has played thousands of rounds since he retired from hockey in 1999, and has one ace to his name: on New Year’s Eve in 2020 at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Friday night, Block got an ace on the 92nd shot.
When he was 17, his father Walter suggested that he should learn to play golf because many pro hockey players raised money for charity through the sport. That led Wayne to go to the municipal course in his hometown of Brantford, Ont.
He went to the pro shop to buy a set of clubs. They had none for lefties, so he learned on and has always played from the right side.
“I like to complain that I would be a better golfer if I had gotten left-handed clubs,” Gretzky jokes. He is a natural lefty and is hockey’s greatest player in history.
He is 63 now and loves golf but it is a finicky sport and as such it doesn’t necessarily love him back all the time. He rarely plays with people watching because it scares the bejeezus out of him.
“The hard part for me is that people say I was an athlete so I must be a good golfer,” Gretzky says. “It’s absolutely not true.”
Once, he hit a spectator between the eyes with an errant wedge shot at the famous pro-am event at Pebble Beach, Calif.
“Mike Weir once said to me, ‘It’s every boy’s dream to be in the final at Pebble Beach,’” Gretzky says. “I told him, ‘That’s a dream for you but a nightmare for me.’”
Gretzky spent time this week with Weir, the coach of the International Team, at the Presidents Cup. Weir is the lone Canadian to have won the Masters.
Gretzky’s son-in-law, Dustin Johnson, is a professional golfer who has won both the U.S. Open and the Masters. Johnson often invites him to play together but as he has got older Gretzky has suggested that he needs a younger partner.
Gretzky, who lives in California, plays three rounds a week with his wife, Janet Jones. They met when Gretzky was a judge on Dance Fever and married in Edmonton in 1988 in a lavish wedding that was broadcast across Canada.
“I enjoy golf,” Gretzky says. “It is one of the sports you can play as a family forever. My wife has taken lessons and is very competitive. I am the opposite. If I shoot an 81 or a 91 it’s not going to change my life.
“I don’t have that competitive juice any more. I’ve been there and done that.”
His celebrity status has allowed him to play with many famous golfers: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Weir, Jordan Spieth, and the late Canadian star, Moe Norman.
“The good thing about sports is that the people are so nice,” Gretzky says. “That’s what makes it fun. And as athletes there are so many things we can do to help people. And it comes back around to us. Things go bad for athletes and the community rallies around them.”
Anecdotes come fast and furious. He reaches out to touch you when he wants to emphasize something in particular.
In 1980 Gretzky went to Vancouver to meet Terry Fox at his home. Fox was quite sick then with bone cancer.
“He was in bed and went to take some medicine and held it up for me to see,” Gretzky says. It looks like his eyes are beginning to glisten. “He said, ‘It’s probably not going to work for me but it will for someone else some day.’”
Gretzky’s thoughts turn to Tyler McGregor, the captain of Canada’s sledge hockey team. McGregor had the same type of cancer as Fox. He had an amputation, underwent chemotherapy, received medicine and has won three Paralympic medals and seven at world championships.
Gretzky muses about the conversation with Fox, who died the next year, and with McGregor, who has beaten cancer.
“If you don’t believe in God,” he says as his voice trails off.
He has to get ready now to attend the Presidents Cup for a bit and then take on the Michelob Ultra Challenge. The first was held last year, in Toronto with Block as the only participant. There were no holes in one.
This year Gretzky was added to the mix.
Several months ago he and Block filmed a commercial to be aired ahead of Friday’s event.
Block made a hole in one on his second shot.
“I watched as it bounced once and right in,” Gretzky says. “I told him, ‘It’s too bad you did that. Everybody’s going to think it is fake.’”
The sponsor had a contest online in which the public could predict how many shots it would take before a hole in one was made.
Someone told Gretzky they had picked No. 79.
“I told him he should have picked 99,” Gretzky says.
He seems happy and in the right place.
“I’m one of the fortunate few right now,” he says. “I have five fabulous children and could not ask for more.”