Blue Jay Way

For All-Star Josh Donaldson, golf is all about having a laugh.

- Sam Weinman

Josh Donaldson’s contract with the Toronto Blue Jays will pay him $17 million this year, so you might think he needs a few hundred bucks on the line for a golf match to quicken his heart rate.

But that’s not how Donaldson’s usual game works. At Lake Forest Country Club in Daphne, Ala., where the All-Star third baseman spends his off-season, Donaldson, 31, plays with a selection of retirees who are sometimes 40 years his senior. The stakes are low. The laugh count is high.

Donaldson wouldn’t have it any other way. “These are retired old men. They don’t want to go out and lose all their cash,” he says with a chuckle. “We just go out there to enjoy golf. That’s what so great about it. You can have all different types of abilities and still be somewhat competitive.”

Donaldson’s 5.4 Handicap Index might not adequately speak to his ability. For a player who has hit 78 home runs the past two seasons, the 2015 American League MVP not surprisingly can deliver the long ball. In a recent segment on Golf Channel, he stepped in cold and hammered a straight, 308-yard drive on a simulator. He’s matter-of-fact when saying, “I can do some things that some pros can’t,” but he adds a key qualifier: “I can also hit the ball really squirrelly, too.”

Donaldson grew up next to a driving range in the Florida Panhandle, and though he had a club in his hand as young as 18 months, he didn’t take golf seriously until he was in college at Auburn.