Manning Goes Out a Champion, Comes Back a Golfer?

The 4-handicap QB may have thrown his last pass, but his golf game is anything but retiring.

Jon Rizzi

We’ve had the cover line written since Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos in 2012: 18 with 18.

The problem is, we haven’t had the story to go with it.

Like many of us, Manning’s day job got in the way of his golf. During his time as Broncos quarterback, he led the team to four straight playoff appearances—the last of which culminated in Sunday’s thrilling Super Bowl victory over the favored Carolina Panthers.

As we all know, the 39-year-old Manning eclipsed his boss, John Elway, as the oldest quarterback ever to play in the Super Bowl. And since, like Elway, he won that big game, finishing on a high note, there’s nothing left for him to prove.

Manning even passed Brett Favre as the NFL’s all-time winningest quarterback, 200-199—and he did so despite coming off a torn plantar fascia and other ailments that resulted in an abysmal quarterback rating of 56.6 in the game, lower than his league-worst 67.9.

Few will fault the sheriff if he hangs up his spurs and rides a golf cart into the sunset.

After all, he does have game. He's played enough golf to carry a 4 handicap at Castle Pines, Cherry Hills and Tennessee’s The Honors Course. He shot a 77 at Augusta National in 2013, and in 2014 he comically appeared in a television ad with Elway, John Lynch and Chauncey Billups for the BMW Championship.

 

(By the way, those three other Denver sports icons have all appeared on the cover of our magazine…just sayin’.)

Colorado loves its Broncos, and so does the staff of Colorado AvidGolfer. And since we started our company in 2002, the Broncos have always supported us. We’ve featured 17 current or former players on the magazine’s cover, and last August we profiled team President, Chairman and CEO Joe Ellis.

Manning would make it, yes, 18.

Whether or not we just saw Peyton Manning’s last game, a Super Bowl victory serves as quite the capstone to an 18-year career. 

And should we then get to play that elusive round of golf with him, we might just have to revise that cover line: 18 with 18 after 18. 

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