Austin Reaves finishes 13th in first year at American Century Championship

While LeBron James and Anthony Davis are playing for Team USA, Austin Reaves is competing in popular golf tournaments over the summer.

Everyone’s summer in the NBA is different. Some players take part in Team USA, like LeBron James and Anthony Davis this year, some players take part in Summer League, like Maxwell Lewis, Dalton Knecht and Bronny James, and some people spend it working entirely on their game.

And then there’s people like Austin Reaves, who plays in golf tournaments.

Reaves’ love for golf has been well documented. He has a TikTok channel dedicated entirely to golf.

He’s also not a bad golfer, either. He’s good enough, in fact, that he got invited to the American Century Championship this year.

The tournament is one full of celebrities and athletes from other sports. Memorably, in recent years, Steph Curry won the tournament in 2023, a victory he credited to the Lakers.

Reaves, though, isn’t quite on Steph’s level yet. While he certainly had a strong showing on the weekend, Reaves finished tied with Ray Allen for 13th in the event.

Former tennis star Mardy Fish won the tournament for a second time. Allen and Reaves were the top finishers for former and current NBA players. Dell Curry, Charles Barkley, Vince Carter and Blake Griffin were the other notable basketball players who took part.

The scoring system is a bit of an odd one for the tournament, likely devised to hide the fact most of these guys are that great at golf. Instead of scoring indicating how far above or below par a golfer is, there’s a point system:

• Double Eagle 10 points
• Hole in one 8 points
• Eagle 6 points
• Birdie 3 points
• Par 1 point
• Bogey 0 points
• Double Bogey -2 points

Reaves finished with a score of 47. Officially, he shot +12 with traditional scoring. A one-under round of 71 on Saturday was sandwiched between six-over and seven-over rounds on Friday and Sunday, respectively.

On Sunday, Reaves was paired with Vikings safety Harrison Smith and MLB Hall of Famer Joe Mauer. Reaves was paired with quarterbacks on Saturday, a former one in Matt Ryan and a current one in Josh Allen. On both days, he narrowly missed out on being paired with Travis and Jason Kelce, which could have led to some awkward conversations.

This likely won’t be the last time Reaves takes part in the competition, at least until Team USA comes to their senses and starts calling him up for Olympics play in the future.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.