The Patriots aren’t strangers to bringing two-sport athletes aboard.
Tom Brady played baseball and was such a good catcher he was drafted by the Montreal Expos. Kicker Stephen Gostkowski’s scholarship to Memphis wasn’t about football. It was to play baseball for the Tigers as a pitcher.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see another Patriot excel in another sport.
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Punter Bryce Baringer won the 2024 Massachusetts Amateur Qualifier over the weekend. That qualifies him to golf in the 2024 Massachusetts Amateur Championship July 8th, which is well before the start of Patriots’ training camp at the end of the month.
Baringer won the qualifier thanks to sinking a 25-foot birdie putt on the final hole to shoot a 1-under par 69 at Stockbridge Golf Club.
“Making a putt like that feels like you’re pinning the opponent deep,” Baringer told Mass Golf.
The Patriots punter then took part in the father-son golf tournament with his dad on Father’s Day.
“He was pumped for me, and obviously it’s cool for us because I know how important golf is to him,” Baringer told Patriots.com. “Just to be able to make him proud, not just on the football field, but in a sport he so deeply cares about was cool for me.”
Patriots coaches and teammates had encouraged Baringer, a sixth-round draft pick last year, to take part in the golf qualifier.
Baringer told Patriots.com he finds similarities between football and golf.
“Golf forces you to stay in the moment,” Baringer said. “I could have a good shot or a bad shot — a good punt or a bad punt. All that matters is how you recover and how you come back. I think that’s another big correlation.”
Former Patriots running back Danny Woodhead nearly qualified for the U.S. Open, which was played at The Country Club in Brookline, last year.
Who knows where this will lead Baringer? But for now, he’ll participate in the Mass Amateur, then head to training camp at the end of July for his real job.
