What you need to remember at every snapshot of Ken Casey’s Great Golf Adventure – from Tara Iti in New Zealand, to Royal Melbourne in Australia, to the Old Course in Scotland, to Tromsø 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, to Sand Hills in Nebraska, to the majesty of Pebble Beach and Cypress Point out on the Monterey Peninsula – is that none of this happens without his job and his job really only happened out of pure serendipity.
We are talking a wildly entertaining life that didn’t have a script. It’s been ad libitum to the nth degree and that makes Ken Casey an incredibly fascinating study.
He was headed for a career as a laborer in the unions, working as a part-time bartender at Boston’s famous Symphony Hall while he attended UMass-Boston. What took up a lot of his time, however, “was telling guys I was going to put a band together.”
Tired of hearing the incessant chatter, a friend in 1996 put down a $30 challenge and “purely as a joke” Casey accepted the bet. He got some pals together, practiced a set of about six covers – “ ‘70s punk stuff, some Clash” – and one week later, Casey and his bandmates played before an audience. Bet won.
Now Casey never did collect his $30, but he had taken that fork in the road. By 1997 his band, “Dropkick Murphys,” hit the road in their restored MBTA van, and by 1998 they had recorded the first of what is now an impressive list of 12 albums.
A phenomenal success story, for sure, and for reasons that were succinctly expressed by Nick Allan in a rocksins.com review of a Jan. 31, 2023 Dropkicks show at London’s Wembley Arena: “If you ever get a chance to catch the Dropkick Murphys, it is a must. They toe the line between fun and serious, heartfelt and comedic. If you like your punk with an Irish twang, this is the band for you. A nearly two-hour set and 23 songs later, we were left wanting more.”
Certainly, there are endless options should you want to deliver more with the Dropkicks’ music. But in this particular corner we are all about golf and golfers and few acquaintances burn with a spirit for the game quite like Casey.
“Golf clears my head. It’s very healing,” said Casey, whose story must always include a crucial nugget in which he takes great pride. Becoming sober, as he did 32 years ago, was significant in his pursuit of a music career “and it helped my golf game, too.”
Now when it comes to bands, it’s not exactly a secret that a hard and fast lifestyle is part of the culture. “But I clearly burn the candle at both ends in a different way,” laughs Casey, who travels everywhere with his clubs and concedes that golf is his vice.
For example, with the Dropkicks in Eugene, Ore., Casey meandered two hours to Bandon Dunes and after playing 18 on Bandon Trails “I decided to squeeze in another 18 on Bandon Dunes.”
Barely making it back in time for the evening show, Casey was told by a veteran of the rock scene that “you’re more difficult to handle than a drug addict.”
A shrug of the shoulders and Casey’s trademark sheepish smile confirms that he accepts his weakness and isn’t about to apologize.
His grandmother, Peg Casey, introduced Ken to golf at Holly Ridge, a par-3 on Cape Cod and while the music and songs in his professional life address the heartache and the struggles that are predominant for so many in our society, “golf gets me away from a chaotic world, it is my balance, it is where everything slows down for me.”
How brilliant has it all been? Utterly brilliant for a guy who probably had never been outside of New England until the music came along and opened up the doors to a golf world he has never stopped loving.
When the greatest hockey player ever agrees to a photo during a pro-am, Ken Casey made sure to gather the troops -- daughter Emma, oldest son Liam, and young Colin. Vintage Bobby Orr, and a photo Ken Casey will cherish forever.
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His band’s ambitious schedule has enabled Casey to pursue his goal of playing Top 100 courses and to experience golf on all the continents. But it’s the friendships he has nurtured along the way that validates his love of golf.
“At Royal Melbourne (Australia), I’m just standing on the putting green, a guy all tattooed up, and out of nowhere two members ask, ‘Do you have a game?’
“It’s such a compliment to the Aussies that they made me feel welcomed. They even invited me to their house for dinner. It’s the people from all walks of life I’ve met.”
Asked to play with a record producer from Japan, Casey realized golf did not need a translator. The man from Japan was too proud to take strokes, so Casey proposed the bet – ten fingers flashed three times – and onward they went.
All $30 fell into Casey’s hand and the gentleman bowed his head and said something to his manager. “I was told the man said, ‘Nobody beat Ken Casey,” laughed Casey.
We’re not sure about that, but we are sure of this – not a lot of people surpass Ken Casey when it comes to pushing the envelope to experience the joy of golf and all that comes with it. Like the exotic golf at Tara Iti in New Zealand where Casey took it a step further and sand-surfed a majestic dune.
A member at Boston Golf Club in Hingham, Mass., Casey embraces a golf course that is a testament to the visionary brilliance of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner and a membership that “is so good, so down-to-earth.” Because while he can vouch for a worldly grasp of golf courses, Casey doesn’t take for granted his time at home and that his children – Emma, who plays golf at Stonehill College; Liam, who attends Montana State; and Colin, a high school freshman – all have shared golf experiences with him, at home and on the road.
Polished and so comfortable in who they are, the Dropkick Murphys recently produced a pair of albums that include a lot of Woody Guthrie words set to their inimitable “punk” fervor. It’s all so daring, all so adventurous, which matches what runs hand in hand with Ken Casey’s music – his golf. He burns for new experiences with this crazy game.
Near the top of his list: A round of golf at Ushuaia Golf Club on the southern tip of Argentina, a nine-hole course, a mere 680 miles from Antarctica.
“I’ve already played the northern-most golf course in the world,” said Casey, referring to Tromsø GC, which he played after midnight following a summer show in Norway. “So why not play the southern-most golf course in the world?”
Why not, indeed. Especially when you know what they say about Ushuaia GC? “Where the world ends, the course begins.”
Now that’s music to Ken Casey’s ears.
