Searching for reasons why golf is so utterly magnificent, two jump out immediately. One, our courses are filled with hockey players who love golf and two, our courses are filled with golfers who love hockey.
Kindred spirits, golfers and hockey players are, and perhaps it’s because greatness is so intertwined. Golf is our greatest individual game and hockey is unmatched as a team game and should you want to debate, go elsewhere. There’s a wonderful story about a family’s spirit that shines at the intersection of hockey and golf.
“Golf was always a part of our life in our house,” said Jay Riley. “Of course hockey was number one. It just was.”
By a mile, too. Start with the incomparable career of Jack Riley whose very existence revolved around ice, sticks and pucks.
As did his younger brothers Billy (’46) and Joey (’49), Jack Riley (’44) had a wonderful career at Dartmouth. Playing for the USA in the 1948 Olympics was a notable entry in Jack Riley’s life but coaching Team USA to the gold medal at the 1960 Games is shamefully overlooked when it shouldn’t be.
Ah, but coaching Army from 1950 to 1986 made him an icon and set in motion a family’s devotion to being behind the bench.
We’ll return to hockey in a moment, but first, if you’re wondering about 36 years at Army and what that meant for Jack’s wife and five children, rest assure the memories are still cherished.
“It was an unbelievable place to grow up if you liked sports,” said Jay, the oldest of the five siblings. Rink rats in the winter, Jay and his three brothers and one sister had football in the fall, baseball in the spring, and whenever they were so moved, they had the golf course.
“All of us played, but I loved it a little more than my brothers,” said Jay. “Even my mother took up the game in her 40s and would play nine holes.”
The highlight were the cadet matches “and if you could caddie in those, that’s what you wanted as a kid,” said Jay.
As much as the athletic scene at West Point was dominated by football and hockey and baseball – and getting to study the early years of coaches like Bill Parcells and Bobby Knight – golf had its share of highlights. Most notably, there are great memories of future U.S. Open champion Orville Moody and a cadet named Bert Yancey, who would go on to have a star-crossed career on the PGA Tour.
“I was 8 or 9 when Yancey was there,” said Jay. “My father knew the golf coach so he took Yancey, who was captain of the golf team, as the hockey manager.”
Quite the perk, being the hockey manager, only Yancey sadly did not reap the benefits in his senior year. He spent most of that year in medical care, having had a nervous breakdown. Though he did make it onto the PGA Tour and win seven times, his mental illness took its toll and he left tour life in the prime of his career. Years later, having benefitted from better medical care, Yancey returned to 5play the PGA Tour champions only he collapsed and died of a massive heart attack in 1994. He was just 56.
“He was so talented and I remember my dad always tried to stay in touch,” said Jay. “He was our favorite player and we always rooted for him when he got into contention.”
Moody, who had enlisted in the Army and had the rank of Sergeant, was stationed at West Point though Riley said no one ever seemed to know why.
“He drove a light green Cadillac and he played a lot of golf. So did my dad, and sometimes they’d have a match. I was about 15 and I remember Orville asking my dad how many shots he wanted. My dad was competitive and fiery and wasn’t about to take any shots.”
The opportunity to caddie for Sgt. Moody for just nine holes earned Jay Riley a $4 reward one day. On another occasion young Jay was recruited to caddie for a guy by the name of Bob Goalby. “He was on campus to film a Vitalis ‘Greasy Kid’ commercial,” laughed Riley.
Should you know your golf history, you might connect the dots. “Yup, I caddied for two major winners,” noted Riley, referring to Goalby’s 1968 Masters win and Moody’s triumph in the ’69 U.S. Open.
When Jay Riley (second from left) and brother Mark (second from right) show up for the Riley Grudge Match, it's serious business. Jay's sons Jack (left) and Mickey (right) were part of the competition this year but reportedly you cannot ask who won.
Pure coincidence most likely, but then again if you want to suggest that some Riley magic rubbed off on them thanks to the oldest of Jack Riley’s five children, have at it. After all, there did seem to be something flavorful about these Rileys with their Medford, Mass., roots.
For instance, Jay Riley’s father, Jack, and uncles Billy and Joey? All three brothers are members of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, owed to brilliant careers for Dartmouth.
Billy Riley’s son, also Billy, was a legendary hockey coach at UMass-Lowell, where he won three NCAA Division 2 championships.
Nowhere did the hockey coaching tree spread as broadly as did beneath Jack Riley’s tutelage. When he called it a career at Army in 1986, he was succeeded by his third son, Rob, who had showed his stuff by leading Babson to a Division 3 national title.
At Army, it was 16-year run for Rob, who in 2004 handed the reigns over to his younger brother, Brian. When the 2024-25 season comes to an end, Brian will step down, concluding not only his 21-year stretch but 75 years of Riley leadership behind the Army bench.
“There is great pride in that Army connection, but also for what so many in the family have done,” said Jay, who played for Harvard (’74) and was followed into college hockey by brothers Mark (Boston College), Rob (Boston College), and Brian (Brown), and also sister Mary Beth (St. Lawrence).
National championships, Frozen Four appearances, scoring records, Hall of Fame inductions. Stellar stuff for so many Rileys and while Jay can fashion a self-deprecating sense of humor and note that there isn’t a Hall of Fame on his resume, the truth is, there’s a heavy dose of wit, charm, and panache at work with Jay Riley, now 74.
If there’s a Hall of Fame for being a friend and compadre for sure Jay Riley is there. But while he knows his way around a golf course, make no mistake about this: He’s forever a hockey guy and forever hockey guys who love golf are the best.
Can that be quantified? Damn right. Bobby Orr is in that club. Onward we go.
The passion for golf runs deep with Jay Riley and he uses the game to maintain ties that means so much to him. He and brother Mark, plus UConn hockey coach Mike Cavanaugh, annually sponsor the Jack Riley Invitational and you can imagine the characters who come to play.
“Most of the friends I’ve met in life play golf or we’re pals who grew up playing hockey and now we play golf,” said Jay Riley.
Even his father, so devout a hockey guy, loved golf. “He was a pretty good player, too,” said Jay. “But he played quick and he didn’t believe in practice swings. They just slow you down.”
Years ago, probably after another efficient round at The Hyannisport Club – maybe even a 1-hour-20-minute nine-holer – Jack Riley was shown an article that explained that hockey players made good golfers because shooting a puck was so similar to the golf swing.
“My dad called BS on that theory,” laughed Jay. “He said hockey players made good golfers because they spent their summers on golf courses.”
You can’t argue with the great man’s logic. Nor can you argue with the premise that hockey players who love golf and golfers who love hockey form a deep, rich flavorful layer.
It’s truth.
