The Loop

A Motown legend's thoughts on golf and music

May 18, 2011

Smokey Robinson has made a lifetime of being a soulful crooner. His ambitions as a golfer are significantly less lofty.

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Robinson recently played 18 holes with Yahoo! Sports Editor Michael Arkish. The round revealed plenty about the famed singer and songwriter's life, both on and off the course.

"After I started playing well, whenever I had a bad outing, it would just mess me up," Robinson told Yahoo! Sports. "I'd be angry at myself. And then I saw Jack Nicklaus shoot 80 on TV one day and I realized, 'Who do I think I am?'"

Nowadays, Robinson takes his shots and scores in stride as he takes to the golf course to relax in his spare time of being a busy showman. Even at 71-years-old, he still does about 80 concerts a year. So what does the Motown legend think of todays' music scene?

"There is some good music and some bad music and there always has been," he explains. "It just so happens that we live in a world where negativity is the focal point. People talk about the negative music, not realizing how much positive music is being made."

Forget about the negative and focus on the positive? Sounds like pretty good golf advice.

-- Alex Myers

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(AP Photo)