TRUE linkswear’s new United By Golf features Ian Kinsler, from World Series champion to +.4 index, Kinsler never lost his competitive edge — he just found a new stage for it. Since retiring from Major League Baseball, he’s approached golf the same way he approached the batting cage: repetition, discipline, and the relentless pursuit of getting better.
Kinsler opens up about desert rounds in Arizona, walking Augusta National, money games at the club, and why golf demands something even baseball never could — complete accountability. Different sport. Same fire. Same walk.
Ian Kinsler is competitive. Which is one huge reason the former MLB infielder has won both a World Series ring and the World Baseball Classic. He truly embraces what it takes to excel at a sport.
Since retiring in 2019, Kinsler has taken on golf with the same passion. How he works on improving his golf swing is similar to his approach with baseball when he “worked on body movements and repetition at the batting cage and hitting ball after ball – to try to reach perfection, which we all know is unattainable,” says Kinsler, who hits the fairways with a +1.1 index. “Golf has allowed me the same sort of escape as going to a batting cage and working off a tee, or doing some batting practice and hitting ball after ball to try to iron everything out. It’s very similar for me.
Now 43 and living in Dallas, Kinsler stays busy on and off the course. He’s an advisor to the Texas Rangers general manager, and is part owner of the Warstic baseball bat company. Most importantly, he’s a family man with two athletic kids who he helps out with their sports. His escape, though, is golf.
What does playing golf do for him that baseball just can’t replicate? “Well, there are no foul balls in golf,” says Kinsler. “Every stroke is counted. And it’s all leaning on me – there’s no excuse or somebody to bail me out if I’m not performing that day. With baseball, you can go 0-for-4, make an error and play a really bad game. But your teammates can win, and you can still be happy after that game’s over. There’s no running from it in golf – it’s all up to you. And the only person that you can lean on is yourself. And I’m definitely competitive on the course – playing money games at the club when I play with friends. We get pretty competitive. That’s one thing that I’ll probably replicate from playing baseball – the competitive juices.”
Kinsler was introduced to golf at a young age by a really close friend and his father, while he grew up in Tucson. “We had the opportunity when school got out to take a golf etiquette course and pass the class, and they gave us a laminated card that we could use to get on any public course for free in the summertime because it was so hot there,” he recalls. “No one’s really on the course then, but they allowed youth to play for free. So a group of me and my friends got dropped off quite frequently at the golf course, and I learned to play through a really good friend of mine. It was just fun being competitive. I always loved it because it was just me and my friends, and it was not baseball or soccer. And I was okay at it. We also had a bunch of free time on the course, so we’d look for golf balls and mess around out there. It always just was a really fun time for me. And when you and all your friends play it, it makes you get hooked on the game pretty easily.”
His golf game has been pretty stellar. Whenever he returns home, he loves playing golf in the Arizona desert and mountains. His favorite course there is The Gallery Golf Club. “Anytime I get to go back there, it’s awesome,” he says. “But nothing really holds a candle to Augusta National. I got to play there and that was a fantastic experience. I didn’t shoot very good. It was right in the middle of my playing days, so my golf game wasn’t as dialed in as it is now. At that point, it was pretty hit or miss, but still enjoyable. We also got to play the par-3 course and stay on property in the Bobby Jones cabin, so it was pretty special.”
He advises aspiring baseball players that they have to enjoy the practice and every aspect of the game, if they want to continue to grow and get better. And he feels the identical way about golf. “A lot of it is just enjoying the repetition and the pursuit of trying to get better,” he says. “If you enjoy that, then you can go as far as you’d like.”
To help make that road smoother, Kinsler wears TRUE linkswear shoes daily. He’s a brand ambassador, but says he honestly wears the company gear because he loves it. “With TRUE, it’s the new shoes they came out with and the progression that they keep having as a company that’s really fun to see and be a part of,” says Kinsler. “To be able to try the new products is really cool. We do quite a bit of walking in Dallas, so their shoes are super comfortable and made for walking 18 holes. Now they have two models with spikes on the bottom – I like the Lux 2 the best. I love wearing spiked golf shoes – maybe it’s the baseball mentality of just being in metal spikes and in the ground and no excuse to slip. But now that they have those two models, it’s awesome. I wear TRUE shoes off the course, too. I wear royal blue FS-Slides a lot and the FS-O2 Mixed Media with jeans or shorts.”
