Bill Belichick: Tom Brady came ‘pretty close to honestly dying’ at Pebble Beach

Under Bill Belichick’s eye, Tom Brady got under center in 326 games as a New England Patriot.

NFL football is about as rough-and-tumble as any sport around the world, but Belichick said he was never more afraid for the quarterback’s health than when the two were on Pebble Beach’s Par-5 6th hole.

Yes, golfing. On Brady’s “Let’s Go!” podcast, Belichick shared a hilarious story about when the two hit the links together at the legendary California course in 2014.

“Tom and I played together for three days in the Pro-Am out there,” Belichick said. “And I think, if I could sum up Tom Brady in one picture, it would be on the sixth hole where he drove the ball to the right. It looked like he was over the cliff, right? When he teed off, he was way to the right. We get down there, and he’s standing over the cliff, and he’s like, ‘I think I see it.’ And he takes his club down there and he climbs over the cliff. I can only see like from about his shoulders up. Now, it’s 200 feet down into the rocks. There’s no way he survives this fall. And I’m looking at the greatest quarterback, our player: Tom Brady standing there, literally on a goddamn ledge.”

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Apparently Brady was nonchalant about the entire thing.

“And he hits the ball off the ledge, up the hill to the sixth green, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I mean, this is Tom Brady.’ Like, No. 1: super competitor,” Belichick said. “He’s trying to hit this impossible shot. Comes pretty close to honestly dying and landing in the goddamn rocks 200 feet below. All in the name of competition, and being the best he can be and taking whatever the situation is, wherever the ball lands, and playing it, hitting the next good shot. And I was like… ‘Just take the two-stroke penalty, man. Play the pro’s ball!’

“I’m telling you, I was never more worried about Tom, physically, then when I saw him standing on that ledge, hitting the ball up to the sixth green at Pebble — with like a 25 mile-an-hour wind, too, just to make it interesting.”

In hindsight, Brady admitted it wasn’t his wisest decision, but all’s well that ends well, right?

“I’ve done a lot of dumb things in my life. That was probably right at the top of the list,” Brady said. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of stupid (expletive) but I’m happy I didn’t pay the price for that one. That could have been nasty.”