Patrick Warburton can currently be seen in the new comedy The Duel, starring Dylan Sprouse and Callan McAuliffe. Known for his deep, booming voice, Patrick has had memorable roles in Seinfeld, Family Guy, Rules of Engagement and The Emperor’s New Groove. In addition to his iconic roles, Patrick charity efforts have raised over $4.7 million this year through his star-studded 13th Annual Patrick Warburton Celebrity Golf Tournament, benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This incredible achievement marks the tournament as the biggest celebrity golf event in the world, with a cumulative total of over $26 million raised over 12 years. (Photo by Bobby Quillard.)
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the release of the new comedy thriller The Duel, starring Dylan Sprouse, Callan McAuliffe and Patrick Warburton, veteran comedy actor Warburton – best known for his work on shows like Seinfeld and Family Guy – shared some of the things he loves the most in life. — N.D.
Golf
Though I played golf most of my life, I never previously considered myself a golfer, but now I’ve come to realize that golf has been a big part of my life. I started playing golf years ago and for decades I took no real lessons. It was just one of the many bad habits I cultivated, but it didn’t really matter because all the guys I played with were hacks and we just used golf as an excuse to get together and drink beer. I never really worked on my game until I joined a golf club three years ago. It has a tough course and I realized that if I didn’t get my game together, I was not going to have fun playing golf anymore. So I worked on it and I’ve gotten better.
I’ll never be a great golfer, but what I love about golf are all the different aspects that make it what it is. It’s like a religion, in many ways – it’s spiritual. It’s about so much other than just having a great golf game. I can read big books, like Bobby Jones on Golf, which has all this minutia and nuance, and get immersed in its stories because I love the legend and the lore of golf, but it only goes so far.
Golf can be a mirror for your life. If you’re feeling good in life and you’re relaxed, you’ll have that focus and hit the ball well, but if you’re under a lot of stress and things are getting to you, you’re not going to play good golf. Whatever is external in your life is going to affect your golf game. I’ve sadly never had a day when I felt crappy, my head was not in a good place and I was frustrated by things and then I went out and played a good round of golf. That just doesn’t seem to happen. If you have tension, it’s a killer for your golf game. You grab the club too hard, that gets your swing off plane and then your whole game gets off kilter. And that probably creates more tension, which just exacerbates the problem. But when I’m comfortable and things are good and everything’s working out, I tend to have better days on the course. When I play good golf, it just feels amazing. And it means a lot to me.
Birds
While having our coffee in the morning, my wife and I have recently started birdwatching, which began when we put out a bunch of birdseed next to our window. We then observed the bird culture, how the dominant ones would come in and scare the other ones away, and then we started getting to know what species were out there. Now we have lots of different bird feeders that attract different species. We have eight different types of feeders and are suddenly surrounded by birds. We have a woodpecker who comes and hammers away at our hummingbird feeder. We’ve got a feeder that attracts finches, doves and a number of other different birds. And because we’ve learned some of the different species, it’s always fun whenever we see a bird we can’t identify and say, “Oh, here’s somebody who’s maybe a little off course … or on vacation!”
When I was in a grocery store not long ago, I saw a woman buying eight jars of jelly and said, “You’re making a lot of peanut butter sandwiches!” She said, “No, it’s for the Bullock’s Orioles.” The orioles are beautiful, a brilliant yellow, and we never saw them in our yard until we started putting out jelly and other food. The problem with the oriole feeder is that there’s a lot of sugar in the jelly, and the bees have discovered it too. So now when we have bees all over that feeder, then some birds seem to stay away, but if the bees are there early in the morning, the orioles will come in the afternoon.
We’ve now got a field guide, but we don’t need the binoculars because the birds are right there, which is awesome. My brother-in-law is an actual birdwatcher; he will go and walk in the wilds to find birds. I’m not there yet. If they’re going to come visit us while we’re having our coffee, we like their company, but I’m not going to dedicate hours of my life searching for birds. That’s a little too nerdy for me, though not for my brother-in-law. He does a lot of stuff like that, for instance, marking down every time he sees a license plate from a different state. He has completed all 50 states numerous times. That’s ridiculous. What he’s doing now is counting counties, so he is traveling through every county in the United States. He’s got elaborate maps showing the more than 3,000 counties in the U.S. Only a small number of people have ever gone to every county in the United States, and that’s the end goal for him. To me, that’s insane, just insane.
My Family
My priority and my main love in life is obviously my family. My wife and I have four amazing kids who all seem to be thriving and are better acclimated to this world and have better heads on their shoulders than I ever did. My generation was incredibly rebellious and back in the day I personally did so much damage and got in so much trouble, without any consideration whatsoever as to what would happen. It’s remarkable at this point to think some of my friends are still alive, but now it just seems like a lifetime ago. We love our kids and we love our dogs, even though the two of them shit in the house every day. Every day. And I’m not apparently allowed to say “Bad girl!”, even though my wife’s positive affirmation is clearly not working!
My relationship with my boys is very different one the relationship I had with my father. I’m more like an older brother. I’ve learned as much from them as they have from me, and I have so much love and respect for them. My dad was a wonderful man – he was a great doctor, had a big heart and worked for Doctors Without Borders – but he whipped us with the belt when we were young. I don’t care if everybody on the street is doing that, you don’t have to do it. So with my kids, we always focused on communication instead, and for that reason, I think they had respect for themselves and felt much better. They had no need to rebel. I only asked two things of them – one, don’t do drugs, and two, don’t ride motorcycles in the streets of Los Angeles – and they heeded those requests. The generation gap between men of my age and their fathers seems to be much greater than the generation gap between me and my sons. We have things in common, especially the music we love. I’ve got a 30 m.p.h. skateboard and I’m still basically 10 years old at heart. I stay active and try to keep up with the boys. I’ve done an OK job, I think.
