As the story goes, a teenage Peter Parker acquires his superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider, but the current Spider-Man’s origin tale might be even more unlikely. Tom Holland was 10 when his hip-hop class performed at a dance festival, and he caught the eye of someone connected to the Royal Ballet School. That led to the British-born actor playing the title role in the West End production of “Billy Elliot” and, eventually, movie parts—including the role for which he’s most famous—followed.

“It’s so funny; I don’t know who that person is who spotted me that day,” Holland says. “I’ve never met them, and I owe my entire career to them.”

Now he’s one of the biggest stars in Hollywood with three Spider-Man movies bringing in a staggering $4 billion in box offices around the world with a fourth film in the series slated to be released in 2026. We caught up with Holland on a crisp fall day in New England, and it was easy to see why the leading man is also a leader in pro-ams around the world, like at last year’s BMW PGA at Wentworth Golf Club, where he and younger brothers Harry and Sam teamed with Tommy Fleetwood to win. Holland was quick to note that Fleetwood did “a lot of the heavy lifting,” but Holland, who sports a 2.5 Handicap Index and a smooth and powerful swing, did make three consecutive birdies on his own ball. Perhaps we should not be surprised, considering that the wiry 28-year-old does most of his own stunts on set.

Just before the round Fleetwood’s six-year-old son, Frankie, dressed as Spider-Man, met the Marvel star who grew up wearing many variations of that costume and sleeping in Spidey bedsheets himself. Holland was also a kid when his dad, Dominic, a comedian and author, introduced him to golf. Holland fell back in love with the game on the set of “Spider-Man: Far From Home” when he met crew member Alex Roberts.

“Alex was the guy outside the clubhouse working as a carpenter and practicing his swing, just air swinging while wearing his drill and his hammer,” Holland recalls. “I just introduced myself and then we started playing golf. Now me and my friends and his friends, we go on holiday three times a year together.”

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Holland doesn’t have to be on holiday to enjoy golf. He keeps his clubs with him on set and plays on his off days. He loves the sport and competing—especially with his brothers—but it’s also an activity that makes sense given his job. “It’s just irresponsible for me to play contact sports,” Holland says. “Everyone’s working on a job and if I break my ankle, then the job has to shut down.” Not that he hasn’t gotten hurt on the course, like when Roberts, a scratch golfer, managed to hit a ball off Holland’s head last year. Welts aside, Holland is thankful for the connections he’s made through the game.

“I think golf has been really helpful for me in terms of networking within the industry because it’s a very golf-heavy business,” says Holland, who counts Marvel co-star Chris Pratt among his favorite playing partners. “I’ve actually got a deal point across in my contract playing golf. I met the producer I was negotiating with on a par three. I stuck it closer than he did and won the deal point. It was something minor that we were fighting over, like agreeing to a driver or something like that.”

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Golf has served as an escape from that industry and the spotlight. Holland and his fiancée and fellow Spider-Man co-star Zendaya, a two-time Emmy Award winner for her role in HBO’s “Euphoria,” make for one of the most famous celebrity couples on the planet. He says the paparazzi have gone as far as to hide in the bushes when he plays golf, but for the most part, the course is his place to “wind down.” It’s also been his preferred place to socialize, instead of Hollywood parties. Holland stopped drinking alcohol in January 2022 and launched a line of non-alcoholic beer, BERO, in late 2024.

“It definitely keeps me out of trouble,” Holland says of golf. “I think getting sober was a big reason why my handicap got better because I would go to bed early and would strive to wake up and shoot low scores. What used to happen to me is if I was playing badly, I would drink at the turn and then I would play worse, so I would drink more. Having cut that out has made for some more complete rounds.”

Holland only needed part of a round at the 2021 BMW PGA Championship pro-am to go viral and catch the attention of three-time major champ Padraig Harrington. Faced with a 260-yard second shot over water on Wentworth’s finishing par 5, Holland hit a driver off the deck after getting Harrington to promise him a Ryder Cup captain’s pick if he knocked it on the green. Holland didn’t quite pull off the daring shot, but he still impressed Paddy.

Holland has had other on-course highlights, most notably two career holes-in-one, although he says “no one believed” the first, which came during a solo round. “I always say, ‘Look, I’m lucky enough that my life is really exciting. I don’t need to lie about getting a hole-in-one,’ ” Holland says with a laugh. “My second one I was playing in a match in Atlanta with the crew of Spider-Man 3. My brother was behind us. He was furious.”

For a superhero, Holland maintains a charming everyman quality. He laments that he bought his current set of irons just before a new model came out, and he hasn’t replaced a 3-wood that was damaged during travel. Holland admits to letting his temper get the best of him at times saying, “I’ve done at least 14 clubs over my knee in my life.”

He’s also open about his struggles with the shanks a few years back. “For the life of me, I could not stop shanking . . . it was really gnarly,” Holland said. “I took some lessons to help me iron that out. Because I was a dancer back in the day, I’ve got really good control of my body. I work really well when someone gives me a feel like, ‘You need to feel the stretch in your lat the top of your backswing.’ ”

Holland is happy with the state of his game now, though. We witnessed him hit some booming drives as well as hole a birdie chip as he filmed an episode of “On the Tee” with Hally Leadbetter. That high level of play will be tougher to maintain in 2025, however, with Holland set to film a fourth Spider-Man movie as well as Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster take on “The Odyssey.”

“It’s something I took into account for sure,” Holland said of having less time on the course while spending much more time on set. “My game will take a hit, but I need to work, so it is what it is.”

As Holland is well aware already, there’s no odyssey like the trials and tribulations a golfer goes through in life.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com