Russell Henley’s guitar playing provides outlet from stress on TOUR

Russell Henley knows better than to quit his day job. Even so, he has enjoyed occasionally getting up on stage and playing his guitar with the likes of Keith Urban, Darius Rucker and the alternative rock band, O.A.R. over the years.

“I was nervous,” the three-time PGA TOUR champion admits. “But I was excited to play – I probably had some false confidence.”

Henley’s first jam session came courtesy of a bet made with Rucker during the pro-am of what is now known as the RSM Classic in 2014. When the TOUR pro won, he soon found himself on stage after the tournament, playing the Hootie & The Blowfish classic “Wagon Wheel.”

“I just said, hey, do you want to play a match today, and he said, sure,” Henley recalls. “And by like the 12th hole, he said, you win. And so, I just asked him if I could play a song with him, and he nicely enough said yes.”

Then at The Genesis Invitational in 2015, Henley played three songs with O.A.R. during a free concert on the range at historic Riviera Country Club. And Peter Jacobsen, who once had his own band on TOUR called Jake Trout and the Flounders, set up a date with Urban at the CVS Charity Classic later that year.

These days, though, Henley’s spare time is spent with his two kids, 3-year-old Robert and Ruth, who’s 2. Besides, he says the real talent in the family belongs to his wife, Teil Duncan, an accomplished artist whose impressionistic paintings and prints are sold all over the world.

“I think it's amazing that she's brought her business to where it is,” he says. “To where it's just something that everybody can appreciate, whether you're an artist or just somebody like me who doesn't know much about art and can just say, I like the way that looks on that wall.”

Henley, who is self-taught, has played guitar since he was 8 years old. His best friend and brother-in-law – they actually married sisters -- always seemed to be in a band, and Henley loved music, too, particularly newer country music and anything from the ‘90s.

“There was a time in my life, early to mid-twenties where I traveled with my guitar and played a lot,” Henley recalls, adding that his caddie did the same.

Just don’t ask him to sing, though. “I’m terrible at singing,” Henley says.

Duncan, who studied art at Auburn, wasn’t in the audience for Henley’s performances with Urban, Rucker or O.A.R. But she does remember her husband playing for her when they started dating after meeting at the wedding of her sister and his best friend.

“Probably the first time we hung out, he would pull his guitar out,” she says. “So, he would just sing, like there was not a shy bone in his body. I was kind of laughing to myself because I was like, I can't believe this. The guy's just singing in front of me.

“He just doesn't even care, but it really put me at ease because I just knew that he didn't care. He wasn't nervous. So, it made me not nervous.”

Just as Henley shared his music with her, Duncan made art a part of their relationship, too. She would do a sketch of her husband on the front of his birthday card every year.

“And then I was like thinking to myself, I’m going to do this as a tradition every year,” Duncan recalls. “But then you know, kids happen. And so maybe one day we’ll pick that back up again.”

Although she says she was “flying by the seat of her pants,” Duncan already had her business up and running when she met Henley. Rather than hanging her paintings in a gallery with limited exposure, she had utilized Facebook and Instagram to build a much broader audience.

She paints – usually acrylics, watercolors and some oils – in a backyard studio at their home in Columbus, Georgia. Duncan’s style is distinctive, a delightful and colorful mix of reality and the abstract.

“I'll work on one collection at a time and produce about 15 paintings,” she explains. “And about every other month, I’ll say this beach collection is available July 6th at 11 a.m. They all become available on my website and people buy in from all over the country.”

Her past collections include animals, pool scenes, flowing dresses and portraits. She has done coffee table books, stationary, notecards and wrapping paper, as well as collaborations with nationally known retailers like Crate and Barrel, One Kings Lance and Anthropologie.

The couple’s two children often make “appearances” in her paintings of beach scenes or settings by the pool. One day, she plans to do their portraits. For now, her favorite painting at their home is the large abstract figure hanging in the “manly” room where Henley’s golf memorabilia are displayed.

“This job is just so ridiculously wonderful,” Duncan says. “I feel like I get to go play in my backyard and have this amazing hobby, but I also get to make a living out of it. And it doesn't demand a ton of time out of me. It's okay if I take time away.

“And then if I do, like during the pandemic, Russ for the first time ever could say, oh, I don't have to practice. There's literally nothing coming up. So, he watched the kids a ton. I got to paint a ton and it’s just, it's always there. I can go back to it when it when I can and I can step away from it whenever. And it's fine.”

Henley enjoys seeing how others react to Duncan’s paintings. He says sometimes he’s too close to it to fully appreciate the artwork she creates.

“I know it's impressive,” Henley says. “And I should probably just look at it the same way she thinks about my job. They're both very difficult. They're very cool, interesting jobs, but they both require time and to practice it and figure out how to do it.

“People seem to always love it and want to check it out. We have a studio we built for her in our backyard in Columbus and they'll come over and just want to walk around it and look at it and see how, how does this happen? What's going on here?

“She always has some work she's been working on, on the wall and it's just paint everywhere. It's all over the floor. It's everywhere. And it's a cool spot to come check out and people always love seeing it.”

Duncan estimates that several dozen TOUR players or their wives have purchased her artwork. So, does she ever get the urge to paint golfers or golf courses?

“People ask me that all the time,” she says. “And I never really have only because I'm kind of more drawn to an unmanicured landscape, but I'm not totally closed minded to it.

“I really am surprised it hasn't happened to be honest.”

Not to worry. Golf is Henley’s job.