While those commercials might suggest otherwise, Sixkiller says he doesn’t have nearly as much time for golf as he’d like. Some years he plays just twice, in the tournaments, while other years he might squeeze in up to 20 rounds over the summer months — “I’m not a wet-weather golfer,” he admits.
Many of those rounds are at the Cedars, though he’s been known to frequent Harbour Pointe, Trophy Lake, Echo Falls and, of course, Washington National. Which begs the question — when he’s at Washington National, the self-declared “Home of the Huskies” with its carts named after UW legends, does he ride in the Sonny Sixkiller?
“I’ve never asked for my own cart,” he says with a laugh. “I do get the Jim Owens from time-to-time, though (named for Sixkiller’s UW head coach), which I like.”
Sixkiller often plays with his son, Tyson, who at 28 years old is the youngest of Sixkiller and wife Denise’s three boys. It’s not uncommon for Sixkiller to reflect back on his own upbringing, and wonder that he’s made it as far as he has.
“We didn’t have much growing up,” he says. “I was lucky to have a mitt. I was lucky to have a basketball, and a football. Golf clubs? That was totally out of the question.
“I can still see the faces of my classmates at senior day, though, when they read off all the names of the seniors and where they were going to college,” he continues. “When they said, ‘Sonny Sixkiller, University of Washington,’ you should have seen all the heads turn and look at me. Nobody had any idea. For my mom and dad, it was a real sense of pride.”
From a poor family in a small town in southern Oregon, Sixkiller has left a legacy that includes plaques in the American Indian Hall of Fame and the Husky Hall of Fame, appearances in film (“The Longest Yard”) and television (“Hawaii Five-O”), and the cover of Sports Illustrated. (“People still send them to me all the time,” he says. “I don’t know what they do with them, but I’m happy to sign them and send them back. I feel like I’m spreading the word about Husky football.”)
And, at least for now, he’s become an unlikely ambassador for the growth and expansion of golf in the Pacific Northwest.
“Having been able to do things that will endure time — there’s a definite sense of accomplishment to that,” he says. “But more than anything, I’ve stuck around and tried to be the best person I can for this school and this city. Because nothing I have done would have been possible without them.”