If Meryl Streep played golf: rated 86, best at course IQ

Meryl Streep as a golfer: scouting report

Meryl Streep holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations of any actor, and her reputation rests on preparation: learning accents, gestures and rhythms so completely that the character seems to arrive fully formed. That is a golf brain. Course IQ is the best rating on her card and one of the best in the whole game. She would know every slope, every false front and every safe bail out area before she hit a single shot.

Her putting is next. Reading a green is a form of listening, picking up the small signals of grain and slope, and few performers listen more carefully inside a scene. Her nerve is also elite, which fits someone who trained at the Yale School of Drama and started out on the stage, where there is no second take. Fittingly for the star of The Iron Lady, her iron play is excellent, and her short game is strong, so there are very few soft spots on her card. She has won three Oscars, and her golf would carry that same consistency week after week.

Driving is the only real weakness. She is short off the tee, which makes The Long Course Championship her worst major. The Links Open is her best, a week that rewards patience, imagination and a precise short game more than raw length. Take her early. A player with this much control from the fairway in can anchor a roster, and she only needs a long hitter beside her to cover the long venues.

Plays like A master technician who reads greens like a script

Put Meryl Streep in your lineup

5 rolls, a team of five, four majors. Can you win the Grand Slam? Free, no account.