Reed Cross Howard: Ron Howard’s Son Who Chose Golf Over Hollywood

Most people first hear the name Reed Cross Howard in the same breath as his father. Ron Howard is one of the most famous filmmakers in the world, the child star from The Andy Griffith Show who grew into the Oscar-winning director of A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13. His eldest daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, followed him into acting and became a star of her own. Yet the youngest Howard child took a different road entirely. Among the many celebrity stories that begin with a famous surname, his is different, because the most interesting part is not the family he was born into. It is the sport he chose instead.

Reed Cross Howard is an American professional golfer, the youngest child and only son of Ron Howard and his wife Cheryl Howard. Born on 12 April 1987, he grew up travelling the world while his father made films, then walked away from the cameras and onto the golf course. He played college golf, qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship, competed on mini-tours, invented a training aid called the Steadhead, and built a following sharing golf lessons online. He has never chased acting fame, and he has never tried to trade on his father’s name. This article looks at what is actually known about Reed Cross Howard, from his childhood in a Hollywood family to his golf career, his invention, his marriage and his quiet life today. Where the sources disagree, and they do on several points, the disagreement is noted, because a careful account should say so rather than pick a side without proof.

Reed Cross Howard Quick Facts

• Full name: Reed Cross Howard
• Born: 12 April 1987 (most sources; see Common Confusions)
• Age: 39 years old in 2026
• Birthplace: Banksville, New York, United States (most sources; see Common Confusions)
• Known for: Professional golfer; youngest child and only son of filmmaker Ron Howard
• Parents: Ron Howard (filmmaker and actor) and Cheryl Howard (actress and writer)
• Siblings: Bryce Dallas Howard (actress), Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard (fraternal twins)
• Education: Heritage Academy; University of South Carolina Beaufort (USCB), golf team 2007–2008; Pepperdine University
• Golf career: College golfer, U.S. Amateur Championship qualifier, mini-tour professional
• Invention: Steadhead golf training aid
• Acting: One appearance in Arrested Development (2018), episode “Emotional Baggage”
• Marriage: Ashley Gioffre (married 11 August 2015)
• Children: Daughter Aspen Leigh Howard (born April 2019)
• Public profile: Shares golf videos, tutorials and drills on Instagram and YouTube

Who Is Reed Cross Howard?

Reed Cross Howard is the youngest of Ron Howard and Cheryl Howard’s four children, and the only son in a family that Hollywood knows very well. His father went from child actor to one of the most respected directors in the business. His eldest sister, Bryce Dallas Howard, became a film star in her own right, appearing in The Help, the Jurassic World films and much more. His twin sisters, Jocelyn and Paige, have mostly stayed out of the spotlight, though Paige has acted as well. Reed Cross Howard, by contrast, chose a life built around a golf bag rather than a film set.

That choice is what makes him worth writing about. Plenty of children of famous people try acting, fail quietly, and drift back into the family business. Reed Cross Howard never really tried. He found golf early, stuck with it through school and college, and turned it into a working life: playing, teaching, inventing and posting lessons online. The family name opens doors, and he has never pretended otherwise, but the career itself is his own, built one round at a time.

He is also, by every account, a private person. He gives few interviews about himself, and most of what the public knows about him comes from profiles of his father, from his own golf content, and from the biography sites that track celebrity families. This article works from those accounts, and it says plainly where they conflict.

Early Life in a Hollywood Family

Reed Cross Howard was born on 12 April 1987, the fourth and last child of Ron and Cheryl Howard. The birthplace given by most of the longer profiles is Banksville, New York, a small community in Westchester County. He grew up with three older sisters: Bryce, born in 1981, and the twins Jocelyn and Paige, born in 1985. As the youngest by several years, and the only boy, he was the baby of a family that was already famous when he arrived.

His childhood was unusual in a way that is hard to overstate. His father was directing some of the biggest films of the era while Reed was growing up, which meant the family moved from city to city, following the next production. In an interview with PEOPLE, Reed Cross Howard described that life with warmth rather than complaint. His parents, he said, always made an effort to put family time first, even when his father was working long hours on a film. His mother, he said, was remarkable in the way she kept the children connected as they travelled from place to place, wherever his father was filming his next movie.

There is a small detail about his name that the family has shared in public. All four Howard children have middle names tied to a place: Bryce Dallas is named for the city, the twins share Carlyle, after the Carlyle Hotel in New York, and Reed Cross is named for the street where the family lived in London. It is the kind of family story that says a lot about the Howards. They were not just passing through places. They were naming their children after them.

Growing up in that world could easily have pushed a child towards acting. The sets were there, the cameras were there, and the family business was the biggest one in Hollywood. Reed Cross Howard went the other way. He found golf, and golf gave him something the family business never could: a place where the name on the bag did not matter, only the score at the end of the round.

Ron Howard: The Father Behind the Name

To understand Reed Cross Howard, it helps to understand the scale of the name he carries. Ron Howard was born in 1954 and became famous as a child, first as Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show and then as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days. He moved behind the camera and became one of the most successful directors of his generation, making Splash, Cocoon, Parenthood, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Director, and many more. He also co-founded Imagine Entertainment, the production company behind 24, Arrested Development and Friday Night Lights.

Ron Howard married Cheryl Alley, his high school sweetheart, on 7 June 1975, when they were both in their early twenties. The marriage has lasted more than fifty years, an outlier in Hollywood by any measure, and the couple have four children and, by Ron’s own account, six grandchildren. That stability is part of the family story, and it is one of the reasons the Howard children have been able to make their own choices. They grew up in a household that stayed together, even as the work took them around the world.

Reed Cross Howard has spoken about his father with affection, and about the way his parents balanced a demanding career with family life. His father worked hard on his films, and his mother kept the home steady while the family moved. It was not a perfect arrangement, and no childhood on film sets is, but the Howards made it work for a long time, and their youngest son grew up inside that effort.

It is worth saying plainly that the father’s fame is both the reason most people have heard of Reed Cross Howard and the thing he has spent his adult life stepping away from. He did not become a director, an actor or a producer. He became a golfer, and the golf course is one of the few places where being Ron Howard’s son counts for very little once the ball is in the air.

Cheryl Howard and the Three Sisters

Reed Cross Howard’s mother, Cheryl Howard, is an actress and writer in her own right. She has appeared in several of her husband’s films, including Splash, Ransom and A Beautiful Mind, and she has written as well. She kept a lower profile than her husband, and she was, by her son’s account, the steady centre of the family as it moved from one film location to the next. The Howard children grew up with a mother who worked in the business but never chased its spotlight, and that example seems to have shaped all four of them.

His eldest sister, Bryce Dallas Howard, born on 2 March 1981, is the most famous of the siblings after their father. She built a career as an actress, with roles in The Village, Spider-Man 3, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, The Help and the Jurassic World films, and she has moved into directing as well. She is married to actor Seth Gabel and has two children. She is the sibling whose fame most closely matches their father’s, and she is also the one Reed Cross Howard is most often compared with, usually unfairly.

The twins, Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard, were born on 5 February 1985. Jocelyn has kept a low profile and stayed largely out of public life, though she appeared with her sister in an episode of Arrested Development. Paige has acted, with guest appearances on 90210 and Arrested Development and a role in the web series stalkTALK, and she has also written a children’s book. She married actor Tim Abou-Nasr in 2022, with her father acting as officiant at the ceremony in Central Park.

Reed Cross Howard is the youngest of the four by two years, and the only son. That position in the family matters. He grew up watching three older sisters work out their own relationships with fame, and he watched his father do the same. When his turn came, he chose the one path none of them had taken, and he has stayed on it ever since.

Education: Heritage Academy and College Golf

Reed Cross Howard attended Heritage Academy, where he played golf as a schoolboy. Several profiles say he graduated from Heritage Academy in 2005. School was where the game stopped being a hobby and started being a plan. He was good enough to play at the next level, and he wanted to find out how good.

After school he went to the University of South Carolina Beaufort, known as USCB, on the Bluffton campus. He joined the school’s golf team as an amateur member and played from 2007 to 2008. He was a member of the first-ever USCB golf team, a detail that several of the longer profiles repeat, and one that says something about the programme he joined. It was new, it was small, and it gave a young golfer room to play. Some sources say he graduated from USCB in 2009, though the subject he studied has never been publicly confirmed, and this article does not guess at it.

After USCB, Reed Cross Howard went on to Pepperdine University, where he continued to play and to work on his game. Pepperdine, in Malibu, California, has a strong golf tradition, and it gave him a tougher stage than USCB had. The move from a small, new programme to a bigger one was a step up, and it is the point in his story where golf stops being a school activity and starts being a career in the making.

His education, taken as a whole, is the most ordinary part of an otherwise unusual life. He went to school, he played on the team, he moved to a bigger programme, and he kept playing. There is nothing glamorous about that sequence, and that is the point. For a young man who could have walked onto a film set at any time, the ordinary path was the interesting one.

A Golfer, Not an Actor

Reed Cross Howard is a professional golfer. That sentence is simple, and it is the whole of his working identity. He began as an amateur at USCB, played in college events, and then moved into the professional game, competing on mini-tours. Mini-tours are the lower rungs of professional golf, the events where players grind for small purses and ranking points, far from the television cameras and the big prize money. It is hard, unglamorous work, and it is the part of his career that deserves respect, because he chose it knowing exactly what it was.

The highlight of his amateur career, reported by several of the longer profiles, was qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Championship at the Pinehurst course in North Carolina. The U.S. Amateur is one of the oldest and most respected events in the sport, and qualifying for it is a real achievement for any young golfer. It put him on a famous course, against the best amateurs in the country, and it remains the clearest marker of how good he was as a young player.

After college he played in a run of amateur and professional events that the profiles list again and again: the USC Aiken Invitational, the Wilmington Island Invitational and the Webber International Tournament. Some of the lower-quality biography sites say he won these events. The better reporting says he appeared in them and competed in them, and this article follows that version. Winning a tournament is a specific claim, and it should not be stated without a result sheet to back it up. What can be said with confidence is that Reed Cross Howard played in them, that he kept playing after college, and that he built a professional career on the mini-tours rather than stepping into the family business.

That is a harder road than it looks. A golfer on the mini-tours pays his own way, books his own travel, and plays for purses that would barely cover a week of a film shoot. Reed Cross Howard has done that for years, and he has done it while carrying a surname that everyone in American entertainment recognises. The golf world, to its credit, seems to have judged him on his game, and he seems to have been happy with that.

The Steadhead: An Invention Born on the Course

The most interesting part of Reed Cross Howard’s golf career is not a tournament. It is an invention. While playing on the mini-tours, he noticed a problem in his own swing: his head was moving too much, dipping down and back during his downswing, and throwing his shots off. He looked around for a training aid that could help, found nothing that did the job, and built one himself. He called it the Steadhead.

The Steadhead is a simple device. It clips onto the brim of a hat, with an arm that extends down to a diamond-shaped object, giving the golfer a fixed point of reference for where the head is and how much it is moving. The idea is to stop the player swaying off the ball during the swing. GOLF.com reviewed the device in January 2020, describing it as the product of personal necessity and calling it the best practice aid for keeping the head still. The review noted that the inventor was a professional golfer on the mini-tours, and that the device costs $24.99.

That review matters, because it is one of the few places where Reed Cross Howard’s golf work has been covered by a serious golf outlet rather than a celebrity biography site. GOLF.com did not care who his father was. It cared whether the device worked, and it said it did, with the honest caveat that it takes a few swings to get used to and that the golfer is still supposed to focus on the ball. For a man who has spent his life being introduced as someone’s son, that kind of review, on the merits, is worth more than any profile.

The Steadhead also says something about how Reed Cross Howard thinks about the game. He is not just a player. He is a student of the swing, the kind of golfer who notices a flaw in his own mechanics and builds a tool to fix it. That is the same instinct that later took him into teaching, and it is the thread that runs through the second half of his career.

Teaching, Content and the Golf IQ Podcast

Beyond playing, Reed Cross Howard has built a second career in golf instruction. He shares golf videos, tutorials and drills on Instagram and YouTube, where he has built a following among amateur golfers who want practical help rather than celebrity gloss. PEOPLE has noted that he posts golf videos, tutorials and drills regularly on both platforms, and that following is large enough to be worth mentioning. He is, in that sense, a golf creator as well as a golfer, and the two roles feed each other: the playing gives the teaching credibility, and the teaching keeps him in the game even when he is not competing.

One outlet has reported that he co-hosted the Golf IQ podcast, and another that he became a TPI-certified trainer. Both claims come from a single source each, and neither has been confirmed by a major golf outlet, so this article gives them as reported rather than settled. What is solid is the pattern they fit: a professional golfer who teaches, who makes content, and who has moved from competing into helping other golfers improve. Whether or not the podcast and the certification are part of that pattern, the pattern itself is clear from his own channels.

He has kept this work going for years, and it is the part of his career that most people will actually meet. A golfer who wants a drill for a steadier head, or a tip on the swing, is more likely to find Reed Cross Howard on a video than on a leaderboard. That is not a criticism. It is a description of where professional golf actually lives for most of the people who play it: in lessons, in practice, and in small, practical improvements.

The Arrested Development Appearance

Reed Cross Howard has appeared on screen exactly once, as far as the public record shows. In 2018 he appeared in an episode of Arrested Development, the comedy series his father helped create, titled “Emotional Baggage”. His sisters Bryce, Jocelyn and Paige have all appeared in the show as well, and the episode was something of a family affair. It was a cameo, not a career, and he has never followed it up with another role.

That single appearance is worth noting for what it is not. It is not the start of an acting career that stalled. It is a one-off, a family joke, a chance to stand in front of a camera his father had helped point. Reed Cross Howard took the chance, had the fun, and went back to golf. Plenty of celebrity children would have treated that episode as an audition. He treated it as a visit, and that tells you most of what you need to know about his priorities.

It is also worth saying that the appearance came in 2018, when he was already well into his golf career. He was not a young man trying to break into acting. He was a professional golfer in his early thirties who happened to have a famous father, and who said yes to a small part in his father’s show. The order matters, because it shows which career came first and which one was the detour.

Marriage to Ashley Gioffre and Fatherhood

Reed Cross Howard married Ashley Gioffre on 11 August 2015, at Winvian Farm in Litchfield Hills. The wedding was a private ceremony, surrounded by family and friends, and it was confirmed by his father’s own social media posts at the time. Ashley, who now goes by Ashley Howard, has kept a low profile, and little about her life before the marriage has been published. What is known is that the two of them have built a family together, away from the cameras that followed his father and his sister.

Their daughter, Aspen Leigh Howard, was born on 26 April 2019, according to several of the longer profiles, though one gives only April 2019. She is, as far as the public record shows, their only child, and she is also one of her grandparents’ six grandchildren. Ron Howard has spoken about his grandchildren in interviews, saying that he and Cheryl take a different approach to them than they did to their own children, and that his wife, who was a firm disciplinarian as a mother, has gone into full grandmother mode.

Fatherhood seems to have suited Reed Cross Howard. He was 32 when Aspen was born, established in his golf career, and married for four years. The family he has built is small, private and steady, in the same way his parents’ family was, and it is the part of his life he talks about least in public. That silence is not an accident. It is the same privacy he has kept since he left the film world behind, and it has held through marriage and fatherhood.

Life Today

As of 2026, Reed Cross Howard is 39 years old, living a private life built around golf, teaching and family. He is still a professional golfer, still sharing lessons and drills online, and still the inventor of a training aid that working golfers use. He is married to Ashley, and they are raising their daughter Aspen. He gives few interviews, and he has never written a memoir or launched a public campaign to explain himself. The public record of him is thin, and he seems to prefer it that way.

His father is still working, still directing, and still one of the most respected names in the business. His sister Bryce is still acting and directing. The family he was born into has not slowed down, and it has not stopped being famous. Reed Cross Howard has simply chosen not to be famous in the same way. He plays golf, he teaches golf, and he goes home to his family. For a man born into one of the most photographed families in America, that is a deliberate choice, and it has held for nearly forty years.

There is something refreshing about that. The children of famous people usually find the spotlight difficult to leave, because it is the only world they have known. Reed Cross Howard left it early, found a game he loved, and built a life around it. He did not need to be a star to be happy, and he did not need to be a director to be proud of his work. He needed a golf course, a steady head, and a family of his own. Nearly forty years after he was born in the middle of his father’s fame, that is what he has.

Common Confusions About Reed Cross Howard

Because Reed Cross Howard keeps such a low profile, and because so much of what is written about him comes from low-quality biography sites that copy each other, several errors and mix-ups keep appearing online. The most common ones are worth clearing up.

When was he born, 12 April or 13 April 1987? Most sources, including PEOPLE, Hello Magazine and Parade, give 12 April 1987. A group of lower-quality biography sites give 13 April 1987 instead. The 12 April date is the one carried by the stronger sources, and this article uses it, but the disagreement is real and should be noted.

Where was he born, Banksville or Los Angeles? Most of the longer profiles give Banksville, New York. A smaller group of sites give Los Angeles, California instead. Banksville is the birthplace in the majority of the profiles, and this article follows it, but the Los Angeles claim appears often enough to be worth flagging.

Did he win the tournaments he played in? Some biography sites say he won the USC Aiken Invitational, the Wilmington Island Invitational and the Webber International Tournament. The better reporting says he appeared in and competed in those events. This article follows the careful version, because a win is a specific claim that needs a result to back it up, and none of those sites provides one.

What is his net worth? Figures of around $5 million are quoted on many biography sites, and none of them comes from a credible financial source. No major outlet has published a verified net worth for Reed Cross Howard, and the number changes from site to site. This article does not repeat any figure as fact.

How tall is he? Sources disagree, giving 1.77 metres in one place and 1.78 metres in another, and no official measurement has been published. This article does not state a height as fact, because the honest answer is that it is not publicly confirmed.

Did he graduate from USCB in 2009? Several sources say he graduated from the University of South Carolina Beaufort in 2009, but the subject he studied has never been disclosed, and other sources say only that he attended. This article gives the graduation year as reported and notes that the degree subject is not publicly known.

Is he an actor? Not in any professional sense. He appeared once, in a single episode of Arrested Development in 2018, alongside his sisters. That cameo is the whole of his acting record, and his career is golf, not entertainment.

When was his daughter born? Several profiles give 26 April 2019 for Aspen Leigh Howard, while at least one gives only April 2019. The 26 April date is the better supported one, and this article uses it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Reed Cross Howard

Who is Reed Cross Howard?

Reed Cross Howard is an American professional golfer, the youngest child and only son of filmmaker Ron Howard and his wife Cheryl Howard. Born on 12 April 1987, he chose a career in golf rather than following his family into the entertainment business.

How old is Reed Cross Howard?

He was born on 12 April 1987, which makes him 39 years old in 2026. A smaller group of biography sites gives 13 April 1987 instead, but the 12 April date is the one carried by the stronger sources.

Who are Reed Cross Howard’s parents?

His father is Ron Howard, the actor turned Oscar-winning director of films including Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. His mother is Cheryl Howard, an actress and writer who has appeared in several of her husband’s films.

Who are Reed Cross Howard’s siblings?

He has three older sisters: Bryce Dallas Howard, born in 1981, an actress and director, and fraternal twins Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard, born in 1985. He is the youngest of the four children and the only son.

What does Reed Cross Howard do for a living?

He is a professional golfer. He played college golf at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and Pepperdine University, qualified for the U.S. Amateur Championship, competed on mini-tours, invented the Steadhead training aid, and shares golf lessons and drills online.

What is the Steadhead?

The Steadhead is a golf training aid invented by Reed Cross Howard. It clips onto the brim of a hat and gives the golfer a fixed point of reference, helping to keep the head steady during the swing. GOLF.com reviewed it in January 2020 and called it the best practice aid for keeping the head still.

Is Reed Cross Howard married?

Yes. He married Ashley Gioffre on 11 August 2015 at Winvian Farm in Litchfield Hills. They have a daughter, Aspen Leigh Howard, born on 26 April 2019.

Conclusion

Reed Cross Howard was born into one of the most famous families in Hollywood, and he chose a life that looks nothing like it. He went to school, played college golf, qualified for the U.S. Amateur, ground out a living on the mini-tours, and invented a training aid because his own swing needed one. He appeared on his father’s television show once, married Ashley Gioffre, and became a father himself. He did all of it quietly, and he has kept it quiet ever since.

That is a harder thing to do than it looks. The children of famous people usually find the spotlight difficult to leave, because it is the only world they have known. Reed Cross Howard left it early, kept his life private, and built a career on a golf course rather than a film set. The name on the birth certificate is a famous one, and the life he has built with it is entirely his own. For readers who want to check the basic facts about his father’s career and the films that made the family famous, a general reference is a good place to start.