Golf Church: Week One - What Golf Can Never Give You

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith..."
Hebrews 12:2

If we've never met before, Hi! My name is Cooper, and I'm a professional golfer who is learning what it looks like to simply say "yes" to the calling God has placed on my life.

For as long as I can remember, golf has been part of my story. I picked up a club as a two year old, and over the years that passion has grown into a profession. Today, I'm preparing for PGA TOUR Q-School, but somewhere along the journey God changed the way I viewed the game.

What I once called a dream, I now recognize as a calling.

That shift has changed everything.

I still work relentlessly to become the best golfer I can be. I still want to compete against the best players in the world. I still hope to play on the PGA TOUR one day. But my motivation has changed. I'm no longer chasing a destination so I can say I made it. I'm simply trying to be faithful with the opportunities God places in front of me today.

Because I've come to believe that professional golf isn't just my career.

It's my mission field.

This past year has reminded me of that over and over again. I've battled a wrist injury that forced me to step away from competition for a season. I've watched God provide at exactly the right time when I wasn't sure how the next tournament would happen. I've stood one shot away from qualifying for tournaments and driven home wondering what could have been.

As competitors, we hate losing by one shot. We replay every decision, every missed putt, every swing, wondering where things could have been different.

But somewhere in the middle of all of that, God reminded me of something I desperately needed to hear.

He has never measured my life by one shot and neither should I.

The more I've pursued professional golf, the more I've realized that one of the greatest lies this game tells us is that our next score has the power to change who we are. We convince ourselves that if we could just break 80, break par, make the cut, or earn a TOUR card, then we'd finally feel like we've arrived. I've believed that lie before. Maybe you have too.

The problem is that golf is an incredible game, but it was never designed to tell us our value. That's a question it simply can't answer.

I've played enough golf to know that every round eventually ends. The trophies collect dust. The scorecards get thrown away. Even our best rounds slowly become stories we tell. But the identity we have in Christ doesn't fade with time. Before I ever teed it up professionally, before I ever signed a scorecard, before I ever missed a cut, Jesus settled the most important score in my life.

The Cross is enough.

Because of that, I no longer play to earn my identity. I play from it.

That realization has changed the way I compete more than any swing lesson ever has.

Don't misunderstand me, I still want to win. I want to make the PGA TOUR. I want to compete against the best players in the world, and I work every day to become better because I believe excellence honors God.

But over the years, the Lord has gently reshaped my understanding of why I play. Professional golf isn't my purpose. It's my mission field.

Every driving range conversation, every practice round, every volunteer, every caddie, every sponsor, every competitor, every airport, every rain delay, every missed cut, and every victory is another opportunity to reflect Jesus. If God gives me a platform on the PGA TOUR one day, I pray He receives every ounce of the glory. And if He leads me somewhere different, I pray people still remember that I loved them well and pointed them toward Christ.

Because that's the mission.

Sometimes I wonder how differently we'd all play if we truly believed our identity couldn't rise with a birdie or fall with a double bogey. What if we walked to the first tee already convinced that we were fully known, fully loved, and fully accepted because of Jesus? What if success wasn't measured only by what we wrote on the scorecard, but by how faithfully we represented Christ while we filled it out?

I think we'd swing a little freer. I think we'd smile a little more. I think we'd recover from mistakes a little quicker.

And I think we'd enjoy this incredible game the way God intended us to.

So before your next round, I'd like to challenge you to do something simple. When you step onto the first tee, don't rush. Take a deep breath. Look all the way to your target. Then quietly remind yourself of something that no scorecard will ever have the power to change:

Golf is what I do.

Making Christ known is why I do it.

Your score may change before you reach the eighteenth green.

Your identity never will.

Let's Pray

Father, thank You for this game. Thank You for the beauty of creation, for friendships built over eighteen holes, and for the privilege of competing. Forgive us for the times we've allowed our score to determine our worth or our performance to become our identity.

Help us pursue excellence because You deserve our best, not because we're trying to earn Your love. Whether we shoot our career low or struggle to keep the ball in play, remind us that our identity was settled at the cross. Teach us to compete with joy, recover with grace, love people well, and leave every golf course looking a little more like Jesus than when we arrived.

May every round become an opportunity to glorify You.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

This Week's Challenge

Before every round this week, write Hebrews 12:2 somewhere you'll see it—on your yardage book, your scorecard, or even a small piece of tape on your rangefinder.

Then ask yourself one question before you hit your opening tee shot:

"Am I playing to prove something, or am I playing because I'm already loved?"

I'll see you back here next week.

Until then, keep your eyes on Jesus... and enjoy the walk.