Golf Church: Week Four — The Dream Is Not the Destination

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
Proverbs 16:9

Welcome back to Golf Church.

If this is your first time here, my name is Cooper. I'm a professional golfer preparing for PGA TOUR Q-School, and every week I use this space to share a little of what God is teaching me through golf and life.

Similar to last week this didn't come to me on a golf course. I've been traveling a lot lately, which means I've had a lot of time to think. 

About golf. Q-School. My family. The people God keeps putting in my life. My testimony. Where I've been and where I believe God is taking me. And I've been thinking a lot about dreams.

For basically my entire life, I've had one really big one.

I started playing golf when I was two years old, and for as long as I can remember, I wanted to play professional golf at the highest level. I wanted the PGA TOUR. And I still do.

I'm preparing for Q-School right now with every intention of making it. I'm practicing, training, studying the course, preparing my body and my mind and doing everything I know how to do to show up ready.

I believe God has called me to this road to know Him and to make Him more known.

But here's what's different now.

For most of my life, golf wasn't just something I wanted.

Golf was everything.

If I played well, everything was right with the world. If I played badly, I could and would be miserable.

The score had the ability to tell me whether I was good enough.

Success meant I was going somewhere.

Failure felt like I wasn't.

And if I'm really being truthful, I think there was a time when I believed that if I could just make it far enough in golf, everything else would somehow fall into place.

Make the TOUR. Make the money. Prove I belonged. Then I'd be happy. Then I'd have made it. Then all the sacrifice would have been worth it. I didn't have the language for it then, but golf wasn't just my dream.

It was my god.

And then Jesus completely changed my life.

God Was There Before I Knew It

When I look back at my testimony now, one of the craziest things is realizing how present God was in seasons when I wasn't really looking for Him.

There are parts of my story I would never have chosen, decisions I'm not proud of and situations I should never have put myself in.

There were relationships, disappointments, missed opportunities and closed doors that I couldn't understand at the time. There were times I thought I knew exactly what my life was supposed to look like. And when it didn't happen that way, I thought something had gone wrong.

Now I look back and see something completely different.

I see protection, I see grace, and I see all the people God placed in my life at just the right time. I see doors He closed that I would’ve probably run straight through, and moments where He was pulling me toward Him long before I even had language for it. In August of 2024 Jesus stopped being someone I just knew about and became the center of my life. I got baptized, and then I had the privilege of baptizing my wife. I started serving instead of seeking to be served, started actually opening the Bible because I wanted to know Him more, and started having conversations about Jesus that I never would’ve pictured myself in. And somehow, the same golf career I spent so long trying to use to make my name known started turning into something I want to use to make His name known.

God will either restore you dreams or redirect them.

A Dream Became a Calling

I've talked before about the difference between a dream and a calling.

A dream says:

This is where I want to go.

A calling says:

God, where do You want me to go?

Sometimes those roads might look exactly the same from the outside.

I'm still practicing, competing, training to get better on a daily basis. 

But what's happening on the inside is completely different.

That's why Proverbs 16:9 has been on my mind:

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

As a golfer, I love that.

Because planning the course is basically what I do. Especially right now.

I'm preparing for Q-School. I'm studying where I'm playing. I'm thinking about the grass, the greens, where I can miss it, what shots I'm going to need. I'm working on my body. I'm working on my mind. I'm practicing putting, wedges, ball striking and everything else that is under my control. As the John Wooden Quote still rings true today - "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail".

I don't believe surrender means sitting around doing nothing and saying, “Well, whatever God wants.”

God gave me something to steward.

So I'm going to work my butt off stewarding it.

I'm going to plan the course.

But God establishes the steps.

And that's the part I'm learning.

Standing on the First Tee

I've pictured standing on the first tee at Q-School a lot.

I can see it.

The bag.

My caddie.

The nerves.

The first target.

One rehearsal.

Commit.

Hit it.

And I hope when that moment actually comes, I can look around for a second and remember the truth.

God has already been and is faithful.

Before I hit the first shot. Before I turn in my scorecard. Before I know whether I advance. Before I know what happens next.

He's already been faithful. That's freedom. Not freedom from caring. I might care more about this tournament than any tournament I've ever played. But It's freedom from needing the tournament to tell me who I am. I can stand on that tee and give everything I have because my identity isn't waiting for me behind the 18th green. Jesus already gave me that.

Prayer

Jesus,

Thank You for never giving up on me, even in the years when I was chasing things I thought would give me what only You could.

Thank You for every open door and every closed one.

Thank You for the people You've put in my life, for the protection I didn't recognize at the time, and for Your grace through all of it.

You know the work that's gone into this. You know the prayers, the sacrifice, the disappointment and the dreams.

And I thank You that I don’t have to carry this mission in my own strength. Jesus, You are the One who opens the doors, You are the One who gives me the courage to walk through them, and You are the One who sustains me when I feel weak or uncertain.

I’m asking You to take this golf journey wherever You want it to go, and to use it for Your purpose and Your glory.

But more than that, keep me close to You.

Don’t let the assignment ever become more important than the One who sent me.

I’ll trust You with the course.

You establish my steps.

Amen.

Take It to the Tee

What's your thing?

The dream you've been thinking about for years. The relationship you desperately want. The career. The business. The opportunity. The prayer you've been asking God to answer. Don't stop wanting it. Don't stop working. Don't stop praying boldly. Don't stop knocking.

But ask yourself something I've had to ask myself:

If I get everything I've been praying for but it pulls me away from Jesus, was it really worth getting?

And on the other side:

If the road looks different than I planned but it brings me closer to Jesus, did I really lose?

I'm going to Q-School believing I can make it. I'm preparing like I can make it. I'm praying that I make it. But before a single shot is hit, I want this settled:

The dream isn't the destination.

Jesus is.

Golf Church: Week Three — Nothing Is Impossible

“For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Luke 1:37

Welcome back to Golf Church.

And if this is your first time here, I’m really glad you’re here. My name is Cooper, and I’m a professional golfer preparing for PGA TOUR Q-School while learning what it looks like to faithfully follow Jesus one day at a time.

Golf Church started because I've realized that some of the greatest lessons God has taught me have come through this game. Sometimes it's walking down a fairway after a bad hole. Sometimes it's standing over a putt with everything on the line. Other times it's on the drive home after a tournament when things didn't go the way I wanted. Golf has a way of revealing what's going on in my heart, and more often than not, those moments point me back to Scripture.

That's really what Golf Church is. It's a place where I can share what God is teaching me through golf, life, and His Word in hopes that maybe He'll use something He's teaching me to encourage you too.

But this week's message didn't come to me standing over a putt, walking down a fairway, or even sitting down with my Bible.

It came while I was doing the dishes.

I had just finished a practice round and some short-game work, and my wife and I made it home and started doing the normal things that come with life. There was laundry to fold, dishes to wash, and a kitchen that needed to be cleaned. I'm not exactly the guy you want folding the laundry, so my wife took that job and I headed for the kitchen.

I know this isn't really the point of this week's message, but I couldn't help thinking about what a blessing it is to have my wife as my teammate in all of this. She's there cheering me on during tournament rounds, but she's also there for all the ordinary moments nobody sees. The travel days, the practice days, the long weeks, and making sure I actually have clean clothes when it's time to tee it up again. There's a lot that goes into professional golf that will never show up on a scorecard, and I couldn't do it without her.

While she was folding laundry, I was standing at the sink working my way through the dishes when I picked up one of our spatulas. Written on it was Luke 1:37:

“For nothing will be impossible with God.”

I've probably used that spatula a hundred times, but for whatever reason, this time those words stopped me.

I immediately started asking myself, Do I really believe that? Do I really believe that nothing is impossible with God?

Because it's one thing to know that verse. It's another thing to build your life around it.

It reminded me that when the Holy Spirit wants to get our attention, it doesn't matter where we are. We sometimes expect God to speak during worship, while we're praying, or when we have our Bibles open in front of us. But sometimes He meets you at the kitchen sink. If we're paying attention, God can use some pretty ordinary moments to point us back to extraordinary truth.

As I stood there thinking about that verse, I started looking back over my own life. I can think of plenty of things in front of me right now that seem impossible, but when I look backward, I see a God who has done impossible things over and over again.

I see moments where He protected me when I didn't even know I needed protecting. I see situations He pulled me out of that I couldn't have escaped on my own. I see doors He closed that I desperately wanted open and people He placed in my life at exactly the right time. I see prayers answered in ways I never could have planned and grace I never could have earned.

The fact that I'm even still here is one of the many reminders in my testimony that God has already done things I once would have thought were impossible.

And that left me with another question: Why am I so quick to believe God for the impossible He's already done, but struggle to trust Him with the impossible thing still in front of me?

That's when Luke 1:37 started hitting differently.

When we read the verse in context, Mary has just been given news that isn't simply unlikely. It's humanly impossible. The angel Gabriel tells her she's going to give birth to Jesus. Mary is a virgin, so naturally she asks, “How will this be?”

Gabriel explains what God is going to do and then points her toward another seemingly impossible situation. Her relative Elizabeth, who had been unable to have children and was well beyond the age anyone expected her to have one, was already six months pregnant.

Then Gabriel says, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

There's something important about the context of that verse. It doesn't mean anything we want is guaranteed to happen if we believe hard enough. It doesn't mean God owes me a PGA TOUR card, and it doesn't mean every dream we have is automatically a promise from God.

The power of Luke 1:37 isn't that Mary had a really big dream. It's that God had spoken.

Mary didn't understand how it was all going to happen, but she trusted the God who did. That's a different kind of faith than simply believing God will give me whatever outcome I want. It's believing that nothing God purposes to do is impossible for Him.

That's the kind of faith I want.

I believe God has called me to walk down this road in professional golf and faithfully steward the ability, opportunities, relationships, and platform He's given me. But I don't know how every tournament will go. I don't know where every dollar will come from, what doors will open, or how long the road will take.

And I don't have to.

Faith doesn't require me to know everything that's coming. It requires me to trust the One who does.

Golf actually gives us a pretty good picture of that. You can stand on a tee box, calculate the yardage, feel the wind, choose the club, pick your target, go through your routine, and make the most committed swing you possibly can. But once the ball leaves the clubface, you can't chase it through the air and steer it. Or, as my coach likes to say, “You can't control the outcome.”

Your responsibility was to make the swing.

I think faith can look a lot like that. Maybe my responsibility isn't to figure out how God is going to accomplish everything. Maybe it's simply to be faithful with what He's put in front of me today. Hit the next shot. Do the next practice session. Have the next conversation. Love the person standing in front of me. Say yes when God asks me to say yes, and leave the outcome with Him.

That's what I see in Mary's response too. She couldn't see Bethlehem, the miracles Jesus would perform, the cross, or the empty tomb. She didn't have the entire plan in front of her.

She simply responded:

“I am the Lord's servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”
Luke 1:38

She got the next step, and she said yes.

Maybe some of us are waiting for God to explain step ten before we're willing to take step one. We want the entire yardage book before we're willing to walk onto the first tee. But following Jesus has never required knowing the entire route. It requires trusting the One leading us.

Let's Pray

Father, thank You for reminding us that nothing is impossible for You. Forgive us for the times we've looked at our circumstances, calculated the odds, and decided what You can or cannot do based on what we can see.

Help us remember Your faithfulness. When we're facing something that feels impossible, remind us of all the ways You've already provided, protected, rescued, and carried us. Give us the faith to trust You even when we don't understand what You're doing or where You're leading.

Lord, teach us to be faithful with what's in front of us today. Give us the courage to take the next step when You call us forward and the humility to leave the outcome in Your hands. Like Mary, let our response be, “I am the Lord's servant.” Whatever You have for us, help us trust that Your plans are better than ours and that nothing You purpose to do is impossible for You.

Above all, keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Let our confidence come not from ourselves, our circumstances, or the odds in front of us, but from who You are.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Take It to the Tee

So here's what I want us to take to the tee this week: What would change if we actually believed Luke 1:37?

Not just quoted it. Not just highlighted it in our Bible. Actually believed it.

Whatever your impossible thing is right now, take it to God. Remember what He's already done and look back at His faithfulness. Then take the next step He's put in front of you.

The obstacle might still be there. The odds might not have changed. But God hasn't changed either.

For me, that means stepping onto the first tee confidently. Not because God owes me a certain score or outcome, but because my confidence was never supposed to come from believing I'm capable of accomplishing the impossible. My confidence comes from knowing the God who can.

So pray the prayer. Have the conversation. Walk through the door. Make the swing. Be faithful with what's in front of you and trust God with what happens next.

My responsibility is faithfulness. God is responsible for the outcome.

The golfer sees the odds. The world sees what's possible. Faith sees the God for whom nothing is impossible.

Take that with you to the tee this week. And maybe the next time God wants to remind you of it, don't be surprised if He does it somewhere as ordinary as the kitchen sink.

I'll see you next week.

Golf Church: Week Two - Deeper Roots

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."
John 15:1–2

Welcome back to Golf Church.

And if this is your first time here, I'm really glad you're here. My name is Cooper, and I'm a professional golfer preparing for PGA TOUR Q-School while learning what it looks like to faithfully follow Jesus one day at a time.

One of the reasons I started writing these weekly messages is because I've realized golf has a funny way of exposing what's really going on beneath the surface.

I've walked off the course after a bad round and realized I wasn't just frustrated with my swing. Sometimes my frustration had nothing to do with golf at all. It exposed impatience. Pride. Control. Other times I've played well and caught myself placing too much value in a score instead of remembering who I already am in Christ.

Golf has a way of revealing what's already there.

The more I've followed Jesus, the more I've noticed that some of the greatest lessons He has taught me have come while walking fairways, standing over putts, or driving home after a tournament.

That's really why Golf Church exists.

My hope is simple. Whether you've been playing golf for forty years or you're just learning the game, I hope these few minutes each week encourage you to know Jesus a little more and enjoy golf a little differently. Last week we talked about something golf can never give us—our identity.

Because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross, we don't have to earn our worth through our performance anymore. We don't play to become enough. We play knowing we already belong to Him. That truth has changed the way I look at golf.

But after thinking about that all week, another question kept coming to mind. If our identity is secure in Christ, how does God continue shaping us into the people He's calling us to become?

Ironically, I think the answer has been sitting in front of golfers for years.

If you've played golf for any length of time, you've probably shown up one morning, looked at the greens, and immediately known they had just been aerified.

As golfers, we usually have the same reaction.

"Seriously? This week?"

The greens are covered with little holes. Sand is everywhere. Putts bounce when they shouldn't. The smooth surface you were hoping for is suddenly gone. From our perspective, it feels like someone made the golf course worse. But the superintendent isn't looking at the greens the way we are.

He knows that even the healthiest greens eventually become compacted. Air doesn't move through the soil as easily. Water doesn't reach the roots the way it should. Nutrients stay near the surface instead of getting where they're needed most.

So for a short season, he intentionally disrupts the surface to strengthen what no one can see. It looks like damage.

But it's actually preparation.

The more I thought about that this week, the more I realized that the greatest golf courses in the world don't become great because they avoid aerification. They become great because they faithfully go through it.

Every single year. Augusta National. Pine Valley. Oakmont. Cypress Point.

Some of the most beautiful golf courses on earth willingly endure a season where they look worse because the people caring for them understand something every golfer eventually learns.

Long-term health is always more important than short-term appearance.

As I was thinking about that, Jesus' words in John 15 came to mind.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

One thing I love about this passage is what Jesus doesn't say.

He doesn't say the Father only prunes branches that aren't producing fruit. He prunes the fruitful ones.

Not because He's disappointed in them, but because He loves them too much to leave them where they are.

That's encouraging to me.

Because I think it's easy to assume that when life gets difficult, God must be distant. I've certainly thought that before.

This past year hasn't looked the way I imagined it would. There was the wrist injury that kept me from competing when all I wanted to do was play. There was driving home after missing a qualifier by one shot, replaying every swing and wondering what could have been different.

In those moments, it was easy to ask why.

Looking back now, I don't think God had stepped away. I think He was inviting me closer. He was teaching me to trust Him when I couldn't see what He was doing. He was reminding me that His greatest priority isn't simply helping me become a better golfer. It's making me look more like Jesus.

That's a much bigger goal than shooting lower scores. One thing I've continued to come back to in John 15 is that Jesus never tells the branch to work harder. He tells it to remain.

As golfers, we're wired to believe everything depends on us.

Practice more.

Stay longer.

Find another swing thought.

Fix another flaw.

And don't get me wrong—I believe hard work honors God. I'll keep working as hard as I can to become the best golfer I'm capable of becoming.

But spiritual growth doesn't happen because we strive harder.

It happens because we stay connected to Jesus. The branch doesn't force itself to produce fruit. It simply remains connected to the Vine. Fruit is the natural result.

I don't know what season you're walking through right now.

Maybe life feels a little like an aerified green. Plans changed. A door closes. A prayer still hasn't been answered.

You're wondering why things feel unsettled when you thought they were finally coming together. If that's you, can I encourage you with something God has been reminding me of? Don't judge what He's doing only by what you can currently see.

When the superintendent aerifies a green, the golfer only sees holes. The superintendent sees healthier greens.

Our Heavenly Father sees something even deeper. He sees the roots. One day the holes disappear. The sand settles. The roots grow stronger. The green becomes healthier than it was before—not because it avoided the process, but because it went through it.

I wonder if one day we'll look back on the seasons we begged God to remove and realize they were the very seasons He used to make us more like His Son. If you're in an aerification season today, don't lose heart. Stay close to the Vine. Trust the Gardener. The One who gave His life for you isn't finished with you yet.

Let's Pray

Father,

Thank You for being a good Gardener.

Thank You for caring more about the condition of our hearts than the comfort of our circumstances. When life feels confusing and we can't understand what You're doing, help us trust that You're working beneath the surface in ways we can't yet see.

Teach us to remain close to Jesus, the true Vine. Grow our faith deeper than our feelings, our character stronger than our circumstances, and our love for You greater than our love for comfort.

May every season—even the difficult ones—produce fruit that brings You glory.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Take It to the Tee

The next time you walk onto an aerified green, don't complain about the holes. Instead, let them remind you that God often does His deepest work beneath the surface. And when this week doesn't go according to your plans, pause for a moment and ask:

"Lord, what are You growing in me?"

Last week we remembered that our identity is found in Christ. This week we're reminded that the Gardener is committed to growing everyone who belongs to Him. The golfer sees the holes. The superintendent sees healthier greens. The Gardener sees deeper roots.

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.

We're Back Baby!!! Preparing for Egypt and the 2026 Season!

After some time away from the game, I’m incredibly grateful to share that my first professional golf tournament back is officially set—Egypt, 2025. God is faithful, and here we are. The countdown has begun, and I’m stepping forward with trust in Him.

Right now, my focus is simple: stewarding what God has placed in my hands. That means showing up every day and putting in the work—not just on the course, but in every area of my life. I’m committing to growth physically, mentally, and spiritually, knowing that golf—like life—requires patience, persistence, and perspective.

This season, I’m being intentional about deepening my relationship with God, because He is my foundation and peace in a sport that can change in an instant. I’m also investing in the relationships He’s blessed me with—family, close friends, and mentors who have supported and prayed for me through every chapter.

I know the road ahead won’t always be easy, but I also know I won’t walk it alone. God goes before me, and He’s with me through every high and every low. Egypt is just the beginning, and I’m stepping into 2026 with gratitude, faith, and the joy of being able to play this great game again.

To God be all the glory, honor, and praise.