A True Champion
The Masters' Golf Tournament was both dramatic and inspiring. Putting on that green jacket is the accomplishment of a lifetime for every professional golfer. The tournament leader on the final 18 holes was Scotty Scheffler, and in that position, the pressure on every shot was indescribable. CBS commentator, Jim Nance, interviewed Scheffler, the eventual 2022 Masters Champion. Nance began by asking about his outspoken faith.
"My identity isn't a golf score," Scheffler said. "Like my wife told me this morning, ‘If you win today, if you lose by 10 shots, or if you never win another golf tournament, I’ll still love you, you’ll still be the same person, and Jesus will still love you. Nothing can change that.’”
MY GOLF PARTNERSHIP
My growing commitment to prayer and fasting was illustrated in a couple of rounds of golf in Palm Springs, California. As a new campus minister, I was (and still am) funded by a team of financial partners. In the mid-1990s, I was trying to set up an appointment with Mr. Bob Green, a successful real estate developer. In our initial telephone conversation, his first question was, “Do you play golf?” You can tell a lot about a person's golf game simply by the way he or she asks if you play. Bob Green asked with the confidence that made me think he could have been a scratch golfer. By comparison, I would be considered a hacker.
“Sure, I play golf,” I replied.
“Why don’t you drive down to Palm Springs? We’ll play 18 holes on my favorite course, have lunch, then play another course. We’ll just make a day of it.”
Sweet deal, I thought to myself. Two rounds of golf and lunch in Palm Springs with a potential financial partner. I made the two-hour trip to meet with Bob and his wife, Teri. As we stepped onto the first tee, Bob turned to me and said, “So, what are we playing for?” My immediate thought: This guy is a successful businessman, I’m a new campus minister trying to recruit financial partners, and he wants to gamble with me. Determined to match his confidence, I responded, “You name it, we’ll play for it.”
Bob replied, “If I win, every month for the next six months, you have to send me a course-branded golf ball that I don’t have in my collection.” I traveled a bit. Surely, I could come up with six golf balls he didn’t have. So, I agreed. Then Bob pointed to me, and said bluntly, “So, what do YOU want?”
There I was, a rookie campus minister standing on a $250-per-round golf course in Palm Springs with a Christian real estate mogul asking me what I wanted. The situation was almost surreal. Acquiring more financial partners was a focus of my first-Thursday-of-the-month day of prayer and fasting.
How about $500 a month? That would have been a good answer. I wondered if Bob was challenging me to see if I was committed enough to my vision to ask. Betting on a golf game to get a financial partner was uncharted territory for me. They never talked about that in the partnership development training course. Instead of asking for monthly support, I shot back, “Bob, if I win, you will pray and fast with me the first Thursday of each month for six months.”
Teri, who was riding in the golf cart with Bob, replied before her husband had the chance to speak. “I think that’s a great idea; Bob has never fasted a day in his life.” Bob Green was not a person to back down from a challenge that he had initiated. And so, it was on!
It turns out that my host was about a twelve handicap, on average six strokes better than me. Playing on his home course, Bob should have been pretty safe. But with six days of fasting at stake, he was feeling the pressure. We came up to the fifteenth hole tied. Bob hooked his drive, double-bogeyed the hole, and I went on to win the bet.
Instead of going through my pitch for financial support, over lunch with Bob and Teri, I talked about prayer and fasting for breakthroughs in our lives, about sending me his top three prayer needs, and about what I was trusting God to do in my life. The more I talked about it, the more excited and animated I became. We weren’t talking about some monumental act of self-denial—just skipping breakfast and lunch once a month to pray. While I was fired up about praying and fasting together; Bob seemed kind of numb. When we walked up to the first tee for the afternoon round, Bob turned to me and said, “Double or nothing.” Since I am telling this story, you probably know what happened. Much to Teri’s delight, Bob joined me in a day of prayer and fasting each month for 12 months.
Gregg and Bob Green on a Palm Springs golf course with ministry partner Dr Helton
“There were so many things in my life that needed serious prayer. I spent that one day a month agreeing in prayer with Gregg over these issues. The result was a real sense of God’s presence, a greater peace about all those issues, and confidence in my relationship with God that I had not had before.
It seemed that God was getting closer to me too, a little too close for comfort. Throughout that year, a spotlight began to shine on how my own selfishness had affected other people. One moment I was praying for blessing and provision and the next I was wrestling with God over my sin.
I eventually surrendered to the Holy Spirit and was reconciled with several former friends. I can’t tell you how liberating it was to receive grace and forgiveness from God, as well as from the people I had offended. How great it is to have both relationships restored!”
BOB BECAME A FINANCIAL PARTNER, even though I never got around to my presentation. In 2017, he had a serious accident while driving his golf cart. The steering wheel punctured his lung and left him fighting for his life. Bob was awake but on a medical roller coaster, kept alive by a feeding tube for six months as the doctors tried to stabilize him. Responding to trials and tragedies brings close friends even closer and creates bonds that last together forever. Suzanne and I went out to Reno to visit Bob in the hospital. We continued to fast, pray, and regularly communicate with them. Bob is 78 years old now and is fully recovered physically. He and Teri have continued to be among our most faithful partners for almost 30 years.