Scottie Scheffler has reached the kind of rare air most golfers spend their entire careers chasing. The world’s No. 1 player and multiple-major winner is the defining name in the PGA right now, which makes what he told a room of college golfers all the more striking: greatness is worth chasing, but only if you know what you’re chasing it for.
Speaking recently at a College Golf Fellowship event, Scheffler told student-athletes his career keeps coming back to one question.
“I think it always goes back to the why,” Scheffler said. “When I think about golf, and why do I play golf? I play golf to glorify God.”
College Golf Fellowship is a campus ministry that disciples college golfers and helps them navigate the pressure of elite competition. For Scheffler, that pressure doesn’t make ambition dangerous. It just makes motivation matter.
“It’s not bad to have the desire to want to be really good at something,” Scheffler said. “It’s just the why. It’s like do I want to be a really good golfer so that I can become famous or do I want to become a really good golfer to glorify God?”
Scheffler said even practice can become part of his faith when it’s rooted in the right purpose.
“When I go out and practice, I’m glorifying God by going out and practicing,” he said. “I want to get the most out of that time with my practice.”
Coming from the most dominant golfer in the world, it’s a reminder with some teeth: excellence can be holy work when ambition isn’t the thing being worshipped.
