This past weekend, professional golfer Scottie Scheffler won The Open Championship, one of the game’s four major tournaments. It was his fourth major championship win in his young career and history-setting, as no golfer in the modern era has won his first four majors by three strokes or more.
Furthermore, Scheffler is the first since Tiger Woods to maintain the spot of number one golfer for 100 consecutive weeks. In other words, Scheffler is really, really good.
But in such a highly competitive sport, Scheffler remains solidly grounded.
This reality was on display in an interview he did directly before The Open Championship, where he opined on his motivations and thoughts regarding his playing the game.
In very open, honest, and thoughtful comments, Scheffler acknowledges that, given all the victories and successes he has enjoyed, he asks himself why he does it. His answer may have been a bit surprising to a modern culture that has raised everyone to think of self-first, to think that true life fulfillment comes from expressing oneself and promoting oneself. The whole “be true to yourself” mantra.
“I’d much rather be a great father than a great golfer,” he said. “You work so hard for something that is so fleeting.” As far as winning, he later added, “It just doesn’t satisfy.”
Golf is a hard game. It’s a sport that no one truly masters. Invented by the Scots back in the 15th century, playing it has regularly been compared to living life. There are always more misses than good strokes. But even more significant is the mental aspect of the game.
Scheffler appears to have embraced a correct attitude toward golf. He loves playing. He loves the fact that he gets to do it for a living. But he has wisely recognized that golf is not the end-all, be-all of life.
And this reality was perfectly demonstrated as Scheffler stood on the 18th green holding the Claret Jug trophy, basking in victory, his toddler son, Bennet, came running and stumbling out of the crowd to see his dad. Without a second thought, Scheffler squatted down to meet him. A father sees his son as his greater joy than the trophy in his hands.
Interestingly, the touching moment was caught on camera, and the sports shoe and apparel company Nike, one of Scheffler’s sponsors, turned it into an ad with the following tag line, “You’ve already won. But another major never hurt.” It was heart-warmingly normal.
What is even more interesting is that just two years ago, Nike signed a deal with gender-bender Dylan Mulvaney to market its line of women’s sports bras. Nike made the move even after seeing the massive negative fallout Bud Light experienced with its promotion of the transgender advocate.
The decision raised a lot of outrage on social media, but Nike did not experience near the blowback that Bud Light deservedly received.
Now, Nike is effectively sending the opposite message. Why? Well, as a business, Nike wants to sell its products, and it sees this tender moment with Scheffler and his son as appealing.
In one sense, it’s blatantly hypocritical of Nike, but in a broader sense, it may actually be encouraging. If this is the type of message that Nike believes will sell shoes, then it believes this is the message that the broader American public believes in and gravitates toward. It may be that Nike is finally recognizing that Americans don’t want the woke gender-bending nonsense, that the country is longing for wholesome, non-political, non-edgy truth.
A father taking joy in his son. What could be a better message than that?
