Bernhard Langer - "My Most Important Decision" SHORT TRACK

Mike Gonzalez 0:16

I think we've got the time because uh before we get to the 93 Masters win, you go to the Heritage, you you come here close to where I'm at right now at Harvardtown the following week after that 85 Masters win. Um and and you won that tournament, by the way, in a playoff with Bobby Watkins. But the the real point of the story is you mentioned Jesus Christ earlier. And that was really your first encounter in a Bible study, wasn't it?

Bernhard Langer 0:42

Yes, it was. So if if we have the time to talk about this, uh as I mentioned Jesus Christ in in Butler Cabin in a bad way, uh there was uh Scott Simpson, who used to be a skeptic. He would come to the Tours Bible study and say, You guys are just nuts. How can you believe in God and how can you believe Jesus is the Son of God and all this kind of stuff? He literally came to the Bible studies for about two and a half, three years on a regular basis to prove everybody wrong, to prove we're all idiots and and have a false belief. And after he got all his questions answered and all the things about Christianity that he thought was wrong, he he learned that they were true, and he became a believer. So now he's gone to the Bible study as a believer, not as a skeptic to prove everyone wrong. Anyways, he was playing in the Masters. He had staying with him in his house that he rented, he had Larry Moody, the chaplain of the PGA tour. They were both watching me accept my green jacket in Butler Cabin back at their house on TV. And as I mentioned Jesus Christ, this and that, they literally went on their knees and said a prayer like uh for me, saying, Wouldn't it be great if this guy would become a believer and a follower of Jesus Christ? And left it like that. And here we go, three days later, actually, two days later, um, I'm playing a practice round with Bobby Clampett at Hildenhead. We kind of looked alike, we were both young, upcoming uh, you know, players on tour, and we were friends. So we played a practice round. Bobby was already a believer, and he goes at the end and says, Hey, Bernard, what are you doing Wednesday night? And I said, nothing really, just find some dinner as usual, and you know, my wife is with me, and that's about it. And he goes, Well, we have a tour Bible study from 8 till 9 p.m. or something, and I'd like to invite you and Vicky. And I'm going, Well, tour Bible study? What exactly is that? I've I mean, I had an idea, but I played dumb. And uh I was going to church actually, but I didn't have a personal relationship with God, and I didn't know I could have forgiveness of sins right here. I always thought I had to be a good person to hopefully earn my way to heaven. Anyways, I told him, well, thanks for the invitation. Um, I'm not committing right now, one way or another. Uh, let me talk to my wife and I'll get back to you. So mention it to Vicky, and we both decided, well, let's go. You know, let's see what exactly they're doing. We don't have real plans, anyways. We can have dinner beforehand. And so we went. And I can only uh imagine what Scott Simpson and Larry Moody were thinking when I walked uh through those doors, you know, and three days earlier I'm swearing Jesus on national TV, and now I'm walking into this Bible study group, uh, and Larry Moody was teaching. Make a long story short, um Larry was teaching on the book of John, uh the Apostle John, and it was the third chapter and the and um the third verse. And uh there was a religious leader, a Jewish religious rabbi that came to Jesus at night. His name was Nicodemus, and Nicodemus was having a personal conversation with Jesus that that night, and in this is in the Bible in John 3 3, Jesus told Nicodemus, You have to be born again to enter the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is heaven. So and then two verses later in John 3 5, Jesus told Nicodemus, who is a religious leader, you have to be born of water and the spirit to enter the kingdom of God. Uh and Nicodemus was an older man already, and he said something like, Well, how can you be born again? I'm an old man, you know, I can't be born again. And and Larry Moody went on to explain that this was a spiritual birth, that's what it means. We all are born once out of the wombs of our mothers, or uh when we come into the world, but not all of us are born again in a spiritual sense. Only those that are according to the Christian faith will go to heaven and be in the presence of God and not separated from God, whether it's hell or any other place. And he went on to what exactly that means. You know, what does born again mean? And most people really don't understand it or don't know the true meaning, it has a lot of misconceptions. And I was sitting there in this room and I'm going, wow, I've never heard this in the church before, not the church where I went to. And I was all ears, and uh and he was explaining that born again just means there's a point in your life, hopefully, not before you die, uh, where you come to realize that God created the world, he created us in his likeness, in his image. He wants us to love him and serve him and uh use our gifts and talents to honor him. Um but he wants us to realize that we're born in with a sin nature. We're born of Adam and Eve, who he created, and they took from the the apple from the forbidden tree. They had all of paradise available to them, all of it. Only one tree, they couldn't touch the fruit from the tree in the center of the of the Garden of Eden, and and they did. Uh I guess the the devil uh enticed them, the fruit looked good, she ate, she gave it to Adam. Anyways, sin entered the world, they realized they were naked, so naked all of a sudden, which they never had a problem with till that moment. Sin entered the world, and we were all descendants from them, so we all have a sin nature. And some people say, uh, you know, you look at children, they're they're just they're so pure and natural and wonderful. But hey, I have four kids and I have now three grandkids. They have a sinful nature. You tell them not to do this, they're gonna do it. There's there's a way about all of us. Absolutely. I think we all know we are not perfect, okay? And and heaven is a place of perfect. God is perfect, he can't allow imperfection in heaven. So, you again to come back to what born again means, uh, I realized weeks and weeks later that this was missing. Actually, the one thing I didn't tell you guys was when I won my first master's, and that evening, I had an emptiness in me, inside of me, that I couldn't explain. I should have been overwhelmed and joyful. I mean, I was, as you said, the number one player in the world around that time. I was certainly one of the best. I just won my first major's. I just got married a year ago to a beautiful young wife. I had it all going. I had money, cars, houses, fame. I was a member of the PGA Tour, the European Tour, on and on. I was healthy, I was had everything a 26 or 7-year-old could dream of. But there was something inside of me, and I couldn't put the finger on it. Uh, anyways, I'm telling you this because weeks later, uh, I gave my life to Christ. I said a prayer and I said, God, I recognize that you exist. Uh, you had a problem with sin, with sin nature. I'm a sinner. Uh, the only way for me to have forgiveness is to accept Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, dying on the cross, dying for my sins. He was resurrected three days later. I believe that too. There were 500 eyewitnesses who saw it, and said that prayer, and I'm now a born-again Christian or a follower of Christ. From that very end of the prayer, I said the emptiness I had felt for years was gone. Like this, and and it hasn't returned. And this was in 1985.

Intro Music 9:31

That's a wonderful story.

Bernhard Langer 9:33

Uh, anyways, yeah, that was that was uh an interesting um moment in my life, maybe the most important decision I ever made in my life. It wasn't who I was gonna marry, that was maybe the second most important, but it was following uh you know being a follower of Christ and and having that faith in my life which impacts everything that I do.

Mike Gonzalez 9:57

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