Golf is a frustrating game, believe me! Hitting the ball usually proves too difficult for me. Once you get past the fact that playing the game is extremely difficult, the rules of the game can be a little “nit picky” which complicates things even more!

A golf lesson for your Youth Ministry.

Enter Zack Nash, 14 year old golfer from Wisconsin.

The story of Zack Nash at a local golf tournament is one of those stories that shows just how crazy the game golf can be, but more importantly shows the honesty the 14 year old truly has.

Zack Nash defeated 31 other players to win the 13-14 year old division at the Milwaukee County Parks Tour Invitational. A great feat for a young golfer.

He won the tournament, received his awards and went to celebrate with his family and fellow golfing friends.

Unknown to everyone, Nash won the tourney by breaking the rules.

While celebrating, Chris Wood, one of Nash’s mentors and fellow golfers noticed an extra club in Nash’s golf bag. Wood pointed out the extra club to Nash.

He had too many golf clubs in his golf bag. It wasn’t intentional; in fact it was a complete accident.

What happened, was simple enough, a good buddy of Nash’s placed a golf club at Nash’s house. Nash put the golf club into his golf bag. It never occurred to Nash that by putting the club in his bag, it put him one over the 14 golf club limit that a golfer can have in his bag while playing.

Having an extra club in your golf bag is a two-stroke penalty, for every hole you play. Nash didn’t account for those penalty strokes when he signed his score card for the tournament. The action of handing in an incorrect score card is an automatic disqualification.

No one knew of this except for Nash and Wood.

It would have been very easy for Nash to keep this to himself and enjoy his win.

But he didn’t.

Nash phoned the Wisconsin PGA, told them everything that had happened, and then he returned the first place medal he had won.

Nash stood up and did the right thing, even though it cost him his first place win the tournament. But with his honest approach to life, you have to think that he has even better things coming his way.

This is a great story about honesty. A 14 year old golfer, doing what is honest and right when he simply could have gone on with his life without anybody knowing or thinking he “cheated” in any way.

Here is a handout outlining everything above to share with your youth ministry!