Budding PGA Tour Star Luke Clanton Details Moment He Went From Being An Atheist To A Christian
Clanton made his transformation after a unique moment at Florida State University.
Less than a month into his professional golf career, Luke Clanton is taking a page out of Scottie Scheffler's playbook, which is a wise decision given that Scheffler has been the No. 1 player in the world for 145 weeks and counting. That page, however, doesn't have so much to do with actually playing golf, but what playing golf actually means.
Throughout his career, Scheffler has been open about being a Christian and how his faith, not golf, is what ultimately defines him as a person. Clanton is adopting that same mindset as his professional career gets underway, but just a few short years ago that would not have been the case.
Luke Clanton has opened up about his Christian faith after being an atheist for many years. (Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images)
The former No. 1 amateur in the world recently sat down with GOLF, opened up about his journey in faith, and specifically pointed to one moment during his early days at Florida State that led him to Jesus.
"I grew up, and my mom and dad were Christian, my sisters were Christian, but in high school, I was always a little skeptical, and I was actually an atheist. I just didn't believe in anything, I actually tried to prove it wasn't right," Clanton said.
"I saw this guy on the side of the street after I went to class for two minutes and left, and I saw this guy and he looked homeless, so I just tried to kind of walk around him," he continued. "He looked at me and said ‘are you okay?’ and I was like ‘yeah, I’m fine' and I kind of shrugged him off.
"I walk past him and then he said to my back, ‘are you okay?’ and I turned around and I said ‘yeah man, I’m fine, I don't need help,' then he pulls out a bible behind him and hands it to me and goes ‘Jesus loves you.’
"That was the first moment of my life where it just struck me, where I was like this is such an odd moment because I was thinking about Jesus the last couple of weeks. I went back and went to the one bible verse I knew at the time was John 3:16 and it just kind of went from there."
Clanton went on to mention that Jayce Barber of College Golf Fellowship came into his life one week later, and he spilled his entire life story to him, knowing Jesus was trying to reach out to him.
The game of golf has been mighty kind to Clanton since that random moment on a street on Florida State's campus.
Prior to turning professional ahead of the RBC Canadian Open earlier this month, Clanton had already picked up two runner-up finishes on the PGA Tour and has made 11 cuts through his first 15 starts.