iRetire4Him 165: Free Golf. Eternal Purpose.

Jim: This is iWork4Him. This is also iRetire4Him.

Martha: Where faith meets work and faith meets retirement, and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: I grew up playing golf. It was the only place my dad and I could talk. Dad loved golf and retired so he could play almost every day. I challenged dad often about his golfing, asking him, is there a point to your golfing, dad? What are you gonna say to God when you walk into heaven and he asks you, what did you do with your 27 years of retirement? Dad would say, I shot my age a couple of times.

Golf is known as "a good walk spoiled" by the famous author, Mark Twain, but to Challenge Golf, it's known as a place where ministry begins. And Ron 3-Putt Potter, he loves golf. Apparently he has a problem with putting, but he loves golf. Challenge golf is focused on using the game of golf to minister to those who are struggling with the realities of life, one golfer at a time. Wes Kleiner joined the board of directors four years ago and is now the executive director of Challenge Golf. And both Wes and Ron join us today.

They could be retired, but now they're working harder than ever and the results are out of this world. Ron and Wes, welcome to iWork4Him and iRetire4Him.

Ron Potter: Thank you, Jim and Martha. Thank you, Jim and Martha, for having us.

Jim: Oh, you bet. Ron, where did the love of golf enter your life?

Ron Potter: I actually didn't start playing golf till after I played baseball in college. I went to a small school up in Upper East Tennessee, near Elizabeth. It was called Milligan. And basically it was a curve ball that got me a college education. And I thank the Lord for that. 'Cause I was a pitcher. And then when I got outta school, I was competitive, so I wanted something to do. So my dad and I started playing golf, and so that's when I actually fell in love with the game.

Jim: Wow. So where did Jesus enter your life in that whole equation?

Ron Potter: That was a long time before college. I was 11 years old and I felt convicted about my sins and I started asking my parents questions, and it was back in the day when the pastor would actually come out and visit you at your house, and the pastor came out to my house and he led me to the Lord. And it's changed my life ever since.

Jim: So before Challenge Golf, how did your faith impact your work?

Ron Potter: I was in corporate sales for many years and I would take clients out to the golf course and I would take 'em to lunch. And of course I wanted to share my faith with them because it was real in my life. It had changed my life, and I wanted them to know about Jesus as well.

Martha: That's so good. And I wanna hear - Ron, I guess for our listeners, we met almost five years ago, and I think our listeners need a to hear or have a reminder of about the mission of Challenge Golf. What is it all about?

Ron Potter: Absolutely. We wanna share the good news with a million golfers, and that was the original vision, and that was back in the year 2004. And the Lord has just laid it on my heart. I had two businesses I was running and owned and operated, and I sold one and I closed the other. And about the time that you came, and I remember you came to the Tim Tebow event, and I think it was at the Carnegie Hotel in Johnson City, Tennessee. And it was about that time that we wanted to start making Challenge Golf evangelistic.

Jim: We also did the events at Macklemore, which that was gorgeous. What a place that was.

Ron Potter: Yeah, that's an incredible venue. And we still go there each year. And they're friends of the ministry and it's always great to have a venue like that. They've added a new golf course too, Jim, and they've got this hotel resort now that makes it easy for us to have a banquet.

Jim: Nice. When you say you wanna reach a million golfers for Christ, how does that happen when you're out playing golf? 'Cause when you're playing golf, you gotta concentrate on one thing because between the time when you're taking your back swing and you come back and you wanna hit the ball, 'cause I get distracted between the back swing and the forward swing, it's a very long period of time. I don't have time to think about anything else. How do you intermix all of that in one?

Ron Potter: We don't share Jesus on the golf course itself. We do it either prior to the event or after the event. We have banquets and we have guest speakers, and a lot of times it's ordained pastors that come and share the good news. Or it might be someone like Tim Tebow or Darrell Strawberry or Tom Lehman, or some of our good friends that who have the celebrity status and then when they show up, of course that helps us attract the crowd.

Martha: Yeah.

Ron Potter: But by the way, we're doing free golf events each month with each chapter. Just the word free attracts a lot of golfers and it helps us to book out these events each time we do one.

Jim: Therefore you're not paying for the frustration. You actually get free frustration. (laughter)

Martha: I like that. Oh, that's awesome. I love the concept because you are attracting people in a, to an area that they're already interested in, but you are giving them no obstacles for getting there. In fact, you're enticing them by the people that they can maybe hear from and learn from. Tell us about some of the amazing miracles that you've seen God do since the onset of Challenge Golf began.

Ron Potter: One that comes to mind was a gentleman by the name of Scotty Fitzgerald. He calls our chapter director one Sunday afternoon. He said - now keep in mind he came to an event three years prior to calling our chapter director - and he said, I was at Black Creek in Chattanooga three years ago, and I remember this guy named 3-Putt Potter. He probably said, I remember this fat ugly guy named three put Potter, (laugher) but Gary didn't tell me that, and Gary just said he, he said, Ron, he's in the hospital and he's got liver cancer.

And he asked that we come up and see him. So I stopped what I was doing. We went up on a Sunday afternoon, and I remember we led Scotty to the Lord that day. And it changed his life. And now I know that we'll spend eternity with Scotty. And we'll play the Real Master's Invitational once we get to Heaven.

Jim: Oh, you think there's gonna be golf in heaven?

Ron Potter: Absolutely. Because Lord gives us the desires of our heart.

Martha: Eternal golf. (chuckling)

Jim: But you will never be able to play Jesus, cause He is gonna have a perfect swing every time.

Ron Potter: True. There's no bogies in heaven either.

Martha: But there's also no crying, this is a good thing when it comes to golf.

Jim: I just can't imagine chipping through heaven.

Martha: What a great miracle though, to actually share. That's just I'm sure the tip of the iceberg, but what a victory that you guys open the door, that to create a relationship that could then be called upon. 'Cause often people call upon the Lord and are looking for that in their desperate time of need and he knew where to go, and you made that possible through Challenge Golf. That is such a great story.

Jim: I love that. All right. Most of us use our mobile devices and our computers not only to listen to music and podcasts, but also to conduct business and communicate with others. Imagine if you get a virus on your device and you can't use it for its intended purposes. It will only set you back on time and waste energy and potentially compromise the work you're doing. SaferNet is a trusted partner of iWork4Him and iRetire4Him that we've installed on all of our mobile devices and computers.

Their virus protection, VPN, 84 web filters, keep the bad guys out so you can keep doing the Kingdom of God work that he has called you to do. Check out safer net.com. Let them know that iWork4Him sent you. Alright, so Wes heading over to you. Where did your love of golf come from?

Wes Kliner: I started golfing with my dad when I was probably 11 years old, maybe 12. He had an older set of clubs he cut down a little bit. He'd take me out to the range. We'd hit balls. When I started hitting him a little bit more consistently, he would take me out with he and his brother and a friend of theirs, and I would be the guy that would have to find all the balls in the rough.

But I got some shots in and, when I got into high school, I just exploded. I loved it. Started playing all the time with buddies and kept playing with my dad. Never could beat my dad until I got into high school.

Jim: Oh, you did? You've beaten your dad. I never beat my dad ever in golf. I never got to do it.

Wes Kliner: Hey, he was a very busy man. He was my, he's the guy I looked up to. A very wonderful servant of God, took care of all of his family. He was the caretaker for his mom, his dad, his sister, who was invalid. So I had a good role model growing up. I really did.

Martha: That's fabulous.

Wes Kliner: I spent a lot of time with him.

Martha: So tell us about your love of Jesus. Where did that come into your life?

Wes Kliner: I first heard about Jesus when I was in first grade and my first grade teacher asked my mom and dad if I can go to church with them. I was a teacher's pet back then. I guess I still am because i've always been the guy people went to when they got a problem. I tend to be a problem solver. The bottom line is I heard about Jesus, but I never invited him into my life. I just had a good knowledge of who he is, and it wasn't until I was in high school and my best friend became my pastor's son, and I would hang out with him.

I talked to his dad quite a bit and I learned that it's not just getting the Lord and knowing who he is, it's getting him in your heart and dedicating yourself, just giving yourself completely over to him and providing service to other people. I'd had a great service model, but doing it for the Lord and glorifying the Lord and doing all of that is what became my focus. So it was in high school and I was baptized by my best friend's dad.

Martha: Oh, that's really special. Okay, so you just recently retired from your first career and really started a new career with Challenge Golf. But let's talk about your first career as a judge. How did your faith impact your work there?

Wes Kliner: There again, in my past lives, my first real long career was the law. I went to law school, = at the age of 32. I'd been a military officer. I'd also worked and built some houses in a gap year between my sophomore and junior year, or sophomore year. And when I enlisted in the Army - I speak Russian- I was a Russian linguist when I was enlisted. The Army sent me back to college. That's my background. So I had a lot of variety in my background and my wife and I both went to Memphis State, not University of Memphis back in 87.

We graduated in 90. And I worked as a lawyer for various firms and companies, wound up being general counsel for a couple of corporations and also worked helping a couple 501c3s get organized. And so about 12 and a half years ago, I became a US administrative law judge with social security. I loved that job because I was helping people who really needed to be helped. And discerning who was not really needing the help and was trying to take advantage of the system. So I felt like a good gatekeeper, but also a great servant to be able to help those people who were truly in need of help.

That's, I left that career. I had planned on working - i'm 72. I'm older than this guy. I know I look younger, but I'm older. (chuckles) About four years. I planned on working until I was 75 and my wife was all for it because financially we were doing well, but I'm getting ahead of myself. My first exposure to Challenge Golf was the Tebow event that you all were there and I was totally impressed with the ministry.

I was invited by Brandon Guy who helped with all the sound in the video. Anyway, I sing with him. I sing barbershop, too. So the bottom line is I saw the mission of Challenge Golf that this guy had envisioned, and I love it because not only do I believe in evangelism, I'm big in discipleship. It's time for men to stand up, women as well, to be leaders, to be disciples of Christ because the only way that our faith it's propagated in the next generation as if we plant those seeds of the gospel and then nurture them by getting them into the word and getting them to pray.

So that's my passion. That's what I've worked for all my life as a member of a church, as a deacon, as a Sunday school teacher, singing in choir, those sort of things. So my life has always been about commitment to the Lord in whatever I did. I'm the guy that you say, have a nice day. And I look at somebody, I'll say, have is a passive board, I'm proactive. I hope you are too, and you make it a great day. Because the Lord blesses everyone.

Martha: So were you implying then that you hurried up your retirement from your career so that you could then move into a role at Challenge Golf?

Wes Kliner: Actually I was browbeat by Ron, (laughter) And my fleece was if my wife is okay with it, then I'm okay with it. But she's, I have a fabulous wife, Pam, who just, she's my biggest fan. She's my biggest critic. She always lets me know when I'm messing up, which is frequent. So the bottom line is she said, Hey, it's where your heart is. It's always been where your heart is. We're good. Go forth. Do this, it's what the Lord is leading you to do. So that's what led me to come on board, my background, administration, leadership, those sort of things. So I'm an organizer. I'm a name taker. A rear end kicker too.

Ron Potter: And by the way, Wes and I are best of friends, and as a former federal judge, I like to kid him that his sentences are always long.

 (laughter)

Jim: Oh boy. Okay. Okay.

Wes Kliner: I was a lawyer. I get paid by the word. (laughter)

Martha: That's right. Wow. That's exactly right. Oh, that's wonderful though.

Jim: So there really will be lawyers in heaven. I always wondered about that, if there'd be lawyers in heaven.

 (laughing)

Wes Kliner: I know. At least two - my wife and I.

Jim: Nice, nice.

Martha: That's fabulous.

Jim: There you go.

Martha: You know so much like your story, Wes, where it's a reboot, sometimes we need a mid-year reboot. And this June, we want to invite everyone listening to join us in Cincinnati for the National Faith at Work Summit. June 17th through 19th with a theme of frontiers: collaboration, creativity, and continuity.

We invite participants to examine emerging opportunities and challenges at the intersection of faith, leadership, and work. I'll put the link in the show notes, but Jim and I will be MCing this event and we really hope to see you all there.

Jim: Alright, Ron, Challenge Golf enters a new era this spring, as spring arrives across the country. What can we expect from Challenge Golf this year, 2026?

Ron Potter: With Wes' Leadership, we're rolling out a new discipleship program that I'm really excited about. It's an 18 week kind of paralleling 18 holes. It's an 18 week discipleship program, and it's gonna assist golfers with their next steps in faith, both believers and unbelievers.

Jim: And how are you gonna pair the golfers up? Because discipleship is really mentoring and discipleship all at one time because we need to learn to live life along somebody who's a little further down the road in our faith. How do you do the matching up thing?

Ron Potter: When we do the invitational, we have caddies and caddies are like us. We put on a caddy uniform. We invite our unchurched golfers to come out and play in a free round of golf, which is a picture of a mulligan, being free. And then at the end of the day, we actually tell 'em about Jesus, who we compare that to God's Mulligan for mankind, the second chance we don't deserve and that we did not earn.

And so the caddy then will be given this discipleship program, and it teaches him how to go out into the community and follow up with the golfer that he led to that golf tournament. His original purpose is just to get the unchurched friend of his to the free golf tournament. It's pretty easy to do that when it's a free golf tournament.

Wes Kliner: In each chapter that we found in a new community, what we do is we look to partner up with local evangelical churches and we get their men's and women's ministries, women who and men who are golfers, to become involved as the leaders of that local chapter. And we're, we're looking for people that believe in the Apostles creed basically, Jesus Christ, triune God, and the only way to heaven is through faith in Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit when you accept him as both savior and Lord of your life.

Church has that as a commitment. Yeah, I don't care whether you're sprinkled or dunked. We want you to come on board and partner with us, and it's those folks who will then act as the mentors. They also act as a landing point for those who are unchurched and unsaved to be able to go to and have fellowship, to have koinonia with a group of believers. So what we're looking to do is we're looking for human capital when we go to churches.

We don't need their financial support. We want people to be involved. And it's low impact. We're gonna provide a program that allows them to walk through, in a very logical fashion, the foundations of our faith. And then what it means to be a disciple. What are the attributes and what are the characteristics of a disciple? And what do you need to do to become a disciple?

And really all it is you need to be a servant that is willing to share, share who you love, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible that you use, and I prefer the English standard version. So the John MacArthur comment version, study Bible. So the bottom line is we get churches to partner up with this.

Martha: One of the things I think that has always gotten Jim and I pumped up about what you guys do at Challenge Golf is that you're taking a love that people have and you're being intentional about it.

One of the things that we see so often in life is that christians are living passively and they're going and playing golf, and then they're doing this other Bible study, or they're doing this other thing with other people. And you've married the two and you've said, let's attract the people that already love to play golf that need to hear about the mulligan of life.

And I love that analogy. I love your hearts. So tell us. With this new Bible study and with a fresh spring, and all the things that start up in the springtime, what are you looking for as far as expansion this year?

Ron Potter: That's easy. We're focused on Virginia Tennessee, of course, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. And we have, we're gonna start chapters in each of those areas because we have contacts there. For example, Wes and I, last month we went to several cities, including Augusta and Jacksonville and Panama City and Birmingham. And in Jacksonville we met with First Baptist Church, 28,000 members.

And the missions director there got really excited about what we're doing. So suddenly there's a potential chapter to be born right there through the church, and again, as Wes says, we're not asking the church for a dime, we're just looking for their golfers to help us begin chapters and we think it'll be organic that way.

It's we'll hear about a church here or there, and they'll hear about us. And like with this podcast, we could get some responses from this podcast from an area that we did not plan to start a chapter this year. But hey, we gotta start a chapter there because they're interested and they've got a group or a church and they wanna help.

Martha: So let's talk about that real quick. I will put some links in the show notes, we'll talk about it off camera of what links to put in there to, for people to contact you because this is going to intrigue some listeners, whether they are retired and looking for that purpose with their golf, or they're still working and want to make more intentionality with the people that they surround themselves with. We've got both avenues. We want to get people activated in that way. So listeners, I will have that. Look for that in the show notes, how you can get ahold of Wes and Ron 3-Putt Potter and get some information of how you can get involved because we get pretty excited about this because it is, it is real life, and we've seen how people have been led to Jesus through it, and so we want people to know about it, which is why we have you on the show today.

Jim: I wanna just, I'm gonna step back for just a say. I wanna step back for just a say, because what I want - just describe, are you having events weekly or monthly?

Wes Kliner: Monthly in each chapter.

Jim: Okay.

Wes Kliner: And they vary. We have three different free events where both believers and unbelievers or unchurched members will partner up and they will golf for free. The Invitational is an event where we take on strictly the servant role as caddies, and it's all unbelievers.

And then we have VIP events. We have a VIP event coming up April 20th at the Old Farm in Bristol, Virginia. And our guests are gonna be Charlie Reimer. Henry Cho, the comedian Henry Cho from Knoxville. I'm sure you all have heard of him or met him in the past. That we're looking real. We're looking forward to - that's where one of the avenues we use for raising money. We're looking for committed business owners and believers who wanna see this ministry expand nationwide.

We're focused regionally because we have a staff now, not just Ron and I, but there are six other gentlemen who are working with us. We have a staff of eight now who are committed full time to seeing chapter expansion, outreach to churches to get em to partner up, fundraisers to go to businesses and seek their support, who want to see the spread of the gospel in a very fertile mission field.

Of all the athletic venues I've ever been on, I have not seen one other than golf that where the Lord's name was mentioned more often than on a golf field. (laughter) unfortunately most of the time, not in a reverent manner. So believe me, it is a fertile mission.

Jim: Amen. Absolutely. I love that. Check 'em out online: challengegolf.org. Challenge Golf org. Ron, as we close out today's show, how many golfers have come to know Jesus because of Challenge Golf in the last several years?

Ron Potter: We've had 261 written decisions for Christ in our last 18 invitationals, and that is phenomenal. We're averaging over 30% written decisions when we do our outreach event. So let's celebrate that together, and thank you guys so much for having us on today.

Wes Kliner: Thank you.

Jim: Yeah, you bet. Challenge Golf. Org. I'm not much of a golfer anymore. My dad kinda wore that out on me, but boy, when you hang out with these guys, golfing is fun. And it's an adventure and now it's your mission. Check it out online. Challenge Golf. Org.

You've been listening to iWork4Him and an iRetire4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers and apparently our golf course can be a mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.