AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The words were appropriate for the occasion, but they also were more than a little surprising. "It's wonderful to win the greatest tournament in the world, but it means more to win on Easter Sunday – to celebrate the resurrection of my Lord and Savior," Bernhard Langer said on national TV after winning the Masters in 1993.

It's common today for professional athletes to publicly give God the glory after they win games or championships. But 10 years ago, the practice simply wasn't done. Then came Langer's Masters victory and accompanying Easter message.

"Basically, I wanted to thank God for allowing me to be at this place," Langer said last week from the Augusta National Golf Club, where he was participating in his 20th straight Masters.

The "place" that Langer referred to was not a physical destination but a spiritual journey. When the German-born golfer won the first of his two green jackets in 1985, he had not yet given his life to God. But within days of that first major title, he made a remarkable discovery - Christianity was a relationship, not a religion.

Langer, 45, grew up Catholic in Anhausen, Germany. He attended church every day and served as an altar boy for seven years. But it wasn't until he played in a tournament in Hilton Head, S.C. the week after the 1985 Masters, that he heard an expression that sounded funny to him.

"I was in a Bible study at the tournament and someone said that we needed to be spiritually born again," Langer said.

From there, Langer began reading the Bible on his own, and each day brought new insight.

"Guys were saying that we are saved by grace, not by how good we are," he said. "So I got my own Bible out and there it was in black and white. We're saved by grace and not by our own deeds."