Common Course: Golf & Sobriety with Soba Golf’s Corey Davis

Golf is inherently community based. Despite being categorized as an individual sport, golf remains, or rather thrives on being, a social game. We’re all tethered to the rules and traditions of the game while embracing the characters we’ve met along the journey to par. As social beings we often crave and desire a sense of belonging.

The pockets of people united by this game are each unique and interesting in their own way, shaped by their individual journeys and environments—which is why we’re here. This is a new series at Skratch called Common Course. We're sharing stories focused on highlighting and bringing awareness to the cool and interesting groups and folks in and around golf. A coterie of people and communities that propel our game forward.

Common Course is for the People

This is for the 98%. While professional golf is always there, it’s not the true diagnostic tool on the status of health of our game. We, the people, are. The ones coming together, growing, building, advocating, educating, organizing, and mobilizing. Our game has never seen so many factions—and it’s time we bring a few to light.

So, please, join me in bringing us all to the same table, to talk shop and get to know each other. My door (DMs) are always open to suggestions and introductions to the communities that have made a difference in your golf life.

With all that said, allow me to introduce you all to the first community in the Common Course series, Soba Golf.

Meet the Man Behind The Mission

Founded by Corey Davis, Soba is a community for those who are on journeys of sobriety, those who are sober-curious, and those who just want to stick and hack with some like-minded folks without social drinking at the forefront.

At 22 years old, Davis recognized that his life was going down a path he didn’t like. While his friends were all graduating from college and beginning their careers, he was piecing together credits at community college, with no clear vision or focus in mind. Alcohol and substances were a security blanket of sorts. They were escapism for Davis, but one day his dad—who had started his sobriety journey the year before—asked him if he wanted help. The very next day, Davis was off to a rehabilitation facility, and he hasn’t drank or used since.

"Getting sober is not a linear experience," Davis said. "It's a very weird sort of winding experience, and very rarely do people say, I want to get sober and do the next day. There's sort of this slow awakening that happens."

Davis is now 15 years into his sober awakening, and ready to embark on a new journey, one that he hopes to share with others through his Soba community.

It's Bigger Than Just Golf and Sobriety

Soba isn’t just a golf group banding together for the sheer love of the game, there’s an essential grounding element that drives the mission. The focus on personal growth, wellness, and bridging the gap between physical and mental health is what separates Soba from most communities in the space.

It's been my experience that community and the outstretched arm of community is essential. I see us as a compliment to the traditional programs that have historically been around. We're not trying to be a clinician, we're just trying to be a fusion of wellness into this game that we love, and allowing people to have a new connection, relationship and drawing awareness. Nobody is doing that right now in this way—that's the mission, that's the goal.

What Davis is doing at Soba is simply filling a gap. Bridging together wellness and recovery with golf at the forefront.

Over the last several years, discussing mental health has become more normalized and people are finally encouraged to open up about what they are feeling. But what about talking about addiction and sobriety?

Sobriety is often tied to rock bottom, where you get to this place of being too far gone that abstinence is the only option, but that’s not the only lens, or the only experience. Each person is different, and we each meet the idea of sobriety on varying levels. Point being, sobriety is on the cusp of the same cultural revolution mental health messaging saw years ago. It's starting to get—thanks to those like Davis—more comfortable to talk about it, not just in the golf community, but in society more broadly.

I have to be honest, I don't really like talking about sobriety, you know? There’s no shared language, there isn’t any easy way to just tell someone, ‘hey, I’m sober’ without this strange feeling. There isn't an airy-ness to it. Sometimes I still feel very much like an outsider or like a leper.

Davis feels like, whether discussing mental health or sobriety, the air does thicken. There’s this natural tension that will suddenly take space, and what he and his Soba community are doing, is slowly working to help soothe and eventually break that tension.

A New Category of The Game

Golf has these different factions, one of the most popularized is the social drinking culture. From boozy micro-printed polos to specialty crafted cocktails made to take on the course—golf and drinking go hand-and-hand these days. Which Davis doesn't have a problem with, but in his experience, when an individual leaves rehabilitation and they're handed a pamphlet full of sober-themed activities and hobbies golf is almost always on there. There's a disconnect.

There must be a space where people can come together with a common goal and shared language around wellness and growth.

The foundational elements of Davis' journey to sobriety share commonalities with the core values found in golf. Davis went from a 30 handicap to 4 in less than five years. Anyone who has ever picked up a club knows the amount of patience and dedication that takes.

To him, golf presents unique opportunities for mindfulness, reflection, and mental clarity—all of which are critical for individuals on a recovery journey.

"Golf ends up becoming a tremendous lens to look through life, and it's easy for us to connect mental health with golf," Davis says. "The core values of golf, mirror the values needed in recovery and self-care: mindfulness, reflection, and mental clarity—that's been my experience with trying to get better at golf."

You may experience two steps forward, one step back, but the resiliency that's needed in order to get better, the focus that's needed echoes across golf and recovery.

"There's also humility," he says. "When I went to rehab, there was an incredible amount of humility displayed, in asking for help. Golf's the same way. Whether it's getting coached or watching videos or going to the first tee box and knowing you're not going to be very good, there's this humility that's displayed that really translates to the sobriety journey."

But what's it all for without others sharing in the experience? Those who can hold you accountable, and lean on during times of anguish.

Building the Community and Staying Connected

Building a community, even in the digital age, is hard. And so much of being sober and staying sober relies on those around you, the Soba community faces a tall task in the absences of togetherness. Davis, who's based out of New Jersey is well aware of the challenges having a community so spread out can bring.

He's brought in chapter leaders to help unify folks and draw them into common space, where they can all stay connected.

(Soba Golf, Minnesota Chapter Meet Up, March 2025)

Inside the Soba sphere is an active Discord channel, filled with individuals who are either sober or who are sober-curious; tapping in with one another, building their own network. That's the main place to stay locked in on anything and everything Soba. But there's also this component where people can reach out and get support.

"There's a channel called accountability—someone the other day wrote 'I'm coming back after drinking for three years, I'm a week into this thing, and I'm really trying to get back on the horse.'" Davis tells me. "And there was this outpouring from people saying, 'we're so happy you're here'. That's our tagline, everyone is welcome and we want them here. That's the community that we're trying to build within Soba."

(Soba Golf Hang at Butler Pitch & Putt, March 2025)

In tandem with the Discord channel, Davis hosts a podcast: Against The Grain. Where he chats with different folks with varying background as a resource for community members looking to connect, reinforce and explore.

Most recently, Davis brought on Stephen Malbon of Malbon Golf to chat through his own journey to sobriety and how he got to where he is now.

The episode touches on fatherhood, what it's like to navigate sobriety in such a social industry, and of course, fashion.

"You have someone like a Stephen Malbon, and he's at this point of, "hell nah, I don't feel pressured to drink' or whatever. And he's maybe the coolest dude ever, and he's not drinking, he's sober, and he's just being cool about it. And he doesn't feel affected, and doesn't weigh heavy on him; we can all get to that point of it being cool. We just have to keep talking about it."

The Future of Soba

Keep talking. Keep growing. Keep building.

For Davis, in a perfect world, there's a Soba chapter in every state, equipped with chapter leaders, local events, and a way to team up with facilities to complement treatments and programs.

I hate using the words 'instead of', but instead of going to drink and go to the bar in the clubhouse before a round. Just imagine, we have a breath work trainer who comes in and teaches us breath work then we get to go play Pinehurst No.2. Next thing you know, we're doing yoga together and someone leads meditation teaching. And those are things that you can take with you beyond just that weekend with shared community.

Soba Golf is about about redefining what it means to live a sober, healthy, and fulfilling life, all while embracing the values that golf can teach you. It's an example of what can happen when you combine your life experiences with purpose and intention.

Soba is more than just a passion project, it's about helping and connecting people by being their best, most authentic selves—something we all can tap into more.