Love Courses, Hate Research?

Consider teaching as a career. You don't have to do research then, but you do have to the understand the material. If you like learning about the material then this would suit you well; you might even be able to convey your love for the topic to future students.

Potential problem: chances you'll need an advanced degree to be able to teach at university level. With just a Bachelor's degree you can still teach at high school level and below.

Alternatively, consider publishing/science journalism. These two fields don't need you to do research too, but your output in both improve if you understand the material.

Potential problem: it's possible the physicists you'll be speaking to consider publishers a scam, and you by working in one are complicit in the scam. You'll have to decide for yourself if you can put up with that. Science journalism is relatively benign in this sense, but you'll be forced into confronting how something you find so wonderful, so interesting, and so amazing can be considered by others to be boring and pointless.

Ignore the "must" and enjoy doing physics.

The worst that can happen is that you are going to enjoy the next couple of years, and then leave to take a decent position in the industry.

The focus on deliverables can be curiosity-crushing. Purely as a career, academic research is a poor choice: long hours, lots of competition, little pay compared to qualification. The real reward is figuring out how the world works; don't forget that.

So, play with physics, enjoy; most likely nothing of public value comes out. However, if you do figure something out, do take the bother to write it up, maybe it is not that bad?!

An advisor's perspective: I want to add that the above is not the most common advice that doctoral advisors (myself included) give to their students. It is because the advisor does not get to share the fun, but has to deal with any negative consequences. Yet many of the somber professors that surround you did the same in their youth.