How YouTube creators made their mark in professional golf

Grant Horvat stood just off the fairway of TPC Southwind’s par-4 17th, anxiously awaiting Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa.

Horvat had been an average Division II golfer, but now he was analyzing the world’s best players as an on-course reporter for PGA TOUR LIVE. It was a role he’d never imagined playing, but one that was testament to the opportunities created by his new career.

The 25-year-old is one of the best-known creators in the burgeoning YouTube golf scene. It’s a space that has seen not only rapid growth, but also increasing influence, in the golf world. That rise has been easy to see this year, as PGA TOUR players have embraced the platform and the faces behind the handles have become more recognizable than many who play the game for a living.

YouTube golf’s banner year will hit its high point next week with the Creator Classic, which will see 16 of YouTube golf’s biggest stars take on East Lake Golf Club on the eve of the TOUR Championship. The event will begin at Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 4 p.m. with ceremonial tee shots from a trio of the genre’s biggest stars – Barstool's Fore Play members Riggs, Trent and Frankie – followed by an eight-hole competition that will see the four lowest scorers compete in a sudden-death playoff on East Lake’s 18th.

This one-of-a-kind tournament will be streamed live on the PGA TOUR’s YouTube channel, Peacock and ESPN+, as well as the PGA TOUR channel on PlutoTV, Roku, Samsung TV Plus, Tubi and XUMO, among other FAST platforms.

Horvat was happy with his adjustment to doing live TV at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship. Still an outsider to that world, he was worried about a possible blunder that couldn’t be covered up with slick editing. This was different than starring in the pre-recorded YouTube videos that he usually spends his days filming. It helped that fellow YouTubers George and Wesley Bryan filled out the broadcast booth for the alternative stream, albeit from PGA TOUR Entertainment’s headquarters in Northeast Florida.

That doesn’t mean their two days as broadcast talent were without incident. Horvat was nervous as he took another look at the 17th tee – no sign of McIlroy or Morikawa, or the massive crowds that had followed all day. Then in Horvat’s ear, his fear was confirmed. The Bryans began describing the par-3 14th, setting up Horvat to detail the scene and the shots about to be hit.

“Hey Grant, how are you holding up out there?” George Bryan asked.

Horvat thought his mic wasn’t on.

“Well, George, I unfortunately just walked down the wrong hole,” he said.

“You can’t make this stuff up, guys,” Wesley Bryan said, breaking into laughter. “It’s kind of dumb they paid us to do this.”

Professional broadcasters they are not, but their appeal is apparent. Pro golf is no longer the only game in town. Hundreds of thousands of people, overwhelmingly young, tune in weekly to watch Horvat, the Bryans and others play golf on YouTube. A recent video of the trio playing Pinehurst No. 2 amassed as many viewers as the Wyndham Championship’s final-round telecast on CBS. Horvat’s most popular video has garnered 4.4 million views, more than this year’s final-round telecast of THE PLAYERS Championship.

For decades, pro golf was the only path to stardom in the game. Social media has democratized the process. YouTube is not a new phenomenon. Neither is watching golf on YouTube. But the small niche tucked away in the vast platform is having its moment in the sun. After years of operating in silos, YouTube golf and pro golf have begun to meld.

“Three years ago, definitely, we were afterthoughts,” said George Bryan.

Not anymore.

The ESPN+ stream with Horvat and the Bryan Bros was the latest example. Good Good, which has become one of the most prominent brands in YouTube golf with more than 1.6 million subscribers, hosted a 14-hole competition in Scottsdale on the night before this year’s WM Phoenix Open. It aired live on Golf Channel and peaked at over 100,000 viewers.

In March, a mix of YouTube creators and pro golfers competed in “The Q at Myrtle Beach,” an 18-hole qualifying event that awarded an exemption for the PGA TOUR’s Myrtle Beach Classic. It was won by Matt Atkins, a former PGA TOUR player who has made cameos on the Bryans’ channel.

He beat George Bryan in a playoff for the exemption, but the tournament then awarded another one to George (the fact that he’s made his first two PGA TOUR starts in the past 12 months, years after giving up his full-time pursuit of pro golf, is testament to the power of social-media stardom).

“There’s not as many of those, ‘Oh you’re just a YouTube golfer’ comments (now),” George Bryan said. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh you’re a YouTube golfer, that’s awesome!’”

The Creator Classic will be an unprecedented event, giving 16 outsiders the opportunity to compete on a PGA TOUR course hours before the competition begins. The event will serve as an unveiling for the back nine of the restored East Lake Golf Club and give fans an opportunity to see how “average golfers” fare on a TOUR setup.

The course corrections came quickly.

Good Good’s first video was a house tour. Two of their next three were travel vlogs. Their eighth video was a guacamole cooking battle. What began as a plan to split the channel between golf and other content was quickly abandoned for all golf, all the time.

Bob Does Sports, as the name implies, had wider aspirations than just golf. The channel’s original intent was to document founder Robby Berger’s trips to major sporting events, like the Ryder Cup and the World Series. The videos didn’t gain traction. Then Berger posted one golf video with his co-worker Joey Demare. It blew up.

“That’s what hit, so we just kept doing it,” Berger said. Demare joined as a full-time presence on the channel a few months later. A year later, Nick “Fat Perez” Stubbe rounded out the Bob Does Sports trio.

The Bryan Bros’ YouTube page started out of spite, wanting to prove they could perform better trick shots than a highlight they saw appear as SportsCenter’s top play for the day. It remained trick shot-centric for years, mostly as the brothers continued their professional golf pursuits. Once those were put on hold during COVID-19, the channel took off with a similar model to Good Good and Bob Does Sports.

It became clear that likable personalities playing golf, no matter their skill level, were in demand, if done right. The videos provided compelling competition and palpable camaraderie in bite-sized portions suited for today’s viewing habits. The relatively low-fi production worked in the creators’ favor, creating an intimacy where viewers felt they were playing alongside them.

They also offered authenticity and relatability. Most were regular people with regular jobs (at least until their channels gained traction). Even as production value began to mirror TOUR broadcasts with shot tracers, drones and 4K cameras, there was a conscious effort not to stray too far away from the flying-by-the-seat-of-their-pants ethos that captured audience attention from the get-go.

The industry also had the benefit of timing, just in its infancy as COVID-19 hit. Golf was one of the lone outlets during the pandemic, an outdoor activity that naturally promoted social distancing, and the sport’s popularity jumped. A record number of golf rounds were played in 2020, and that number was eclipsed in 2021. Two-thirds of golfers directly attributed their increased play to “having few alternative ways to spend leisure time,” according to the National Golf Federation.

With YouTube use skyrocketing, an influx of enthusiastic golfers had more time on their hands than ever. When they weren’t playing golf, they were stuck in their homes without much else to do, and many turned to YouTube for golf content of all genres – instruction, equipment, competitive matches, and yes, absurd and wacky challenges. YouTube saw the most significant growth of any social media platform among American users during the pandemic, according to the Pew Research Center. Today, more than 80% of all adults use YouTube, a figure that jumps to 93% of people between the ages of 18-29.

“COVID, obviously a clearly horrible thing, did wonders for the game of golf as far as getting new folks into it,” Stubbe said.

Rick Shiels, one of the groundbreakers in YouTube golf, became the first in the niche industry to eclipse one million subscribers in June 2020. Three months later, Good Good posted its first YouTube video. Within a year, they reached 500,000 subscribers.

George Bryan was ahead of the curve by a few months. He rededicated time to the Bryan Bros channel in January 2020 after years of sporadic posting. Wesley’s pro success – he was the 2016 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year before winning the 2017 RBC Heritage – had limited his availability and interest in contributing. But with money drying up, putting George’s mini-tour career “on life support,” he turned to YouTube. George filmed a few solo videos before Wesley rejoined the channel while the TOUR was postponed because of COVID-19.

“One thing led to another, and it started snowballing,” George Bryan said.

Each channel has carved its unique lane. The Bryans offer TOUR-level play and competition (George actually had the better amateur career, being named an All-American at South Carolina and the school’s male athlete of the year). Bob Does Sports is known for its food challenges. Barstool Sports’ Fore Play has the Fore Man Scramble. Good Good is known to try any wacky challenge under the sun. Others have jumped on travel, instructional or equipment content.

At first, most content was filmed without the participation of pro golfers, who were fans before they were co-stars. They saw what the creators were doing, but they weren’t quite ready to make the leap.

“There needed to be proof of concept,” Stubbe said.

Bob Does Sports scored that in a video shoot with Max Homa. The second-most popular video in the channel’s history, Homa played the three Bob Does Sports members in a match and nearly shot 59, barely missing a putt on 18 to clinch it.

“(Now), when we go and talk to the Keegan Bradleys and the Xanders and all those guys, to not just, you know, put an idea in their head, but send them a link,” Stubbe said. “We've seen the response. I think these guys are in on it.”

Both Bradley and Schauffele have appeared on the channel since. Other creators have landed video shoots with the likes of Min Woo Lee, Sahith Theegala, Akshay Bhatia, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson.

“Golf is fun. They're really fun,” said Homa. “They make it fun to play with them, and I like what they do for the sport. It doesn't have to be for men's professional golf. It's just for the game.”

It’s mutually beneficial for all parties. Players have an informal, relaxed opportunity to show off their personality in a way that’s difficult on TOUR, and creators get a bump from having some of the world’s best golfers on their channel.

“What it comes down to is, what do people want to watch?” Wesley Bryan said. “Do they want to watch a traditional broadcast? Do they want to watch YouTube golf? Or do they want to watch highlights? There are three different buckets in which you can consume golf. And, I think that they are starting to intertwine a little bit better. The more that we can get eyeballs on the game of golf, no matter where they come from or who they are, how long they're watching, the better it is for the sport.”

Min Woo Lee raised eyebrows this winter when he signed an apparel deal with Lululemon, becoming the first prominent male golfer to represent the athleisure brand on TOUR. It was received positively, an out-of-the-box but natural fit for Lee who has brought a new, youthful energy into pro golf.

Little did everyone know, Lee left another offer on the table. Good Good attempted to sign Lee to an apparel deal of its own.

“We were gonna bet a lot of money on Min,” Good Good founder Matt Kendrick told D Magazine in April. “It was an uphill battle, for sure, but we almost got him.”

It seems unheard of that Good Good, a fledgling golf company that built its brand with viral hole-in-one videos and wacky challenges, could compete with some of the biggest golf apparel brands for one of the game’s rising stars. But the business of YouTube golf has become much more than just entertaining videos for teenagers.

The brands have become sophisticated and all-encompassing. Nearly every top YouTube creator group operates an apparel line, runs events and hosts its own podcast. Most have equipment deals with golf manufacturers. Good Good is sponsored by Callaway and offers a custom line of Good Good Callaway balls and Odyssey putters. Bob Does Sports is also with Callaway. Horvat and Barstool Sports signed with TaylorMade. The Bryan Bros have a deal with Tokomo, and No Laying Up is sponsored by Titleist. It also offers an “in” for creators to make content with pro golfers sponsored by the same brands.

Inroads have been made in less traditional industries. Bob Does Sports launched an alcoholic beverage earlier this summer. Several of Barstool Sports’ Fore Play Golf members were included in the PGA TOUR 2K23 video game. The Bryan Bros bought a golf course in South Carolina and plan to turn it into a private club, youth teaching center and YouTube playground. Good Good has hopes to open its own brick-and-mortar store, expanding its scope well beyond just a media company.

For Berger, it’s still jarring to see it got this far. He’s only a few years removed from working the night shift at a Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, California, where he met Demare. That there would be an audience to watch his bad golf still confuses him. And that the audience would be big enough and passionate enough to buy merchandise, attend events and fund his career is confounding.

“It really still hasn't hit us yet, and I hope it never really comes to a time where it ever does. I don't see it happening anytime soon. It's just pretty bizarre,” Berger said. “Not a day goes by where this has been normal. We've always felt like we're just winging it. We still do.”