YouTube child star Karl Vilips is all grown up – and thriving on Korn Ferry Tour

In the first round of last week's NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank, Karl Vilips made an ace. A deserving, celebratory accomplishment to be sure – just four holes into a tournament, the double circle on the scorecard is always a welcome sight. But for many who had been following Vilips on YouTube since he was a youngster, there was another welcome listen. His father, Paul, recorded and posted the shot to their YouTube page. A throwback of sorts, with the father’s commentary. People loved it.

Vilips has grown up in front of the camera. And after three straight weeks of excellent golf on the Korn Ferry Tour, he’s quickly approaching the PGA TOUR spotlight.

“My dad was always my coach, until a certain point, and we felt like I was pretty good,” Vilips said this week. “Putting up good results as a young kid. We just committed to getting good at this sport. We started the YouTube channel back then to help cover some costs – which was very helpful.

“We probably wouldn’t be here without that stuff.”

Here, is, now, 44th on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List after finishing T13-T15-2 in his first three career Korn Ferry Tour starts. Vilips was a star at Stanford and finished 10th on this year’s PGA TOUR University Ranking to earn conditional Korn Ferry Tour membership for the remainder of 2024. His play has quickly assured more starts as the season nears its completion, with this week’s Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health marking the third-to-last event before the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. The top 30 on the season-long standings after the four-event Finals will earn 2025 PGA TOUR membership.

It's a natural progression, as Vilips has always been a star in this game.

Since he was 2, Vilips said, golf has been part of his life. At 6 or 7 years old, he started playing tournaments. And he and his father committed to “the long haul” in golf when he was about 10.

“It’s been a good 15-year journey with the PGA TOUR goal in mind,” he said.

Vilips’ list of junior and amateur accomplishments is stout. For example, he joined Bobby Jones (!) as the youngest winner of the men’s Southern Amateur, when he was 15. He was a five-time AJGA All-American. He won the U.S. Kids Golf World Championship at age 7 and 9, and he won the Callaway World Junior at age 10 and 12.

Stanford was the obvious choice, Vilips said. He grew up a Tiger Woods fan, and Vilips only spoke to a couple of schools when it came time to pick his post-secondary destination. He committed to Stanford as a high school freshman. He toured it, saw himself easily playing four years of college golf there – and, perhaps more than that, could see himself improving each year.

“The commitment decision was pretty easy, and I’m glad I made it,” Vilips said.

While at Stanford, Vilips became fast friends with Michael Thorbjornsen – who topped the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking to earn his way onto the TOUR this summer. That relationship has done wonders for Vilips’ game.

“It doesn’t surprise me what he’s doing. He’s obviously really good. When he’s on one week, it’s scary – he can win anywhere he plays,” Vilips said. “It’s really cool to see him do what he’s doing; even when he was getting exemptions while in college, it was cool. Especially playing four years of golf with him, I was always super competitive. I was one or two shots behind him, and I was always striving to build my game around where those two shots were.”

While Thorbjornsen has made an immediate impact on the PGA TOUR – he finished tied for second at the John Deere Classic in just his third start – Vilips has done well himself on the Korn Ferry Tour right out of the gate.

The biggest thing he’s learned, he said, is learning how to time-manage. Vilips has been long used to just showing up on a college-golf schedule – arrive the morning of a practice-round day, play three rounds, get home. Professional golf is much different, with week-long efforts the norm. He has been preparing and planning to make sure his body – and mind – are ready to compete. The whole of his preparation is wrapped in being able to still have some left in the tank late on Sunday.

“Prioritizing rest has been huge,” he said.

Vilips, who finished second at the NV5 Invitational after a Sunday 63 (talk about having some left in the tank), has seen his goals shift rather rapidly over July. He went from thinking little about the Korn Ferry Tour – at worst, he could have tried to regain Korn Ferry Tour status via PGA TOUR Americas if he didn’t get the results he was looking for – but with the mathematical scenarios now very much in his favor, he’s thinking TOUR, and he’s not looking back.

“The goals have just changed a lot,” Vilips said. “Last week happens and you’re 44th (on the Points List) and now it’s like, well, let’s try to get our PGA TOUR card. We go into this week trying to play well and be in the position to try to win on Sunday. That’s all we can ask for. The goal now is to get a PGA TOUR card.”

And as far as that YouTube channel goes? He’s got nearly 40,000 followers, but the issue, Vilips said with a smile, is that he might not have enough time to keep it going. But there would be a fair-enough reason, if he makes his way onto the PGA TOUR.