Get Creative

Today finally brings to us the PGA Tour’s Creator Classic, leaving only a few hours until social media golf influencers prove that their M.O. is not just far reaching, but sustainable. I’ve been following and supporting Youtube golf since right before the boom in late 2020, and this feels like a sort of culmination of all of the hard work and effort that creators have done to not just build fan bases but really legitimize themselves as brands. While there are many creators that could have made the cut, like Golf Sidekick, Grant Horvat, or Hole in One Trickshots, to name a few, the group they picked has a perfect combination of skill, following, and personality to create an event that can go beyond being a one time thing, or a flash in the pan, to be a consistent and enjoyable (and profitable) tournament. YouTube and social media golf is only growing more by the day, with brand deals, merchandise, and professionals getting in the mix, so having a PGA Tour sponsored tournament bringing these golfers together on a nationally televised and marketed stage is an obvious next step.

Golf has been prevalent on Youtube, and in turn more modern social media like Instagram and Twitter for years, but always confined to certain boxes. You had your instruction channels, your unboxing/review channels (or a mix of the two), and then you had the club companies and the Tour itself utilizing their players for content. As channels like Random Golf Club started to emerge, this led to an entirely new facet of golf content where the challenges, jokes, or people themselves are more attractive than the golf. For around the first year of its lifecycle, nobody was tuning into Bob Does Sports to see quality golf. Before they gained the scratch golfing Fat Perez, who is teeing it up in the Creator Classic, the channel’s main strength was its comedy and chemistry, as well as the allure of seeing someone so relatable with a club in their hands. They have their niche, with the “I love golf but I love beer” more coalition, where Good Good keeps their videos made for a wider audience with a lack of cursing, Disney-like excitement, and very quality golf, and then you have the more influencer type creators like Paige Spirinac or Mac Boucher, whose speciality is in short clips and posts rather than long form videos. The market is covered, there is real interest and genuine affection from the fans to their favorite golf influencers, and the PGA Tour has finally decided again that they want a slice of the pie.

This win-win scenario is one that shows that not only are the major club brands interested in bringing golf influencers more mainstream, but the Tour itself. It makes more sense when you look at the numbers and see how some videos can do as well if not better than a lot of normal viewing averages for PGA Tour tournaments. Bryson Dechambeau’s Instagram account is arguably a more valuable investment than the LIV Tour’s media rights, which are dismal. But, this is also because being able to watch a golfer with the skill and hype like Bryson so intimately, in such high quality, with replayability, and character, something that golf tournaments lack without the right broadcaster or some funny moment that happens to get caught on a TV camera. When Bob Does Sports started playing rounds with JJ Watt and Max Homa, I knew that this form of golf media was here to stay. Foreplay, with its Barstool and Taylormade backing set the bar high, but it has already been surpassed by lots of channels that have used the Foreplay format as inspiration. The biggest difference that it comes down to is that the Foreplay guys are great, they just don’t have that same connection, spark, or uniqueness that all these other, mostly newer channels have, which has allowed them to grow way past Foreplay golf already, as well as the fact they can’t seem to keep the same roster of faces. Good Good went through this, but like the Wu-Tang Clan (even I surprise myself), they showed that those who truly believe in the sum of the parts rather than the individual, then that will be the best way to grow for all involved. This is why YouTube and social media golf is full of collaboration and connection, and why when these four foursomes tee it up next week, it will be a competitive round of course, but one full of smiles, jokes, fresh new faces (other than Wesley), and a group of sticks who are, hopefully for all of us at home who look up to them, truly happy to be there.