YouTube golf is coming to the PGA Tour.
It will be the first event headlined by a golf influencer on the eve of the Tour Championship. Dubbed “Space Camp” for YouTube golfers, the Creator Classic gets underway at 4pm ET on Wednesday and marks a major shift for the PGA Tour in embracing golf’s internet personalities and recognizing their impact on the game.
Sixteen creators of all ages, backgrounds and specialties will compete in a stroke-play competition on the newly renovated back nine of East Lake, broadcast live on the web. The participants, who include members of popular YouTube groups “Dude Perfect,” “Good Good” and “Bob Does Sports,” will play in straight sets without handicaps on the same stage as the top 30 remaining FedExCup players. (The criteria for selected creators is simple: they must be solid, experienced players.) When the four foursomes reach the ninth hole of the mini-tournament, a playoff will be held between the four players with the lowest scores to determine the champion.
Golf on YouTube has been booming for the better part of the last four years, but the Creator Classic is the first organized effort to bring these big names to a PGA Tour event in a major way. While some of these influencers have attended PGA Tour pro-ams or invited PGA Tour players to guest on their channels, the PGA Tour has never formally recruited its YouTube audience for an event like the Creator Classic before. So why hold such an event now, and what can we expect?
How did Creator Classic come about?
Chad Mumm, executive producer of Netflix’s “Full Swing,” met with PGA Tour executives at The Players Championship in March to plan his first move. Mumm had just launched a new media venture, Pro Shop, and had formally secured partnerships with the PGA Tour and PGA of America. With a seemingly endless number of directions he could pivot, how could he ensure his new company was the most successful?
A month earlier, at the WMPO Phoenix Open, Mumm had seen something of an epiphany: The wildly popular YouTube golf group GoodGood had hosted a live tournament for golf influencers and celebrities in Scottsdale, drawing a packed house. The GoodGood Desert Open took place on a light-filled Wednesday night, the day before the PGA Tour’s rowdiest event, at a local 14-hole, par-3 course. The event, which wasn’t even directly affiliated with WMPO, was streamed on Peacock and drew 800,000 live viewers, comparable to the PGA Tour’s television broadcasts.
At a meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Mumm spoke about the success of the Desert Open to PGA Tour executives, including senior vice president of media and business development Chris Wandell.
“We were fascinated by the explosive growth of YouTube Golf,” Mumm says, “There was a new audience that was not only passionate about playing golf, but also about watching golf in a non-traditional way.”
Creators compete inside the ropes for the first time during tournament week…
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Tyler Toney (That’s awesome)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Garrett Clark (@GM__Golf)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Brad Dalke (Thank you very much)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Sean Walsh (Thank you very much)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Paige Spiranac (Paige Spiranac)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธ Fat Perez (Translator)
๐๏ธโโ๏ธGot itโฆ pic.twitter.com/sXIxHVulwF
โ Tour Championship (@TOURChamp) August 26, 2024
To prove the concept, Mumm and Wandell needed to do something bold. They could plan something in the middle of a busy summer or during the relatively calm fall season. But why not jump into the fire yourself? Mumm and Wandell proposed putting creators on the road to compete in a real arena, debuting the newly renovated back nine at East Lake and bringing YouTube viewers to one of the PGA Tour’s biggest weeks. The next step was getting everyone to buy in. But Mumm said he was “surprised” at how quickly the PGA Tour bought into the concept, even though it was an experimental plan.
“We have to do some testing to prove it’s viable,” Wandell said. “Does this bring in a new audience that’s interested in the tournament in a new way? It could prove we should do this at more PGA Tour events in the future.”
The producers seemed equally surprised when they were approached about the event. Wesley Bryan, a PGA Tour winner and self-described full-time YouTuber, said he was pleasantly surprised by the strong influencer involvement and how quickly the idea came together. Wesley and his brother George run the Bryan Brothers Golf Channel and both compete in the Classic.
“Behind the scenes on the tour, we’ve been trying to figure out how to best blend the audiences together, and we’ve been doing that for probably the last two years at least,” Bryan said. “It finally feels like we’re getting close to the point where they can make a lot of these decisions, and I’m honestly excited to see what the next two years hold.”
Going deeper
YouTube Golf is going mainstream. Will the PGA Tour get the likes and subscriptions?
The Creator Classic will serve as a test run for future efforts from the PGA Tour and Pro Shop that go beyond live events. There is now a growing recognition between both parties that the next generation of sports fans isn’t engaging with sports in traditional ways. The question is, will the PGA Tour’s involvement affect viewer interest in this type of golf content? Will viewers be as enthusiastic to watch the Creator Classic as they are when their favorite internet personalities release video blogs?
“We need to tap into audiences that don’t normally watch TV or go to the country club to learn to play golf,” Wandell said. “We need to reach those different types of audiences in the future.”
What will the broadcast be like?
Golf videos on YouTube already utilize high-tech cameras and complex editing techniques, but the collaboration with the PGA TOUR is something special: there’s no editing whatsoever. The event is live. Television cameras are set up throughout the course for the PGA TOUR’s coverage, and the event is produced by both the Pro Shop Studio and PGA TOUR Entertainment. In addition to on-screen graphics, ShotLink scoring data and Trackman shot tracing are also used. YouTubers are getting the full PGA TOUR treatment.
The event will also feature a line-up of big-name talent to support the product, kicking off with Riggs, Trent and Frankie from Barstool’s Foreplay hitting the ceremonial opening tee shot, followed by commentary from on-course and in-studio commentators including Mark Immelman, Barstool’s Dan Rapaport and Harry Leadbetter. Current PGA Tour player Joel Dahmen has also joined the guest list, having reached out to Mumm directly to express his interest in covering the event.
Hey translation: Please keep the fans to the left of your first tee shot out of the way๐๐ผ
โ Garrett Clark (@gm__golf) August 26, 2024
Who’s playing?
โข Tyler Toney (Dude Perfect)
โข Garrett Clark (Good Good/GM Golf)
โข Brad Dahlke (Good Good)
โข Seann Walsh (Good Good)
โข Fat Perez (Bob Does Sports)
โข Paige Spiranac
โข Roger Steele
โข Wesley Bryan
โข Micah Morris
โข George Brian
โข Peter Finch
โข Luke Kwon
โข Mac Boucher
โข Amy Cho
โข Gabby Golf Girl
โข Mason Nutt (Busterjack Golf)
How to watch
Time: Wednesday 4pm ET
Streaming: PGA Tour YouTube channel, Peacock, ESPN+, PGA Tour FAST platform
(Top photo of Wesley Bryan (left) and Fat Perez: Jonathan Backman/Getty Images, courtesy of Bob Das Sports)