As the guys of Good Good Golf warm up at the Stonebriar Country Club driving range on a late June afternoon, a teenage boy approaches with hat in hand, looking for signatures from the YouTube sensations.
He walks right past Cowboys quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Will Grier. It’s the Good Good Golf guys he zeros in on.
“It’s just wild to me to think, you know, a bunch of … idiots like us … have people that really look up to us and watch us all the time,” Good Good member Brad Dalke said.
Business Briefing
In the five years since the Prosper-based Good Good brand launched, its YouTube channel has passed 1.8 million subscribers. What started as a group of guys filming lighthearted golf videos has become a rapidly growing multimedia company that sponsors its own PGA Tour athletes and has a merchandise line.
Good Good is just one major player in an extensive world of golf social media influencers and content creators that have emerged in the last five years.
In March, the company announced $45 million in funding from a collection of investors, including former NFL superstar quarterback Peyton Manning.
“Their content is fun and creative, and I’m hoping they can help me lower my golf score,” Manning, founder of Omaha Productions, said in a statement.
Hundreds of people with followings great and small are creating golf content, bringing fun and authenticity to the sport that had previously seemed inaccessible.
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott readies to putt with the team from Good Good Golf as the social media company films at Stonebriar Country Club in Frisco, Texas on June 11, 2025.(Mackenzie Sheehy/DMN)
Two of the most popular golfers on social media are based in North Texas: World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and self-professed “content creator and pro golfer” Bryson DeChambeau, who has more than 3 million Instagram followers.
Social media influencers make up one of golf’s best business marketing tools, with the golf industry in Texas creating a total economic output of $14.2 billion in 2023.
“I think content creation is the future of golf,” DeChambeau said at an LIV Golf event. “It is going to be a huge vertical that people probably underestimate and they have underestimated for a while, and it will continue to grow. People want to see organic, authentic content.”
Power of the pandemic
Sports and social media have long been complementary, with influencers such as Frisco-based Dude Perfect growing a small empire and former Maverick Luka Doncic’s viral pregame trick shots.
Good Good Golf officially started in 2020, even though founder Garrett Clark created content with several future Good Good members for years prior on his own channel, GM Golf.
When the guys were looking at potential home bases, they landed in North Texas.
“This seems to be the center of sports,” said Good Good founder and CEO Matt Kendrick, pointing to the Dallas Cowboys and Stars headquarters in Frisco, along with PGA of America.
Particularly during the pandemic, interest in golf began to rise. It could be played outside, offered space for social distancing and didn’t require other people.
Texas, specifically, was poised to take advantage.
“I think Texas was more open with regards to outdoor activities during COVID,” Kelly Gilley, Northern Texas PGA executive director, said. “We experienced a huge boom with golf here, and in some states it was shut down.”
That boom was especially true with junior golfers. Travis Measley, Texas Junior Golf Tour executive director, said that kids who might not otherwise get into the sport picked it up since most other sports were under heavy restrictions.
“All junior golf organizations, at least in the state of Texas … all saw a giant spike in demand, right in that post-COVID time,” Measley said. “[Those kids] are way more into golf maybe than they otherwise would have been because they got so into it due to COVID.”
The spike in participation in Texas was mirrored on a national level, with the effects of the COVID boom still felt today. Last year, more than one-third of the U.S. population over age 5 either played golf, followed golf on television or online, read about the sport or listened to a golf-related podcast, a 45% increase from 2016, according to the National Golf Foundation.
There were 3.3 million beginners in 2024.
Secret to success
Until 2020, much of the golf content online had been informative. Good Good took a different approach.
Viral moments like Good Good’s Matt Scharff’s hole-in-one on a par 4 helped the brand’s following explode, but the guys’ personalities kept people coming back for more. They goofed around together, competing in challenges on the course with backwards hats and untucked shirts.
Even though they are not professional golfers, creators like Good Good connect with their audience by being their authentic selves.
“If you want to watch the best golf on the planet, go watch the PGA Tour. That’s where you’re going to find that,” Kendrick said. “We try to fit in this other space that’s just entertainment, that you laugh, make you feel like you’re part of the crew, and start connecting with different characters within our group.”
This authenticity is especially appealing to younger golf consumers. They see themselves in the golf content creators instead of viewing it as an older, “uppity country club only sport,” according to Dalke.
DeChambeau, a former Southern Methodist University golfer who is now ranked No. 15 in the world, has become a social media phenomenon with a YouTube channel he started in 2020, including challenges using vintage clubs and rounds with celebrities such as Tony Romo, Tom Brady and then presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024.
President Donald Trump (right) walks toward the Oval Office as he returns to the White House with Bryson DeChambeau (middle), winner of the 2024 U.S. Open, after playing golf Sunday, June 1, 2025.(Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP)
As a result, participation among young adults has skyrocketed. Last year, adults 18 to 34 were the largest customer age segment in golf. 6.8 million young adults played on-course, while over seven million only hit golf balls away from the course at places like Topgolf.
“With these social media influencers, they’ve introduced a lot of different ways you can also play golf,” Texas Golf Association championship communications coordinator Preston Gilmore said. “[They’ve] made it a lot more, I would say, approachable to the public eye.”
Local impact
In Texas, the influencer-related golf boom is helping the sport thrive.
There were 241,000 new golfers in the state in 2023, a 4.5% increase from the previous year. With the boom in junior golfers, more families are getting on the course and playing together.
“This doesn’t have to be just a game that is for the juniors in terms of growing it, but the parents can also go out and play with the juniors,” Gilmore said. “It’s given parents something to do with their kids that they can all enjoy together, whether they are good or bad at it.”
Gilmore said this increase in golfers is seen across the state. Before COVID and the boon of influencers, players could find a tee time on a random day easily. Now bookings must be made at least a week in advance.
Golf facilities profited handsomely from this demand in 2023, raking in $3.9 billion in total consumer spending while supporting thousands of Texas jobs.
“Country club memberships are selling out, and they’re going on wait lists,” Gilmore said. “New golf courses are being built. People are trying to invest in them. We have waitlists for tournaments that we’re trying to run for juniors.”
Gilmore also said the merchandising and apparel for golf have changed on account of these influencers.
Not only does Good Good have its own merchandise line, but it has also collaborated with brands like Callaway.
Across Texas courses, these influencer brands are appearing more and more.
“Whenever we … go to tournaments or host our tournaments, [we] see our kids wearing … the Good Good Golf hats,” Gilmore said. “We see our kids wearing the Bob Does Sports hats and things like that.”
Measley, of the Texas Junior Golf Tour, compared this growth in content creator merchandise to the fashion changes brought about by Tiger Woods in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Good Good’s and other companies’ merchandise, like Bad Birdie and Rhoback, are increasingly spotted on the golf course instead of Nike and Adidas apparel.
Measley said many retail brands are exploding alongside influencers. That’s certainly true in Texas, where golf-related apparel, equipment and shoe sales generated $354 million in 2023.
Other influencers are starting golf apparel brands in North Texas because of the success that the state is seeing in terms of profits.
Instagram golf influencer Grace Charis, who has amassed 3.7 million followers, just launched her merchandise brand Dialed Golf in Dallas in April.
This business boom is helped along by the world-class talent in D-FW.
“It helps that the world’s number one golfer is a Dallas resident,” said Molly Rawlins, Northern Texas PGA director of communications and marketing, as she referenced Scheffler.
“We also have PGA Tour players that have decided that Texas is the place where they want to live,” Gilley added.
Business opportunities
Many North Texas organizations have caught on to the potential of influencers to bring eyes and dollars to their brands.
At the 2025 PGA Championship in May, Frisco-headquartered PGA of America collaborated with Barstool Sports and influencer and broadcaster Hally Leadbetter to draw in the age 18 to 28 demographic to their channels.
PGA of America has worked with Good Good previously and with pro golfer Brooke Henderson, who has a social media following at 214,000.
Kevin Hyland, the organization’s director of digital content, said that brands like Barstool and other content creators have greater potential to reach the younger demographics interested in golf.
“While we are a really fun, engaging brand, there are certain things that they can do that we cannot,” he said. “We love what they’re doing for the game, what all these influencers are doing for the game.”
Hyland and his team use social media to their advantage even without influencer collaboration. Since 2019, PGA of America’s media channels have grown from 1.8 million fans to 6 million. The organization is also seeing investment from brands across industries, including Cadillac and T-Mobile, as a result of golf’s explosion online.
Dallas-based Invited, a golf course operator, is similarly using influencers to its advantage.
It recently launched the Invited Creator Series, where influencers and celebrities are asked to play one of the organization’s courses while making content to promote these clubs.
After the two events held thus far, Invited has seen an uptick in interest and engagement both online and on its social media platforms, Invited social media specialist Riley Holman said.
Invited is also piloting an incentive program to encourage members to create their own content. Each creator gets a series of perks for participating, including a club credit per month in exchange for two social media posts as well as referral incentives.
“What we found with social media [is that] more and more people trust their friends and people they follow,” Holman said. “What they preach is essentially gold. So we’re excited to see the traffic and the success we drive from this program.
“We spend a lot of money on paid ads right now,” Bonnie Scoggins, Invited senior vice president of marketing, said. “And to me, this is better than paid ads because it’s more authentic.”
