Keeping up with the Jones: Hanging with the YouTubers and TikTokers
Last October, I had the pleasure of attending the National Golf Foundation’s annual meeting. This edition was held at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif. It’s a great spot; the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America has held its golf championship there in the past.
There are a couple of things I particularly enjoy about the NGF meeting. One is the great company. There’s a small group of us there who focus on the maintenance side of the game. We typically find each other and sit together. Think of Par Aide, Standard Golf, Nufarm and the like — great people to hang out with. (If you’re an industry person and you’re not attending, you should join us!)
The other thing that’s good for me is the NGF asks for the content of the meeting to be kept confidential. So, rather than sitting there taking copious notes and recording audio of some of the speakers, I sit back and listen, soaking it all in.
Looking back, the October 2024 NGF meeting was especially impactful. Consider: This was where I first learned of TGL (Tomorrow’s Golf League on ESPN) — the cover story of last month’s issue. This is where I saw GCSAA CEO Rhett Evans’ dramatic presentation on his journey summiting Mt. Everest. It was there when I listened to an influencer do a question-and-answer session and, like the grumpy old man I’m starting to become, I wondered why her story was so important to warrant a seat on that stage. And lastly, this is where I saw NGF CEO Greg Nathan give his presentation on the 2025 Graffis Report.
Why was the influencer so important to be on the stage? Maybe because the NGF wants middle-aged golf businesspeople like me to realize what an effect they’re having on the popularity of the game. As Nathan went through his slides, the news he was sharing kept getting better and better. The game of golf is exploding among young people and among a wide variety of ethnicities. There were 28.1 million golfers in 2024, a jump up of 1.8 million golfers.
At the recent GCSAA show in San Diego, Nathan walked up alongside me and said, “Walk with me.” We were both hustling, trying to get to where we needed to, but he wanted to catch up while we both had a hot minute. It was then that we set up this month’s Golfdom Conversation, where I chat with Nathan about the 2025 Graffis Report, what excites him about the current state of the game and why this current boom is different than the Tiger boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
While at the Players Championship last month, I saw again how these influencers are … influencing … the game’s fandom. On Wednesday afternoon — mere hours away from the first tee shot of the 2025 Players Championship — holes 10 through 17 were made available for four foursomes for an eight-hole tournament called the Creator Classic, broadcast live on YouTube. The golfers were all social media celebrities, or as Lucas Andrews, assistant director of golf course maintenance at TPC Sawgrass, called them, “YouTubers and TikTokers.”
Can you imagine? Allowing a mini-tournament to go off before one of golf’s biggest professional events?
Well, I believe it now. And it was a solid crowd at the course watching guys like @BarstoolTrent, Fat Perez, ‘the most comfortable man in golf’ and the world long drive champion, Kyle Berkshire. The gallery had a different look and feel to it. It felt more like a rock show than a golf gallery.
It was later that I learned that, while the in-person crowd was good, the online crowd was even better: 700,000 people watched the Wednesday afternoon tournament on YouTube.
Tick, tock, indeed. This is golf’s time.
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