Image Credit: Rick Shiels Golf / YouTube
I have a confession to make: I’m a horrendous golfer.
There, I said it. Honestly, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to get that off my chest.
As you can imagine, my poor golfing abilities have been a particular source of shame as a washed-up athlete in my mid-20s. The older I get, the more it seems everyone I know wants to hit the links anytime the temperature creeps above 50 degrees. I’ve never once taken a golf lesson in my life, so on the few occasions I’m able to go out and play a round, I’m always astounded by how much better everyone else is at this silly, impossible game. I trot out to the range with my rented clubs and knock-off TravisMathew polo and try my best, but I never fail to make an absolute fool of myself.
I know: his blog is supposed to be about SEO and branded content and brand publishing, right? And it is. But just stick with me here. I promise we’ll get there soon enough.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy playing golf. But it’s more the act of playing rather than the golf itself that enthralls me. The socializing, the culture, the escapism; it’s the happy, tranquil activity that all the “cool kids” are doing. And I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t want to become a member of this exclusive club.
So, on one particularly uneventful evening a few months back, inspiration struck. It was time, I told myself, to really learn how to play golf.
I opened my desktop and ventured to where anyone would go for high-quality educational instruction: YouTube. I began my journey with a straightforward search: “How to fix my golf swing.” I clicked on the first result: an innocuous, six-minute video by Rick Shiels Golf on how to correct some common backswing mistakes.
Three and a half hours later, I found myself deep inside a rabbit hole of YouTube golfers.
It started with Rick Shiels, whose hours of content and 2.8 million subscribers put him at the forefront of YouTube’s sizable golf content creator ecosystem. Then came Danny Maude (1.32 million subscribers), GM Golf (1.17M), Grant Horvat (703K), Fore Play (464K), Paige Spiranac (422K), the list goes on. I barely had to type anything new into the search bar; the algorithm fed me everything I needed.
But somewhere along the way of my long, strange (and, honestly, educational) trip into YouTube golf land, I stumbled upon one creator whose professional accolades were quite different from the rest: two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.
As an avid golf fan, I’ve watched DeChambeau compete in major tournaments for years. I was aware of the hard-swinging, analytical and outspoken reputation he had garnered on the golf course, which, along with his much-criticized move to the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, has made him a bit of a polarizing figure. So at first, I thought it was strange to see him churning out lighthearted golf content, where he does things like compete against amateurs and play an entire round dressed in suspenders. Why would an established pro like DeChambeau, who has accumulated over $68 million in career earnings, spend all this time and energy making YouTube videos?
The answer to this, my friends, is where the rubber meets the road. (Iron hits the tee? I don’t know, I couldn’t think of any good golf puns).
It’s because DeChambeau, like more and more athletes nowadays, is leveraging the direct distribution power of the internet to build his own brand. Sure, he earns a generous wage as a tour pro as it is, but one surefire way to make that paycheck even bigger is to get more people to watch.
Think of DeChambeau as his own company and his YouTube videos as his own kind of brand publishing. Sure, golf fans have all seen the Bryson DeChambeau who hits bombs off the tee on tour and once said that par at Augusta National for him was really 67. But through his YouTube channel, viewers can see and connect with a whole different side of him.
“YouTube is just an unfiltered look at who (DeChambeau) is behind the scenes,” his caddie, Gregory Bodine, told ESPN last month.
DeChambeau’s content ranges from documentary to instructional to pure entertainment. Some videos give viewers an inside look at his day-to-day life as a tour pro, and others (his more popular ones) feature quirky challenges and head-to-head matchups with some of golf’s other big names. DeChambeau’s page is a smorgasbord of highlights, collaborations and just plain ol’ fun on the golf course. It doesn't feel awkward or forced when he takes on Horvat with thrift store clubs or gives Shiels a golf lesson. It’s engaging, high-quality content that, when added to his successful pro career, establishes DeChambeau as an authority on all things golf and one of the game’s most recognizable players.
That authority and recognition have shot DeChambeau’s content toward the top of the YouTube SERP rankings. It’s no wonder that the 30-year-old is far and away the most popular tour professional on the platform. With 823,000 subscribers (as of July 10) and millions of views, DeChambeau is reaching audiences far beyond the typical LIV or PGA Tour crowd. And while that’s all rewarding for the man making the content, it’s also beneficial for the organizers of the events he plays in.
For a sport with a viewership that has tended to skew older, golf is gaining surprising popularity on a site where the age distribution of users is overwhelmingly on the younger side. Rather than going through the usual routes of ad deals or branded content hosted on traditional media platforms, DeChambeau is growing the game by meeting the next generation of golf fans where they are. But that doesn’t mean he’s completely abandoning his day job. Quite the opposite is true. DeChambeau is playing some of the best golf of his career. He’s the No. 9 ranked male golfer in the world, and his U.S. Open win at Pinehurst last month was the most watched in nearly a decade.
DeChambeau, it seems, is leading a movement to inject a little more fun into the game of golf. He’s doing it with content, but he’s also doing it in real life. On tour, he’s made it a point to interact with fans and lean further into his showman personality, showing audiences that golf doesn’t have to be a stuffy, solitary pursuit.
So, what can we learn from Bryson DeChambeau regarding content strategy? Quite a bit, actually.
- Stick to what you do well. DeChambeau didn’t rise to online prominence by making his own cooking channel. He’s a golfer. He plays golf and knows people want to see him play more golf. Better yet, they want him to teach them how to play golf while entertaining them in the process. DeChambeau has the expertise and the personality to do just that.
- Originality and authenticity win the day. People crave content that’s informative and genuine. You could flood the zone with lots of unoriginal posts that may drive clicks now, but over the long term, nothing grows a loyal audience like unique, well-produced content they can’t get anywhere else. It took some time, but DeChambeau found that sweet spot of originality. It’s proof that the results could be spectacular if brands put in enough effort to get it right.
- Blending brand publishing and branded content can be an effective content strategy. DeChambeau didn’t go all in on one over the other. If anything, his YouTube channel (brand publishing) compliments his golf career (branded content), a balanced blend of attracting younger and older fans. The same can be true for other brands. Taking time to invest in both and developing a complementary brand strategy has its payoffs in the form of attracting new demographics and rewarding your core audience.
As for me? My golf game is still miserable. Maybe just a few more hours of YouTube golf content will turn things around…
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