Amid the little crowd gathering behind the yellow ropes around the fourth green at Royal Birkdale to watch Bryson DeChambeau hit a few putts during his early practice round, a spectator dressed in a full white caddie’s uniform spoke into a microphone while his pal held up a phone at the other end of the wire to record the on-course action.
At the driving range, two other guys beckoned a practising golfer over to the barrier for a quick interview. One asked the questions, the other held the phone.
Over on the Open’s own Live At The Range social media stream, presenter Peter Finch, a YouTuber with 830,000 subscribers, was giving his views on the fairness of the new-look Royal Birkdale course while other golf influencers were busy on TikTok seeing how much they could spend in the gigantic Open megastore.
Golf, one of the oldest and most traditional games in the world, has become a social media phenomenon. More than perhaps any other sport, and now many of those who create content about it are almost as popular as the game itself.
Masters champion Rory McIlroy’s practice round on the R&A’s official YouTube channel got 43,000 views in its first 24 hours. A video of prominent YouTubers Grant Horvat, an amateur golfer, and Wesley and George Bryan, known as the Bryan Bros, playing the course this week, reached one million before two days were up.
Rick Shiels, the British coach, has more than three million YouTube subscribers. His own video from his Open regional qualifying reached nearly half a million views. Paige Spiranac, the former pro turned glamour model, has four million followers on Instagram alone.
A video of YouTuber Grant Horvat, an amateur golfer, (pictured with Rory McIlroy) playing the Open course this week reached one million views over two days
Paige Spiranac, the former pro turned glamour model, has four million followers on Instagram alone
It’s easy to see why golf is such fertile ground. Amateur golfers are all desperate to improve at this dastardly game so any video that promises to stop us slicing tee shots into the car park will earn a click. It’s a sport where amateurs can, Augusta aside, play the same courses as the stars if they have the money (a round at Birkdale costs a fiver short of £500) and, if they have a little more, use the same equipment too.
Watching charismatic performers, professional or otherwise, doing the same is difficult to resist. Horvat played against world No 1 Scottie Scheffler in one of his videos for his 1.8m subscribers, watched more than seven million times.
This week, that crossover between creator and golfer took its next natural step with an American TikTok star as part of the field. James Nicholas has 400,000 followers on TikTok and came through qualifying two weeks ago to secure his place alongside Scheffler, DeChambeau and McIlroy at the 154th Open Championship.
There were almost two of them, but Wesley Bryan missed out on the final spot in the inaugural Last Chance Qualifier event.
Nicholas posts behind-the-scenes videos from his golf tournaments, often breaking down the finances to explain how much money he spent and made at events. In a recent video, he revealed how much he spent trying to qualify for the Open. When he took into account entry fees, flights, Airbnbs, food and a massage, it cost him about £7,500. He’ll earn at least £6,750 even if he misses the cut this week. He’ll earn £2.4m if he wins it.
‘Kids don’t watch TV, they watch YouTube,’ Nicholas tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘When I first turned pro, I wanted to broaden my reach and also to help inspire the next generation to chase their dreams.
‘When I was 10 or 11, I would ask Google what Tiger was shooting. Now, these kids can just DM their favourite athlete, hopefully I’m one of them, and inspire them. A kid came over to the house I’m renting this week, who had watched me in qualifying, and I gave him my golf bag and a hat.
‘There are upsides in terms of sponsorship and income. It can even get you invites into tour events. If I’m a sponsor of a tournament, and Grant Horvat is interested in playing the event, I know it’s going to bring a million more eyes to the event, to our engagement.’
American player James Nicholas has 400,000 followers on TikTok and posts behind-the-scenes videos from his tournaments
Wesley Bryan missed out on the final qualifying spot at the Open in the inaugural Last Chance Qualifier event
Nicholas tells the story of how he made it to an event in 2020 by mere seconds after being called up as a late alternate and turned up with no clubs, shoes or glove.
The story went viral and it led, he says, to him being invited to multiple events, including the Bermuda Championship on the PGA Tour.
Nicholas, a Korn Ferry Tour regular, says he currently earns more from his social media than his golf. He revealed in another video that he earned $255,057 (£190,000) in prize money in 2025. For making the cut at the US Open this year he took home $45,000 (£33,300). He wouldn’t divulge the exact numbers for his social media income but added: ‘…but it’s been a good year!’
He’s had to film content on his own this week, though, after the R&A rejected his requests for accreditation for his YouTube and TikTok production staff. ‘We’re not credentialing any personal media teams,’ he was told.
Players are allowed to film inside the ropes during practice but only outside the ropes once the Championship begins. Live streaming, however, is not permitted. Sky Sports pay far too much for the rights to do that themselves.
But the R&A, which perhaps fittingly stands for Royal and Ancient, know they must be dragged into the new age. Others are already there. The PGA Tour invite some of golf’s most popular influencers to play in a nine-hole tournament called the Creator Classic.
‘We could have chosen to stage a creator classic at the start of this week. We didn’t do that,’ said R&A chief executive Mark Darbon. ‘We proactively sought to stage an event – in this case, the Last Chance Qualifier – that was entirely aligned with the roots that we have for qualification into our event more broadly.
‘We will engage with different audiences through a range of channels, where we’ll use influencers and content creators to help us on that journey, but we will never do anything to undermine the standing, heritage and platform that our championship has built and will continue to stand for.’
‘I’d love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more,’ says Bryson DeChambeau
‘It’s like he wants to outdo every YouTuber in the game of golf instead of outplay everybody in the game of golf,’ said Brandel Chamblee, former pro turned commentator, of DeChambeau
During his practice round, DeChambeau was followed up the fairway (and frequently into the rough) by his own entourage with phones in hand. While walking the links, he found time to post on his Instagram story to tease that his ‘favourite video that I have filmed’ would be live on YouTube in an hour. For those interested, it was of him playing a round on a course in the middle of a redwood forest. Within 20 hours, it had nearly a million views.
He is, however, also on for the ‘Cut Slam’, having failed to reach the weekend of the three majors so far. Yet when asked recently what he might do if, or when, LIV Golf folds, he replied: ‘I’d love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more. I’d love to do a bunch of dubbing in different languages, giving the world more reason to watch YouTube. And then I’d love to play tournaments that want me.’
Brandel Chamblee, the former American pro turned commentator, put it this way: ‘It’s almost like he went from chasing Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy to chasing Grant Horvat. It’s like he wants to outdo every YouTuber in the game of golf instead of outplay everybody in the game of golf.’
‘I saw what Brandel Chamblee said about Bryson,’ says Nicholas. ‘I don’t think that’s what Bryson wants to do. My goal is to be the best player in the world one day, not to be the best YouTuber. It helps fund the journey.’
