Inside the meteoric rise of YouTube golf: How Grant Horvat and Co became more rich and famous than PGA Tour stars

One by one, the world’s greatest golfers reach the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass and size up the small island green. It is the final day of practice before The Players Championship, the PGA Tour’s flagship event, and this remains one of sports’ most intoxicating views. For many fans, however, the main attraction lingers just off the tee box.

They swarm Grant Horvat and ask for signatures and selfies. When he zips around Sawgrass on the back of a cart, staff and spectators holler. Horvat waves like passing royalty.

No matter that the lanky 26-year-old isn’t part of the 144-strong field. He is among a new breed of golfing superstars, a YouTuber who has become one of the sport’s most influential personalities.

‘It’s wild,’ Horvat tells the Daily Mail. ‘You see numbers on a screen, and then to see people in person, to see faces … the dream has come true in every way.’

In 2024, the average TV audience for any given Sunday on the PGA Tour fell by almost 20 percent, to 2.2million. Horvat’s most popular video has 4.8m views.

He has amassed 1.12m subscribers by taking on challenges and playing some of the world’s finest courses – with both friends and golf’s biggest names.

Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau, and Rory McIlroy are among those to have appeared on Horvat’s channel in recent months. He has faced Bills quarterback Josh Allen and tried on Jon Rahm’s Green Jacket. Phil Mickelson is his partner in 2v2 matches.

‘When I was growing up, a lot of people always said I look like Phil,’ Horvat says. ‘So now to have a series with him … it just doesn’t really make sense.’

But it has led him to Sawgrass and the Creator Classic – a nine-hole tournament between some of golf’s most popular influencers on the eve of the sport’s ‘fifth major’.

YouTubers were long met with skepticism, even scorn, by many purists. Even now they’re not to everyone’s taste. ‘I’d much rather watch pure competitive (golf),’ McIlroy said ahead of The Players. He had previously claimed that the growth of these online pioneers had ‘diminished’ the PGA Tour.

The Northern Irishman then appeared on the channel of Kai Trump – the granddaughter of Donald Trump and a burgeoning influencer herself. ‘You’re too good for this YouTube golf,’ McIlroy told her.

But what many professionals would do for the eyeballs trained on Horvat – at Sawgrass and online. ‘We’re growing so fast right now,’ he says.

No wonder several players have reached out about joining the YouTube revolution. No wonder influencers could soon play in Tour events.

Horvat is estimated to have made nearly $14,000 last month. And that’s just from YouTube.

He is also sponsored by TaylorMade and owns both a club brand (Takomo) and an apparel line (Primo). George and Wesley Bryan – the brothers behind one of golf’s first channels – own a course in South Carolina.

US Open champion DeChambeau juggles LIV Golf with his online side hustle, playing with the likes of President Trump and Tom Brady.

Paige Spiranac and Grace Charis – who have a combined following of nearly 10 million across YouTube and Instagram – are spearheading a new age of golf and glamor.

Rick Shiels – a former coach at a driving range in England – boasts nearly 3 million YouTube subscribers and almost 1 billion views. He recently signed a ‘strategic partnership’ with LIV Golf.

‘Good Good’, meanwhile, once offered fans house tours and guacamole cooking battles on YouTube. It’s now a golf and lifestyle behemoth that sponsors professional players and has invested in Woods and McIlroy’s new TGL venture. Good Good recently announced $45 million in funding from backers including Peyton Manning.

Together, these trailblazers offer competitive matches, comedic challenges, tips, tricks and a different way to enjoy golf.

Horvat first made his name on Good Good before deciding in 2022 to go it alone. The 26-year-old briefly majored in marine biology and had aspirations to help sea turtles. He still has tentative plans to launch a channel around diving and fishing.

But? ‘YouTube really doesn’t like blood, so it’s a tough one,’ he jokes. For now, his dream is a 2v2 against Tiger and Charlie Woods. He’s discussed a match with DeChambeau, Kai Trump, and President Trump.

Before that, though, Horvat must negotiate the back nine of TPC Sawgrass. He is partnered alongside the Bryan Bros and ‘Fat Perez’. Spiranac is an analyst, and among the thousands gathered around the tee box is PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.

The Bryan Bros are convinced that YouTubers have benefited from professional golf’s civil war and Monahan admits: ‘You could say they’re competitors.’

But, he insists: ‘They’re actually … partners.

‘They’re genuinely trying to grow this game – make it younger, make it more irreverent, celebrate (it) in any way… forty-seven percent of golfers are under the age of 35. The future is this audience.’

Thirteen million more Americans are reportedly playing golf today than in 2019. But the professional game is still mired in negotiations and uncertainty about its place in a changing world.

Last year, the final round of the Masters drew a reported 9.58 million viewers – one of the lowest figures since 2023.

Horvat, Shiels and Good Good hosted their own ‘major’ in 2022. That has nearly 11 million views and counting.

The Creator Classic is part of the PGA Tour’s efforts to bring influencers in-house. On Saturday, LIV Golf launched a new 2v2 tournament which saw six players team up with six creators.

Naturally, Horvat was paired up with Mickelson. Incredibly, the event was streamed exclusively on the influencer’s YouTube channel. Within a couple of days, it already has nearly 1.5m views.

‘You can’t stop learning,’ Monahan says. ‘We want to be constantly learning from them.’

The Bryan brothers had skeptics within their own family when, in 2014, they took a blind shot towards a new world.

They knew trick shots were popular and YouTube was growing, and they hoped monetizing content could fund their bid to reach the PGA Tour.

‘Quit doing that stupid stuff,’ their dad told them. ‘Either go get real jobs or make it playing golf.’

He came round eventually, however, and so did major brands. After being brushed off at first, the Bryan Bros were soon being offered ‘life-changing money’.

As one industry insider put it: why sponsor a pro – hoping they appear near the top of the leaderboard – when creators offer guaranteed attention?

But just as ‘eyeballs were flooding in’, Wesley made it on the tour. He won the RBC Heritage in 2017 and has made more than $5.2m in prize money. YouTube was briefly put to one side.

Now, though, content is now the brothers’ means and end. No longer is their livelihood determined by leaderboards. No longer are they away from home 30 weeks a year. Surely that lifestyle would appeal to many on the PGA tour?

‘I can think of four or five (players) that have reached out with curiosity as well as a desire to do (YouTube),’ Wesley says. ‘Your run-of-the-mill (player)… they’re just a name on a leaderboard.’

But, he points out, anybody can start a YouTube channel and tell their story. And yet, it’s a risk many aren’t willing to take.

The Bryans timed their experiment to perfection. They were early, then Covid-19 kept everyone indoors and then golf tore itself in two’.

Now, YouTube is a saturated market and low-rent, ad-hoc videos won’t do.

‘If you could walk into a situation like ours, people would probably jump on board,’ Wesley continues. 

‘But what people don’t understand is just how much time, effort, energy it takes.’

DeChambeau has managed to blur those lines better than anyone.

Horvat abandoned any dreams of going pro in college. All the travel and pressure and ‘seriousness.’ Now, he enjoys many of the trappings without any of the baggage.

You can see the appeal. Horvat is a tremendous player with infectious enthusiasm and a wide, white smile. Still, why watch him over those on top of the professional game?

The videos – across his and other channels – are fun and fast-paced, unlike traditional golf coverage. Fans of all ages have become invested in the personalities, too. Before teeing off at Sawgrass, Horvat is asked for a selfie by an elderly lady; middle-aged men heckle the influencers with their catchphrases.

‘I think seeing another side of pros is what they’re tuning in for,’ Horvat says.

By hopping off the 72-hole hamster wheel, players can relax and challenge public perception.

Two are particularly misunderstood, Horvat says. Sergio Garcia. And Rahm, who had the Youtuber over for sushi after they filmed together. ‘He let me try on the green jacket,’ Horvat recalls.

Rahm had triumphed at Augusta just months earlier. ‘He was like: you got to be quick with this – very, very cautious, on and off.’

The YouTuber now lives in Jupiter, the Floridian enclave home to many golfers. He has grown close to rising star Akshay Bhatia and often plays with Charlie Woods.

‘He does things with a golf ball that not many people can do,’ Horvat says of Charlie, 16. ‘He takes after his dad, for sure … and his dad gives him a lot of great golf advice.’

Tiger rarely gives interviews, but he recently offered Horvat some tips in a video with 2.2 million views. Golfers are cottoning on.

‘In the last six months to a year, it’s really switched,’ Horvat says. ‘Whether it’s (that) their kids watch YouTube golf and they want to be a cool dad … or they see the value in it.’

The irony of McIlroy’s comments isn’t lost on the Bryan brothers. ‘Rory actually was one of our very first videos,’ Wesley recalls.

The PGA Tour, meanwhile, recently launched the Creator Council. Golf’s old order wants to work with influencers in the quest for more eyeballs.

They met for hours at Sawgrass, Monahan explains, ‘just talking about their business, our business, the state of the game, how to grow the game.’

So what’s the answer? ‘You have to get to know the players on a real personal level,’ Wesley says. Unfortunately, ‘The players just aren’t going to give up that type of access.’

Netflix’s Full Swing gives fans a taste of life on Tour, and LIV Golf recently launched LIV to Win, a new ‘all-access’ docuseries.

But, Wesley claims, ‘You’re seeing it out here this week. There are 100 times the people that want to say hello to Grant and take a picture with him than, let’s just say, Justin Thomas … because they feel like they know Grant on a very personal level.’

A few days later, Horvat released a video with Thomas – the world No. 9 – that has amassed nearly 2m views.

The first ever Creator Classic – held on the eve of last year’s Tour Championship – brought in more than 5m views across more than a dozen YouTube channels.

Monahan expects the experiment to expand and the PGA Tour boss is ‘open’ to further integration. Could YouTubers soon rub shoulders with McIlroy and Co in PGA Tour events? Some already have.

‘Is it a good thing, bringing new eyeballs to the sport through somebody that that you know has no chance of competing?’ Wesley Bryan says. ‘Or is it is it better just to give the guys that need that opportunity, that are chasing it professionally?’

George Bryan has entered The Q at Myrtle Beach, where YouTubers and aspiring pros compete for a spot at the Myrtle Beach Classic.

Horvat, meanwhile, recently played a pro tournament – for a YouTube video, of course. He finished four shots off the lead. Next stop, PGA Tour?

‘It’s just not something I want to do,’ Horvat says. ‘When you get to play with the top dogs, you realize that they’re a different breed of a human.’

A few hours later, Horvat is back on the 17th at Sawgrass. Darkness is closing by the time he sinks the birdie putt that secures victory in the Creator Classic. Across nine holes, he finishes level-par.

The following day, the professionals took over and McIlroy triumphed after a playoff. Bhatia finished two shots further back and, during his final round, one fan shouted: ‘Do it for Wes Bryan!’

By then, Horvat and the Bryan Bros had left for Augusta to film more content before the Masters – one step ahead of the pros once more.

‘I think there’s a world where both can exist and thrive,’ Monahan says. ‘And that’s what we’re committed to doing.’