The golf business has never been hotter, and while purses at the highest level have also never been bigger, there’s plenty of opportunity for others to cash in right now.
Take Brad Dalke, for example. The 28-year-old was a stud at the University of Oklahoma, where he led the Sooners to the 2017 national championship. He was an incredibly decorated amateur, who nearly won the 2016 US Amateur, has starts at the Masters and U.S. Open under his belt.
However, he’s better known at this point for his YouTube golf. Specifically, Dalke anchored the winning team at the recent Internet Invitational, a golf tournament produced and hosted by Barstool Sports and Bob Does Sports for 48 of the best-known golf content creators. Dalke split the $1 million grand prize, adding to his bank account in a way that would have taken a whole lot of work and grinding had he kept chasing the professional dream.
That realization has changed Dalke’s career and it could change how a lot of competitive players look at their own paths.
“Like, there’s no desire for me to go into the most stressful environment of Q School, Korn Ferry, PGA Tour Americas, all that — I just don’t feel any desire to do that,” Dalke recently said on the “Good Good Podcast.”
Internet Invitational Winner Says YouTube Golf Is Where Money Is
Dalke essentially said the quiet part out loud in the recent episode. There are now more, better opportunities to make big money doing YouTube golf and everything that comes with it than there are trying to make it big at the highest level — and that’s without all the stress.
“Like, there’s enough money in YouTube now, and I’m having so much fun with it, it’s so stress-free,” Dalke said on the podcast.
” … Again, if I got a couple of sponsors’ exemptions, and got opportunities to do it that way, then we’ll see what happens. It’s just crazy how much money is in YouTube golf now. Now all these events are having huge purses like this, and I think it’s going to get even bigger and bigger. It’s wild to see. It’s cool to see. I mean, I think the audience loves it. The audience is shifting to YouTube golf, and I think that’s where the money is headed to.”
Internet Invitational Proof of Concept for Future of YouTube Golf
The Internet Invitational, by almost every metric, was a resounding success. The series earned tens of millions of views. It also did some good, shining a light on Barstool Sports creator Cody “Beef” Franke, who tragically died suddenly in October. Franke, who was just 31, was on the winning team with Dalke, and Barstool has since set up a scholarship named in his honor.
Undoubtedly, there will be a second tournament — Barstool even named the trophy after Franke — and the reception to the content has been universally positive, extending beyond the world of YouTube golf.
For the content creators, obviously, the chance to play for huge purses is great. But there’s value in the general exposure, too, as well as the chance to create more content around the tournament. Dalke already has 240,000 subscribers and surely picked up more with his participation. An hour-long video titled “We Won a Million Dollars!!” had more than 400,000 views and 1,800 comments within a few days of being posted.
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