Bryson DeChambeau could give up golf for YouTube in his athletic prime. Is he right?

rs? When Bryson DeChambeau, faced with the expiry of his LIV Golf contract at the end of this year. the implosion, possibly even sooner, of the now Saudi-less LIV Golf, mused last week that he might give up life on tour to focus on his, most professional golf watchers scoffed. This was just a bluff, a move to gain leverage as DeChambeau, like every other LIV player, contemplates an uncertain future. negotiates the fraught path back to the PGA Tour.

. And then I’d love to play tournaments that want me.”

. Green jackets. a place in the sport’s hall of fame, even money itself (since professional golf has to date been exceptionally kind to his bank balance): DeChambeau seems quite ready to give it all away for a life chasing views. Is this financial illiteracy, or a sign of sport’s changing priorities?

Perhaps DeChambeau is sui generis, a maverick determined to sacrifice it all for clicks. Or perhaps he’s a harbinger of a more meaningful shift in the relationship between athleticism and celebrity. Is organized sport disorganizing, splintering into something more personalized, ad hoc, and stunt-driven?

DeChambeau made $45m in on-course earnings over the past year. according to Sportico; before the Saudi Public Investment Fund announced it would be withdrawing its financial support for LIV Golf at the end of this year, he had reportedly been pushing for a new contract with LIV worth $500m. With the PIF suddenly out of the picture, LIV left to hand the hat around in search of new investors,. with the PGA not exactly in the habit of rolling out the welcome mat to past defectors, DeChambeau’s personal financial prospects look a lot more complicated than when he was pushing for that half-billion dollar deal.

He’ll stay rich regardless, so we don’t exactly need to hold the man in our prayers. And whatever the exact future shape of the Chambeaunomics. competitive golf has always been secondary to his real interest, which is making content. DeChambeau is arguably LIV’s biggest success story,. with two major championships to his name (the 2020 and 2024 US Open) there’s no question he is a genuine talent.

(2.7 million followers), where he puts in his longest. meatiest shifts at the content mill, DeChambeau and his dedicated “double-digit” production team pump out a neverending line of wildly popular videos, many of which extend past the hour mark.

There are challenges ( “Can I Break a Public Course Record in One Try?” ), product reviews ( “Are the new Costco golf clubs even good?” ), instructional videos ( “How to Create Repeatability in Your Golf Swing” ), stunt videos ( “Golf,. Siri Picks All My Clubs” ), videos with celebrities ( “Kevin Hart is My New Caddie” ), videos where the point is just to humiliate non-professional golfers ( “1 Pro vs 5 Average Golfers (Not Even Close)” ). In the “Break 50” series, DeChambeau teams with a celebrity. plays from the front tees in a quest to complete 18 holes in fewer than 50 strokes; recent guests include Steph Curry, Carlos Alcaraz, and Adam Sandler. (DeChambeau also appeared, along with seemingly every other figure of note in the world of golf, in Happy Gilmore 2.)

together. This proximity to Trump is usually interpreted as a political gesture but beyond golf. ideology, the bond between the two men probably has more to do with a shared love of attention. Bryson DeChambeau: it’s a name as sparklingly American as Mountain Dew. And what. really, could be more patriotically American than to give up the cause of professional sport to embrace life as a professional celebrity?

Every sport, of course, has to make room for the influencers now. These integrations can be planned (MrBeast firing a Kansas City Chiefs fan from a cannon) or spontaneous (IShowSpeed cornering Arsène Wenger as the former Arsenal manager eats a banana: “Yo Mr Wenger. you are a crazy guy my guy”). More often than not they’re thunderingly underwhelming: Twitch personality Mark Phillips live streamed an NBA game in Berlin earlier this year,. as hard as he tried to convince us he was blown away by the drama of an encounter between the Orlando Magic (final standing in the Eastern Conference: eighth) and the Memphis Grizzlies (final standing in the Western Conference: 13th), no one in the immediate vicinity appeared to share his enthusiasm.

r first and a professional golfer second than the other way round, even for a 32-year-old in his athletic prime.

appearances instead?