The Creator Classic Expands to Three PGA Tour Events
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The Creator Classic Expands to Three PGA Tour Events

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The Creator Classic Expands to Three PGA Tour Events

After a successful debut at the 2024 Tour Championship, the Creator Classic concept is expanding.

We’re now going to see at least 20 YouTube golfers compete against each other prior to the Players Championship (March), Truist Championship (May) and Tour Championship (August).

Last year marked the first real investment the PGA Tour has made in YouTube golf, the fast-growing platform that has started to become more popular than traditional golf broadcasts.

In the inaugural Creator Classic, 16 YouTube golfers played eight holes against each other on the back nine of East Lake Golf Club the Wednesday prior to the season-ending Tour Championship. The top four finishers went up against each other in a sudden-death playoff which was won by Luke Kwon.

The audience for that first marriage between the Tour and YouTube golf was encouraging. The event has more than 2.6 million streams on YouTube but that doesn’t include the sizable ESPN+ audience (it’s unknown exactly how large) that watched live back in August. There was a peak viewership of 118,000 on YouTube alone and it was the No. 2 trending video on all of YouTube at the time.

The Tour says the Creator Classic engaged nearly 60 million golf fans across all social media platforms during a four-week period around the event.

It was clearly enough of a success to encourage the Tour to expand.

Expansion of the concept was inevitable

The Tour was way late on investing in YouTube golf, a medium that has been flourishing due to its on-demand, limited-commercial environment.

In general, the Tour tends to be last to the party when it comes to creativity. That is a central theme when it comes to the battle for professional golf—the Tour dragged its feet in the innovation department until LIV posed an existential threat.

For some reason, the Tour spent decades doing next to nothing with the Monday-Wednesday real estate outside of their competition schedule. It’s inexcusable it took this long to figure something out.

Having said that, give the Tour some credit for finally taking the plunge. It has TGL up and running with positive reviews and now it’s going deeper on the YouTube front.

The three tournaments they chose make sense. The Tour owns the Players Championship and all of the infrastructure so it’s an easy call to have YouTubers take on the back nine of TPC Sawgrass. The second event will be two months later in May at Philadelphia Cricket Club, a new venue on the Tour calendar. The creators will get to show off the course before the pros do.

Re-upping with East Lake also makes sense given that it’s the FedEx Cup finale and the Tour is desperate for juice when the calendar hits August.

The three tournaments—all of them being contested on Wednesdays prior to the respective Tour events—will be varying formats with distinct personalities.

All three events will once again be produced by Pro Shop Studios, led by Netflix “Full Swing” head man Chad Mumm. You can expect a similar presentation on YouTube, ESPN+ and a few other streaming platforms where you’ll be able to find the action.

Where will this all lead?

It’s uncertain where the Tour will land on this concept. Could there be an entire league of YouTube golfers?

I wouldn’t rule it out.

For now, going with three events is a good idea. You don’t want to burn off the novelty too quickly. Give it a little space to breathe so people can get excited for each one.

If there is expansion in the future, I’m wondering if some of these don’t have to be streamed live. Record everything and then release it as an hour-long edited video a couple weeks later.

It’s obvious the Tour is aware of YouTube golf now. Last November, there was an announcement of a Creator Council where “top creators in the golf space will work alongside the PGA Tour to cultivate fan engagement strategies and collaborative content opportunities, as well as the evolution of events like the Creator Classic and those planned for 2025.”

When you melt away the buzzwords, the Tour is serious about figuring out how to grow its audience.

The traditional product is slowly becoming less popular so there have to be innovative ideas to keep the ship afloat for years to come.

I’m not sure if ideas like the Creator Classic and TGL will do that—but it’s definitely progress.

Top Photo Caption: Luke Kwon won the inaugural Creator Classic at East Lake. (GETTY IMAGES/ Keyur Khamar)

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Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean is a longtime golf journalist and underachieving 8 handicap who enjoys the game in all forms. If he didn't have an official career writing about golf, Sean would spend most of his free time writing about it anyway. When he isn't playing golf, you can find Sean watching his beloved Florida Panthers hockey team, traveling to a national park or listening to music on his record player. He lives in Nashville with his wife and dog (of course the dog's name is Hogan).

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm

Sean Fairholm





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      Anmozdy

      3 weeks ago

      Sounds good to me. Three events feels about right.
      The tours coverage was pretty ho him, each creators own coverage was more engaging.
      I’ve basically given up watching tours outside the majors.

      Reply

      Jim Shaw

      4 weeks ago

      it may be my age group I am in but I will not spend my time watching players that aren’t good enough to make Professional tours, with the exception of Wessley Bryant, when I get lots of content of the best tours and players in the world.

      Reply

      OpMan

      4 weeks ago

      This is headed in the wrong direction.
      If the PGA Tour are trying to SELL ITS OWN PRODUCT – why would it DILUTE it by doing such clown acts with guys who are NOT on the Tour?
      This goes to show you the stupidity of the leadership that has plagued the Tour which has taken it to this point, with the debacle with PIF etc.
      Why would it take the focus away from its own players who have worked hard to get on to the Tour and be the players that represent the Tour as “the players” – the best players in the world, supposedly. I am sure the players on the Tour are wondering the same thing. They worked hard in their lives to get to the Tour and these other yahoos are getting free exposure at their expense, when the Tour should be promoting their own qualified Tour members heavily in all sorts of ways.

      Reply

      Will

      4 weeks ago

      Will they invite Rick Shiels this time? Seeing some of the scores from the first one, he definitely wouldn’t have been in last place, and it’s weird to snub the godfather of YouTube golf in a YouTube golf tournament. The mini tournament the Bryan Bros hosted with him, Peter Finch, Fat Perez, and Grant Horvat was a better watch.

      Reply

      Bag advice Man 2024

      4 weeks ago

      Yeah, that seemed legit, lol. W. Bryan, an actual touring pro who WON a tournament (right?), lets Rick S., who routinely shoots bad scores on his own channel, win most of the money? They got to be 10 shots apart in HC…gimme a break.

      Reply

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