Hunter Mahan, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour, shares the opinion of the majority in the golf world on the controversial Good Good and Callaway golf ad and the fallout that continues to unfold: the advertisement was dumb, but the consequences that have followed seem too severe.
“Their impact on the game is huge, and with that size and scope of that lens on you, there is a responsibility, and I think they’ve realized that, probably in this ad and everything,” Mahan told OutKick.
Good Good, the wildly popular YouTube channel and golf brand, teamed up with Callaway in late August and collaborated on a driver. To promote the new club, Good Good shared an advertisement in which co-founder Garrett Clark shoved a female member of the brand to the ground.
After deleting the ad and sharing multiple apologetic statements, Callaway has cut ties with Good Good, the brand split with the PGA Tour ahead of its sponsored tournament set for November, and the brand’s apparel has been pulled from the shelves at multiple retailers, among other ramifications.
“For as much as the ad is sort of silly, it’s a terrible ad, I thought, and just in general kind of stupid, you’re under a bigger lens now than when you were when you were just on YouTube,” Mahan, the former No. 4 player in the world, explained. “I think they might have learned that lesson, and they maybe didn’t realize who was watching and how people are going to be judging them, but like anything, it was probably an overreaction to losing all of these things.
“You’re with a large partner, Callaway, PGA Tour, you can’t do those things now,” Mahan later continued. “I think they may have still lived in their small ecosystem and didn’t realize they had entered a large ecosystem, which is awesome through all the hard work you’ve done, but there are going to be consequences for that. Probably too severe, but that’s sort of the world we live in.”
GOOD GOOD GOLF DOESN’T DESERVE TO BE CANCELED FOR THEIR DUMB AD IN COLLABORATION WITH CALLAWAY
Callaway announced in a statement from CEO Chip Brewer that the “content review process was not comprehensive enough,” and they have taken “appropriate internal corrective actions and significantly strengthened our approval procedures to help ensure this does not happen again.” The statement also explained that Callaway approved the ad before it was posted.
The company also explained in a later statement that it was committing “$1 million to support organizations working to prevent violence against women, provide resources to survivors, and advance education and awareness efforts.”
Hours after Callaway announced that it was ending its relationship with Good Good, the PGA Tour announced that Good Good had pulled out of its sponsorship of the scheduled event in November. The PGA Tour has the now-sponsorless event listed as the Austin Championship on its official website.