Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube video with former President Donald Trump has garnered more than seven million views in roughly two days.
The numbers have skyrocketed since it dropped on his channel on Tuesday, with the ‘Breaking 50’ episode garnering over three million views in 12 hours. Clearly, the former President—and the reigning U.S. Open champion—have some influence.
But on Thursday, before LIV Golf’s event in the United Kingdom, DeChambeau made it clear that his decision to invite was not about politics.
“It’s an honor to play with anybody of that type of influence, no matter who it is on any political side. Again, this whole content piece, it’s a content creation piece, was about delivering some unique, different content on YouTube. We wanted to showcase the golf abilities of any influential person, and he was definitely up on a list that I wanted to showcase,” DeChambeau explained.
“We were able to call out and ask him to play, and he said, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ They’re more than willing to do something for charity. I wanted to make it about charity and the Wounded Warrior Project. I’ve done a lot for them in the past, and it was fantastic to see that he was willing to support it and anybody that wants to support their charity.”
DeChambeau wanted to raise money for America’s veterans while creating exciting content that stood out in the highly convoluted and overdriven digital space.
But the LIV Golf star made it clear that partisanship did not factor into his decision to invite the former President. He reached out to the other side, too, and he is willing to include people from all walks of life on his channel.
“Whether it’s Obama or anyone else on that side, I’m more than willing to play with them. I have no issues whatsoever,” DeChambeau explained.
The thing about golf is that we can utilize golf more to bring everyone together in a cool way. I think that’s the vision of the global game of golf. Inspiring a younger generation is huge for me, and that’s why I think this YouTube space is so cool because it really shows everyone’s true side. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish, and it’s definitely helped me in that regard. I can’t wait to hopefully do it with others.”
YouTube Golf has soared in popularity over the past couple of years, especially on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that gave content creators plenty of opportunities to expand their audiences. DeChambeau has taken advantage of that, but he is also aware of YouTube’s influence on younger generations. Millions of Gen Z individuals watch their favorite YouTube channels daily, often spending hours on the site surfing videos. Gone are the days of network television and early Saturday morning cartoons.
“Politicians are divisive figures for sure, and I respect and understand that,” DeChambeau said.
“I think showing the content side of it, creating content, was the most important thing we were trying to accomplish there, and raising a lot of money for charity. Those two things combined, that’s where we were focused on. That’s where we were mainly focused on, trying to take the politics all out of it and just going, let’s create some amazing fun content for people to see some cool, fun, entertaining shots.”
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
