Ahead of LIV Golf’s Indianapolis event this week, Bryson DeChambeau stopped by “the Pat McAfee Show” for a wide-ranging interview with the popular sports media personality. And the two-time major champion didn’t disappoint.
Over the course of a nearly one-hour-long appearance, DeChambeau offered up some bold claims about the popularity of YouTube golf compared to pro golf, and the desire among players for a PGA Tour-LIV merger.
DeChambeau says some PGA Tour pros would ‘love’ playing on LIV
Early on in DeChambeau’s interview on “the Pat McAfee show,” McAfee asked if DeChambeau was aware of the exciting finish at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Championship on the PGA Tour.
McAfee referred to Justin Rose’s playoff win over J.J. Spaun as “cinema,” then asked DeChambeau if he and his fellow LIV pros ever watch big Tour events and wish they could play in them, or, alternatively, if he thinks some PGA Tour pros want to play in LIV events.
“There are some [PGA Tour] tournaments where there’s great golf happening. At LIV, do you guys watch and wish you were in that?” McAfee asked DeChambeau. “Or, is there some weekends where… you assume there are some guys at the PGA [Tour] that wouldn’t mind to be a part of what we’re doing?”
DeChambeau responded by claiming he thinks both statements are true, including that some Tour players would like to tee it up at LIV events.
“I’d say it’s a very fair statement on both sides of the coin. I’d love to be playing against Scottie Scheffler, as well as I think he’d love to be playing against some of us over here at certain points in time depending on how things kind of shake out in the end,” DeChambeau said. “So, do we need to play more? One hundred percent. But at the end of the day it is what it is. It will get figured out, guys, it’s not there yet.”
Bryson’s final point rings true. There have been few signs all year that the PGA Tour and PIF, which runs LIV, are any closer to a final agreement that would end pro golf’s bifurcation and see the best from both Tours competing against each other more frequently.
Both sides are forging ahead toward a 2026 season as separate entities.
Bryson thinks YouTube golf is more popular than PGA Tour
But DeChambeau’s boldest claim, though not a surprising one, involved the rise in popularity of YouTube golf, with DeChambeau front and center.
His YouTube channel has grown exponentially over the past year, garnering millions of views per video. Bryson’s channel is just one part of a larger YouTube golf ecosystem that is wildly popular, especially among younger golfers.
But the MacAfee show, DeChabeau didn’t just argue that YouTube golf is popular, he claimed that he “genuinely thinks there is a possibility” that YouTube viewership is higher than pro golf viewership.
“I have a hypothesis,” DeChambea began, “that the entertainment side of golf probably is already bigger than the professional game of golf. I genuinely think there is a possibility in that.”
To make his point, DeChambeau used the Masters viewership as an example.
“If you think about the amount of viewership at the Masters compared to YouTube videos all tied in together… those amount of views on YouTube are more than what normal broadcasts get,” DeChambeau claimed.
Comparisons between YouTube viewership and traditional golf TV viewership are difficult at best. Golf TV broadcasts are live and typically run for 3-5 hours. Fans can only watch them during that small window. YouTube videos are available to watch at any time once they are posted, and they rack up views over time.
As an example, let’s compare the viewership on Masters Sunday this year to DeChambeau’s most popular YouTube video.
CBS’s Sunday broadcast of the 2025 Masters ran for five hours, or 300 minutes. It drew an average of 12.7 million viewers over those 300 minutes. Peak viewership surpassed 19.5 million viewers.
If we multiply the average viewers (12.7 million) with the broadcast length (300 minutes), we get 3.81 billion total minutes watched.
DeChambeau’s most popular video by far is his “Can I Break 50” video with President Donald Trump. In over a year since it was posted in July 2024, the video has earned over 16 million views. There’s a steep drop-off in views for his next most popular video, “Breaking 50” with John Daly, at 9.3 million views in 11 months. All but six of Bryson’s videos have less than 5 million views.
The Trump video is just under 56 minutes long. If we multiply the total views (16 million) by the length in minutes (56), we get 896 million total minutes. But that’s assuming each of the 16 million viewers watched the entire 56-minute video — which we know isn’t the case. On YouTube, a 50 percent average view time is considered exceptional for a video. If Bryson’s Trump video earned a 50 percent average view time, that drops the total minutes viewed to 448 million.
In a nutshell, CBS’s 2025 Masters Sunday broadcast earned 3.81 billion total viewership minutes in five hours, while we estimate DeChambeau’s Trump video has drawn 448 million total viewership minutes in one year.
Of course, that’s a rough comparison between one round of pro golf on TV and one YouTube golf video from a single channel. The impact of pro golf and YouTube golf extends far beyond a single TV broadcast or video. It’s hard to make a thorough comparison, but this data helps you understand why linear TV is still worth much more than YouTube.
