Well before Nick Stubbe became Fat Perez—before the 500,000 Instagram followers and appearing in YouTube golf videos for Bob Does Sports that draw more than 75 million viewers annually—he was just like most of you reading this.
Stubbe grew up in the Richmond, Va., area surrounded by a family of golfers, spending much of his youth at what is now called Lakeside Park Club, a private course on the north side of the city. He played two years of college golf for Division III Hampden-Sydney about 70 miles west of his hometown, holding onto a dream of playing professionally as long as he could.
“And then I stopped growing height-wise,” Stubbe told MyGolfSpy during an interview last week. “I didn’t quite have the distance of some of the guys I was playing with. Somewhere along the line at a frat party one night, I had a come-to-Jesus moment where I asked myself ‘What am I doing here? I’m a history major who doesn’t really care about school and I can barely crack the starting line up here. What am I going to do after that?'”
The answer was to head for the real world. After playing college golf in 2007-2009, Stubbe transferred to the University of Richmond for a couple of semesters and then finished off the tour by graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with an accounting degree he earned “quite a bit after” having started his college career.
By the pandemic, Stubbe was in commercial real estate accounting with a typical job.
He was living the life of the everyman. But soon he would be the everyman’s golf hero.
The origin of Fat Perez
Several years before he shot his first video, Stubbe unexpectedly found a nickname that would change the course of his life.
Having grown his hair out after securing employment post-college, Stubbe was playing a match at a local club around Richmond. He was on fire at Hermitage Country Club, building a large lead over his opponent.
“One of my buddies said, ‘Man, hitting it like this and having the long hair, you look like Pat Perez out here,'” Stubbe remembers.
It was a compliment to be compared to Perez, the longtime PGA Tour player who now competes on LIV.
What followed was not a compliment.
“The guy I was beating muttered, ‘More like Fat Perez.’ I thought it was pretty clever but in the moment I hated it. I was like, ‘Oh shit, that was pretty good. I hope nobody caught that or we’re all going to let that go once we leave this tee box.’
“I acted like I didn’t care but my friends all thought it was the funniest shit they had ever heard. The next time I played golf, I kept hearing it. They wouldn’t let it go.”
The nickname lived only in local circles for many years—until the name Fat Perez quickly found its way into the mainstream.
Fat Perez plays to a plus-1.6 handicap.A chance encounter out of boredom
The beginning was innocuous enough. Over COVID-19, nobody was going into the office. Stubbe found himself with a lot of free time.
“I wasn’t a tax accountant so I wasn’t, like, grinding,” Stubbe said. “Once you get your monthly reports out, you kind of have a week, week and a half, where you don’t really have much going on. You’d never tell your boss that but everyone kind of knows.”
To kill the time, Stubbe had started following comedian Robby Berger and his YouTube channel The Brilliantly Dumb Show. That would eventually inspire a new channel called Bob Does Sports. (The original intent of the channel, as the name states, was for Berger to try his hand at experiencing different sports—but the golf niche came into clearer focus after unexpectedly gaining traction with videos of golf matches.)
One day in the meat of the pandemic, a bored Stubbe came across a Zoom happy hour on Berger’s Patreon.
“I just happened to go into my office after hours to get out of my house,” Stubbe said. “I probably wasn’t even allowed to be there but I just did it. For whatever reason, I just decided to (join the happy hour) and see what it was all about. I think it was just this combination of boredom and work procrastination.”
Out of an abundance of caution, Stubbe decided not to use his real name. His screen name read “Fat Perez” to everyone else in virtual attendance.
“That was sort of like the first moment that went one way that could have gone another way,” Stubbe said. “I thought nothing of it but it all led here.”
Stubbe kept showing up to the happy hours, slowly building a rapport with the affable Berger.
“Everything he does seems to just kind of make you laugh and smile,” Stubbe said of his friendship with Berger. “He never seems like he’s angry, never in a bad mood, which is honestly the case. He is the exact same guy viewers know. Like, none of this was an act. He’s not actually an asshole that turns it on for the cameras.”
Through his YouTube escapades and Zoom happy hours, Berger built out a little ecosystem of characters including Joe Demare (known as Joey Coldcuts) and Binny Shicker (Binny the Jet). It was almost like a golf sitcom.
Fat Perez fit into that world perfectly.
Bob Does Sports comes to life
Unlike some of the other characters, Stubbe can really play (he is a plus handicap). Berger and company found that out after a chance meeting in Pinehurst where Stubbe, in the area with his wife, happened to connect with the crew that would become Bob Does Sports.
“Everything went from like meeting on the putting green to drinks behind 18 green to appetizers to, ‘Hey, do you want to come to dinner with us?'” Stubbe recalls. “And then it was, ‘Well, you might as well come play golf with us tomorrow.'”
The Bob Does Sports channel officially launched in September 2021 with an episode of Berger heckling golfers at the Ryder Cup. That December, Berger posted a viral video of pranking Demare (a central character of BDS) by promising him a round at Torrey Pines but instead taking him to a comically bad golf course. Demare falls asleep in the car on the way to the course, waking up to the horror of a run-down cow pasture. The video, which Stubbe insists was not staged, has more than three million views.
“Everyone’s probably like, ‘Oh, what are the chances that he falls asleep in the car?’ No, Joey falls asleep in every car ride over 10 minutes every single time. That was gonna happen.”
With that moment, BDS had cemented itself as a pure golf channel.
Berger and Stubbe remained close throughout that time, including Stubbe flying out to Los Angeles a couple of times to play golf with Berger. That led to the first official Fat Perez video coming out in March 2022. FP loses the match on the last hole after taking on the two-man scramble team of Berger (Bobby Fairways) and Demare (Joey Coldcuts)—but he does debut the vaunted Euro step celebration after a long birdie putt, quickly admitting he “might have done a little number” on his Achilles in the process.
The people loved it.
Berger (left), Stubbe (middle) and Demare are a formidable trio.
Shortly after that, Foreplay—a golf channel from Barstool Sports—invited Berger, Demare and Stubbe for a scramble. Frankie Borrelli, a part of Foreplay, had a good relationship with Berger because he was family friends with one of Berger’s cousins.
That video is almost at four million views as of this writing.
“Even then, I wasn’t thinking about this being my tryout,” Stubbe said. “It was just like, ‘This is wild. I’ve watched Foreplay. This is wild that I’m going to be in one of these videos.'”
But after having so much success, it became apparent to Berger, Demare and their media partners that Stubbe needed to be involved with the channel moving forward. The response had been overwhelming.
And with that, a thriving channel was born.
Where Stubbe starts and Perez ends
By July of 2022, Stubbe had left his job as an accountant to join BDS full-time.
It was only one year into his marriage with Anne Cole. She supported the move but wanted to know that it wasn’t going to be too much of a risk financially for the newlyweds. It turns out that staying at his job would have been a much bigger risk because BDS immediately blew up into one of the biggest YouTube golf channels. In 2024, only Bryson DeChambeau, Good Good and Rick Shiels had more views in the YouTube golf space.
The BDS brand is pure chaotic comedy. Hysterical matches happen during the day and the group inevitably orders Cold Stone for delivery to their Airbnb at night. It’s organized anarchy.
While Berger and Demare’s presence is indispensable to creating that chemistry, Stubbe is the straw that stirs the tequila (and BDS does, in fact, have their own canned tequila cocktail).
He can play at a high level, competing in the inaugural Creator Classic at East Lake this past August. More importantly, he checks off every entertainment box. His character is relatable—Stubbe looks and acts like any random golfer you would find—and his whole demeanor of not taking himself too seriously absolutely sings on camera. He has the “well-rounded” aura of John Daly and the comedic timing of Charles Barkley.
I asked the 35-year-old Stubbe what it’s like “to play” Fat Perez and the answer is that there is no playing Fat Perez. He is Fat Perez. There is no manipulation of his personality.
“The good news is that it’s just me,” Stubbe said. “I’m not an actor. I think it would be a huge burden if I acted differently and had to keep that up. I’m fortunate the only thing that’s different is the name.”
Access plus personality
That authenticity comes through in the BDS videos where Stubbe can be found smoking a cigar, downing beers and chopping it up with his co-hosts while still playing great golf.
He would be doing that anyway—it’s just that we all get to watch it.
As I was writing this, an Instagram story from Fat Perez popped up: a behind-the-scenes clip of a video they shot with Xander Schauffele. That is the kind of access fans want in 2024.
“On the personality side, I think YouTube golfers have kind of built a more sun-up-to-sun-down kind of view of themselves,” Stubbe said. “Rather than watching (the pros) from the first round to the fourth round, and then you’re stuck watching a commercial here and there. I think we’ve built just a quicker, more passionate base because of that.”
Fat Perez has more than 500,000 Instagram followers.The channel’s explosion has put them in the spotlight and that has led to some incredible opportunities. Stubbe has his own clothing line and the BDS team has a brand called Breezy Golf with a clothing line and its own lounge at a Five Iron location in New York.
The attitude speaks directly to the viewer, especially fans in that 25- to 45-year-old demographic who have stopped consistently watching Tour golf. They want their golf on demand and they want to feel connected to the people on the screen, whether that is on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or somewhere else. Golf skill is not the only thing being valued.
Recently, the Bob Does Sports team was invited on Bryson DeChambeau’s Breaking 50 series which has been taking over YouTube golf the past few months. That video has more than three million views.
“The Breaking 50 series feels like Saturday Night Live,” Stubbe said. “It almost feels like we had no business being there. It feels like it’s something for real celebrities. He’s built that kind of platform where golf and golf on YouTube is part of world conversation.”
I got news for you, Fat Perez. You are a real celebrity.
And where all of this goes? Well, let’s account for a few drinks and see what happens.
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