A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some of the YouTube golf channels that are trending in the right direction with viewership.
This week is the other side of the equation.
While many of these channels still boast outstanding overall numbers in terms of viewership and engagement, they have seen a decline in popularity this year.
This is not meant as a slight at these channels. They are still doing some great work and, in several cases, are incredibly popular. Success is also not measured exclusively in viewership: engagement, subscriptions, sponsorships, merchandise sales and other factors are important.
Also, these viewership numbers only take a channel’s own videos into account. Collaborations where characters show up on another channel don’t factor into these stats.
For the purposes of this story, I wanted to highlight declining viewership relative to 2023 on each respective channel. These 10 channels had higher numbers last year which can be cause for concern given how popular the platform has become as a whole.
1. Good Good
This is a very interesting case.
Good Good is undoubtedly one of the Goliaths of the YouTube golf space. The channel has more than 1.7 million subscribers and that subscriber rate actually picked up in 2024. Good Good is a machine that goes deep in other areas beyond YouTube (where they are approaching 500 million views overall).
However, I think it’s fair to say the channel has been a little down recently. Viewership has decreased about seven percent in 2024, meaning that around eight million fewer viewers have tuned in to see their matches. Anecdotally, I’ve seen more dissension and frustration in the comment section with the lack of diversity in their content being a complaint.
There has been a lot of turnover with the group the past couple of years and I also think there is more competition. Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat (a former member of Good Good) and other channels have grown exponentially. Viewers don’t have unlimited time.
Good Good’s numbers still crush almost everyone else in YouTube golf so it’s all relative.
2. Rick Shiels
When it comes to YouTube golf godfather Rick Shiels, you can copy and paste a lot of what I just wrote about Good Good.
Shiels has done outstanding work over the past decade-plus and he continues to be viewed at a clip greater than pretty much everyone except Bryson and Good Good. His total viewership could hit one billion views by the end of 2025. There are barely 1,000 channels across all of YouTube that have more subscribers than Shiels.
One of the benefits he has is the sheer number of videos living on his channel. When you have almost 2,400 videos that can be accessed at any time, it’s hard for viewership to drop dramatically.
Having said that, viewership for the channel is down a couple of percentage points this year and the subscriber rate is lagging behind his previous baseline.
As is the case with Good Good, competition is a big factor. Shiels is still a major player in the YouTube golf space but doesn’t have the same domination of viewership as he once did.
3. No Laying Up
Taking a completely different turn here, I noticed that No Laying Up‘s channel has seen a dip this year, going down more than seven percent.
This comes with a caveat: NLU is not a volume shooter. I have them ranked as my No. 1 YouTube golf channel because of the unprecedented production quality, remarkable storytelling and superb series like Tourist Sauce and Strapped. This is not a channel trying to maximize eyeballs however it can.
At the same time, I noticed that their Tourist Sauce audience was down about 217,000 viewers this year. That seemed odd because this season was in golf-rich Australia compared to last season in Scandinavia.
That coincided with NLU viewership losses in other categories which is notable.
Is this a pro golf fatigue issue? While much of NLU’s YouTube presence is well outside the PGA Tour and LIV realm, the media outlet is synonymous with talking about golf’s divide. I stopped listening to their podcast after the last major of the year because I needed a break for a few months.
Or maybe it’s not even that complicated. NLU has a tiny niche in the YouTube golf space—the audience is small and passionate. Just a slight loss in interest can cause a decline.
4. PGA Tour
While I don’t consider the Tour to be a central figure in the YouTube golf arena—it’s mostly highlights from tournament rounds—I thought you might be interested in some of these stats.
The Tour is down about three percent in viewership but still pulls in more than 300 million views per year. This is largely on the back of evergreen videos (top-10 shot videos) that continue to rank high for various searches. There are also nearly 21,000 videos on the channel so it is hard to realistically compare the Tour to anyone else besides other sports leagues.
The WNBA has seen YouTube viewership soar nearly 300 percent in 2024. The MLB is up 42 percent, showing a major increase in baseball interest on the platform. The NHL is up a couple of percentage points.
Interestingly, LIV Golf is up 50 percent and has quietly put together a very nice effort on YouTube (although it is still around 30 million viewers per year, just one-tenth of the Tour’s audience).
I wouldn’t be too hard on the Tour here. At least not yet. Not every major league is up in YouTube viewership. The NFL is down three percent and the NBA is down a whopping 18 percent. Golf has been in a tough spot and I’m not sure the Tour’s digital team could have done much better than this.
I do think they’ll have to adapt on the platform. They will need more creative original content to avoid slipping further, especially as the value of highlight videos seems to drop.
5. Padraig Harrington
I’m a big fan of Padraig Harrington’s instruction channel. It’s not overly technical and I think there is a place for that kind of coaching.
Harrington’s channel is down about seven percent in 2024, however.
Granted, this is a niche instruction channel only bringing in about four million or so viewers per year but I expected Harrington to become more popular.
This is a little surprising but I did notice a few instruction channels were down relative to last year. People seem to be gravitating more to matches and entertainment although I think there will always be a space for instruction.
6. Danny Maude
I’m going to continue the same sentiment for the Danny Maude channel, arguably the best golf instruction on YouTube. At least I think it should be.
Maude is down 12 percent this year, bringing his total to around 41 million viewers per year. His subscriber rate also slowed this year although he is all the way up to 1.4 million subs total.
I’m very interested to see if this continues into 2025. Are there just more instructors on YouTube which spreads the wealth to other channels? Do people want to watch matches more than swing tips? I think both of those answers are yes but we haven’t seen how dramatic the results will be.
7. BustaJack
I’m a fan of BustaJack, a smaller channel that ranked inside my top 20 YouTube golf offerings.
I was disappointed to see them down 11 percent in viewership while also having their subscriber rate fall badly.
The channel is mostly matches and it lags well behind the competition with production value. I think the personalities make up part of the difference—but the people are voting with their views and it’s clear BustaJack is trending in the wrong direction.
8. Micah Morris
One of the most startling declines of the year is Micah Morris. His channel is down more than 23 percent in 2024 as viewers have likely been leaving for channels like Grant Horvat.
Formerly of Good Good, Morris still plays a lot of golf on camera with Horvat, Garrett Clark and other Good Good members—but his other content hasn’t been nearly as attractive.
I like Horvat’s personality more than Morris and it seems like a lot of fans agree. Morris is still bringing in 17 million viewers a year but he’s being lapped by some of his old teammates.
9. Skratch Golf
One of my all-time favorite YouTube golf channels, Skratch is kind of a catch-all that bills itself as the intersection of golf and culture.
The production quality is good and there have been some outstanding videos by Skratch over the years including this memorable feature on a prison golf course.
Similar to NLU, Skratch has been down recently—viewership decreased by 35 percent in 2024. For a channel with a lot of outside-the-box content ideas, I didn’t see many that hit for me this year.
10. Golf Mates
I have to confess this isn’t a channel I’ve seen much of in the past few years. The UK-based Golf Mates focuses on travel and collects about 10 million views per year.
That viewership is down nearly 39 percent this year. Maybe some of you know the channel better than I do and can explain the drop but it’s not for a lack of production—the channel is still very active from what I can tell.
Well, those are 10 channels I found that have been losing viewers in 2024. Do you know of others that haven’t kept up the same viewership pace? Let me know below in the comments.
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