Good Good Ad Callaway PGA Tour

Good Good fallout continues as golf brand loses deals with Callaway, the PGA TOUR, and retailers

Buckle up, because the Good Good saga has completely gone off the rails and there’s a ton to get into. Let’s start where we all agree, shall we? The ad was horrible, and from the second you watched it, it was very clear this was going to be an indefensible problem for both Good Good and Callaway.

How in the hell that thing got greenlit is beyond me.

There are approximately a million sets of eyes that have to sign off on an ad before it ever goes live, and somehow this one, where a dude truck-sticks a girl reaching for his driver, sailed right through every single one of them.

Absolutely insane, so obviously, there will be no argument here that it was a dumb, tone-deaf, moronic ad. Now that we’ve established that, let’s talk about how everything that came AFTER was somehow even more ridiculous than the ad itself.

The Good Good Ad Reaction Set Us All Back Years

The fallout has been a full-blown circus. Apology posts carpet-bombing social media, the social justice crowd screaming to the heavens about standing against domestic violence, and a week-long public shaming and humiliation ritual that the Good Good boys have been dragged through.

It just keeps snowballing. Good Good apologized. Their individual guys apologized. Callaway apologized. Now, Good Good is getting yanked from major retailers and Callaway has officially torched the entire partnership.

All over a stupid golf ad. Let that sink in.

Here’s the Golden Rule Good Good Broke: NEVER Apologize

This is what makes me want to pull my hair out, because it was so avoidable.

If Good Good had just ignored the whole thing, or better yet, clowned everyone for being so unbelievably soft, they’d have skated right through it by the weekend.

Instead they did the one thing you can NEVER do. They dropped to their knees and apologized to the woke mob. I cannot stress this enough, that has never worked, not once, not ever.

Apologizing only pours gasoline on the fire and the second you do it, you burn to ashes.

The moment you apologize, you’ve confessed.

You’ve handed the pack circling your body exactly what they smelled in the water. You green light your own sponsor to go “well, even THEY admit they were wrong,” and boom, you’re a dead man walking.

They should’ve said nothing. Zero words. Just keep it moving and let every keyboard warrior scream themselves hoarse from their little soapboxes.

Here’s the truth nobody wants to admit: the internet moves on WAY faster than you think. Yeah, history will always be retweeted, but the outrage machine runs out of gas in a matter of days if you don’t feed it. Good Good marched themselves right into the wolves’ den and laid down.

That can’t happen.

Really Makes You Think Though, Right…?

Full disclosure: I’ve golfed my whole life. I’m somewhat of a purist, and I never got sucked into the internet golf world, so I’m not here to defend Good Good being idiots. The ad was brain-dead but I genuinely think something much larger is going on here, because this fallout has been brewing for a long, long time.

The PGA Tour and the big golf brands are quietly walking away from the entire YouTube golf world, and this whole mess reeks of the exit. Follow the trail. YouTube golf exploded during the LIV era, when LIV was running the space with guys like Bryson and Rick Shiels.

So the brands went ALL in, backing every channel that reeled in the COVID golfer. They went way too deep, catered to the fringe (and let’s be honest, dudes filming stunts on YouTube IS fringe golf), and now they’re looking for a clean way out.

With the LIV defectors basically dead men walking and the Tour no longer sweating the competition, why keep propping up YouTube golf culture at all?

This Feels Way Too Systematic to Just Be “Cancel Culture”

Here’s why the cancel-culture story doesn’t add up for me. The brands could see they were bleeding their base, and everyone in politics knows the rule cold: lose your base, lose your race.

These companies figured out that the loud Burners (no offense, I actually like a lot of you) aren’t spending their OWN money. It’s daddy’s money, and daddy is a stone-cold old-school golf guy. Broadly speaking, the folks you see decked out in Good Good gear aren’t the ones dropping real cash on clubs.

That said, maybe the math just stopped working?

That’s exactly what makes this whole thing stink. It’s genuinely messed up that Callaway APPROVES the ad and then nukes Good Good over it.

Did a single actual golfer like the ad? No. Did a single actual golfer get truly, deeply upset about it? Not a chance. Nobody really cares, and THAT’S the point. It was a dumb ad. Move on. Instead, “cancel culture” got its scalp, the internet kangaroo court torched everything, and Good Good signed their own death warrant the second they apologized.

Now the Conspiracy

Here’s the thing I can’t stop chewing on. How god-awful must Good Good’s relationships with their partners have been to get dropped THIS fast?

Normally when a brand sprints away from a partnership it suddenly deems “toxic,” there’s a real pressure campaign behind it, interest groups leaning on them hard to cut ties.

I followed this closely, and I don’t recall ANY organized effort to get Callaway or the PGA Tour to pull the plug. No boycott threats. No coordinated campaign. A few scattered angry tweets, maybe but that’s it.

Which tells me this was 100% the brands going “we just don’t want to be associated with these guys anymore, period” and that almost certainly means the partnerships weren’t profitable and not a single person with real juice went to bat to save them.

So here’s what I think actually went down behind the curtain:

  • Callaway needs to slash costs, badly.
  • The Good Good deal was a bad partnership that wasn’t sniffing the value it cost.
  • Good Good cooked up a tone-deaf, idiotic ad
  • Good Good likely dug in and resisted apologizing at first.
  • Callaway pulled the trigger after the apology meltdown blew up in everyone’s face.

Again, the PGA Tour got in bed with Good Good specifically to counter LIV dominating YouTube with Bryson and Shiels. It’s completely plausible the Tour no longer feels threatened by LIV and decided it doesn’t need to drag its product down slumming it with YouTubers anymore. The ad was the golden off-ramp they’d been waiting for.

How Good Good SHOULD Have Played It

When you’re in a weak, low-leverage spot like Good Good was with Callaway, you’ve got exactly two options. One, somebody gets sacrificed. Or two, you never utter a SINGLE word of apology. You own it, chest out, and force Callaway’s hand.

Make THEM be the ones to terminate the deal, and then spin around and paint them as the overreacting villains. Now you’ve got solid ground to stand on. The second you apologize, you’ve told the entire world you think you were wrong too, and you’ve gift-wrapped your sponsor the exact excuse they needed to dump you and pin it all on you.

Checkmate, you lose.

I’m not a conspiracy guy (I am), but did the PGA Tour and Callaway pull a clean hit on Good Good? Approve the commercial, then hang them out to take ALL the fall?

Might sound crazy but Callaway is currently $84 million into a $200 million stock buyback.

Awfully convenient timing for their stock to conveniently dip, wouldn’t you say?

Good Good should be LOVING the Conspiracy, btw…

Here’s my final word, and it’s the realest advice those kids could possibly get. The conspiracy angle is Good Good’s ONLY saving grace, and if I’m them, I’m jumping for joy that it exists.

Lean all the way into it. Keep that engine roaring, make the “we got set up” storyline the entire narrative, and watch the actual ad shrink down into nothing more than the backstory of a way juicier tale.

That’s how you flip a total disaster into a redemption arc.

Good Good CEO Matt Kendrick tried late last night, but the damage is done

Never forget, my friends: history will always be retweeted. That ad is never disappearing but how this story ENDS is still wide open, and the smart move is to shut off the apology machine and start telling a much better story.

Just something to think about. Wild, wild week in the golf world.

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