Good Good’s top two executives are out following the backlash over a controversial advertisement produced with Callaway.
In a memo sent to employees Wednesday, Good Good head of finance Alex Puchala announced that CEO Matt Kendrick and president Joe Flannery were no longer with the company. Business Insider first reported the departures.
“This is a difficult day for the entire Good Good family,” Puchala wrote. “Matt helped build something extraordinary that exceeded all expectations and continues to bring countless new fans to the sport.
Good Good co-founder Nahid Giga will step in as interim CEO, according to the memo.
Good Good, a popular YouTube channel and apparel company with a sizable following among younger golfers, released a promotional video last month that showed a man shoving a woman to the ground in a fight over a new Callaway driver. The ad, intended as a parody of the movie “Obsession,” drew immediate, far-reaching criticism. Good Good and Callaway, which began their partnership in 2023, quickly removed the video and each issued two rounds of apologies.
The fallout soon spread beyond the companies. The PGA Tour ended Good Good’s sponsorship of an event scheduled for this fall while Golf Channel canceled its planned reboot of the reality series “The Big Break,” which was being produced in partnership with Good Good. Retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy and PGA Tour Superstore removed Good Good-Callaway merchandise from stores and their websites.
Callaway announced last week that it had ended its relationship with Good Good and would donate $1 million to domestic-violence charities. Kendrick responded hours later with a middle-of-the-night post on X (formerly Twitter).
“Interesting that Callaway Golf asks us to make an ad then approves it then asks us to take the fall then drops us in a coordinated media blitz and covers it up by giving a million dollars away thinking everyone will be ok with it,” Kendrick wrote. “30 for 39 will be legendary.”
The post remained online as of Wednesday.
Kendrick had been with Good Good since 2020, while Flannery had recently joined the company.
The leadership shakeup follows other personnel changes tied to the advertisement. Front Office Sports reported that Good Good vice president of brand and marketing Jeffrey Lefkovits was fired, while Callaway director of content and production Alex Upegui left the company in the aftermath.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
