What, exactly, makes for good golf content in 2026?
Content, formerly an untroublesome noun, has suddenly become something guilty until proven innocent, at least where social media is concerned. Content in social media is deemed ‘harmful’ unless approved by the authorities. Freedom of expression, the very notion, is dangerous. Or so we are told. Well, hey. In golf, however, content in social media has already changed our experience of the game, and we’re not worried.
A quiet revolution has happened, and it’s time we acknowledged it and gave it the welcome it deserves. We golfers are now, in a vicarious sense, able to enjoy golf across the world via our smartphones. Reels and posts and online videos give us the pleasure of watching shots hit on holes we will never play. Gairloch Golf Club in Argyllshire, Kobe Golf Club in Hyogo Prefecture, countless scenes on Open rota courses – all of this is there for no fee.
Australia does not lack for Instagram or other meritorious golf content. Take Cooper Fairway, an Instagram account of the admirable Ruth Nguyen, a passionate golfer from Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Her reels and posts are self-deprecating, amusing, and as essentially ‘golf’ as anything McIlroy or DeChambeau has posted. Here is a golfer who truly lives her game, and we get to witness a lot of it. Ruth versus Bryson would be an almighty match, handicaps allowed. James Sutherland should call Trump to arrange it.
Online, what is not available now? Lessons, tips, drills – it’s all there. One of my favourites is Bobby Jones teaching sand shots in a black-and-white video on YouTube. Go look it up. 36 Stableford points awaits you, and you’ll never fear a bunker again. Better than Ozempic, I promise.
And this is without even discussing the podcasts that sustain us. Nick O’Hern, Mark Allen and others. What would we do without you?
How, then, does this revolution change things for us on the course? Frankly, I don’t know, or I dinna ken, as they say in Scotland.
The algorithms within social media bombard us with content we’re presumed to enjoy, and they are generally on the mark. The problem is, where does all this leave the dedicated golf writer, the man or woman who reports on the professional game, struggling to find the budget to travel and observe and report on how the great beasts of the game are playing? Somehow the golf media must adapt to the revolution. Citizen journalists are one thing, but deep banks of knowledge and memory are another, and much more valuable.
The major tournaments derive revenue streams from broadcasting rights. Broadcasting reaches the entire world, yet so does social media. One side of the equation pays good money and is protected by the law of contract and intellectual property rights. The play is recorded and provided in real time, with informed commentary and post-round media conferences. This is the ordered, established pattern, and we golf lovers accept it and habituate ourselves to it. The other side pays nothing, yet we love it.
Will golf broadcasting and writing survive the next wave of technology, AI and all that?
IP rights aside, using AI it wouldn’t be impossible these days to create an event in which Ruth Nguyen, for example, played a match against Karrie Webb at Northern Golf Club in Melbourne, or at Troon in Ayrshire, entirely fictitious, yes, but there on the screen before us. This is no longer fantasy. Maybe Ruth would overcome Karrie, depending on the algorithm, or maybe Karrie would prevail. Post it on Instagram and count the takings.
Of course, real matches involving current tournament players contending will always be taken seriously – I hope – and maybe one day we can see more decent exhibition matches instead of boring week-to-week tournaments staged on forgettable European or American courses. We don’t need technology to do this. We need technology to make it pay for those involved. We would all benefit.
Somehow, this revolution in content is calling for material and events quite different for we golf devotees. LIV Golf, despite its cohort of fans, did not deliver that. How this will evolve, and who will be the driver, is as yet unknown, though I doubt the powers-that-be will feature in the vanguard of what is next. The Roman Empire eventually fell. Acta est fabula, plaudite.
Who is going to figure this out?
Photographs by getty images/charlie crowhurst
