Golf equipment giant Callaway has found itself under intense public scrutiny for a now-cancelled brand film which showed a male golfer pushing a female player to the ground when she reached for his new Callaway driver.
Whilst the film was produced and posted by creator-led Good Good Studios, Callaway approved the content before it went live, raising questions about where creative freedom ends and brand responsibility begins.
It’s been widely reported that one of the biggest mistakes brands can make when working with creators is giving them overly prescriptive briefs, rather than the creative licence to produce their best work. But Callaway’s Good Good controversy raises the question of whether there also needs to be a line when that creative freedom is handed over.
This is very scary tbh pic.twitter.com/9bloWsR6Wz
— claire rogers (@kclairerogers) August 22, 2026
For Sharyn Smith, founder and executive director of Social Soup, the issue isn’t how much freedom Good Good was given, but what happened once that content came back to Callaway.
“Nobody writes a clause about violence against women into a creator brief, and nobody should have to. That belongs at concept approval, before a frame is shot,” she told B&T.
“What failed was judgement and governance… who read the concept, who watched the final cut and what they thought they were signing off on. Anyone approving creator content needs to be able to read how it will land before it goes live.
“This is where experienced agency partners earn their place. Our content strategists at Social Soup are trained to pick up this sort of risk well before anything reaches a client. Blaming the creators lets Callaway off the hook when they approved it. Callaway Golf CEO Chip Brewer has owned that and says the process has changed, which is the right first move. Whether those changes are real is what people will judge them on.”
As mentioned by Smith, Brewer put the blame on his brand, rather than the content creators.
“Last week Good Good Golf and Callaway posted a video to promote a co-branded driver,” Brewer said in a statement.
“While the video was produced by Good Good, it was approved by Callaway prior to posting. That approval should never have happened. Mistakes were made and we are taking the matter very seriously.
“As we deal with the consequences of our mistake and complete our investigations, I want to make it clear that we sincerely apologise for the video.
“The content was inappropriate and does not reflect our values. To be clear: we are unequivocally against discrimination, domestic violence or threatening behaviour of any kind… I assure you we will learn from this and do better.”
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Regardless of how controversial the now-deleted clip is, Smith doesn’t think it will affect the major golf brand’s immediate sales.
“Short term, I doubt this shows up in Callaway’s numbers. The reputational cost is the real damage here, and this is the sort of story that will keep getting pulled back up. There’s already pressure on the PGA Tour over its own ties to Good Good,” she said.
Despite pressure on the PGA Tour the CEO, Brian Rolapp said the Tour is “disappointed” in Callaway but will continue to work with them going forward.
“What we saw was concerning, is clearly not aligned with PGA Tour values. We take it very seriously. I think their initial response was disappointing. It was a bit defensive and late,” he said.
“But I think the responses are getting better. I think we’ve seen some things this morning, we’ve had some conversations with them, so we’ll continue to monitor and work with them going forward. But no, we were disappointed with what we saw.”
Good Good are a popular golf content group that has a massive 2.13 million subscribers on Youtube. The group specialises in golf match play videos and has even collaborated with NBA superstar Stephen Curry.
The brand film depicted Good Good’s Garrett Clark running toward fellow member Alexis Miestowski. Clark proceeded to push over Miestowski who was reaching for the Callaway driver. After Miestowski was shoved to the ground, Clark stood over her and said, “do not touch my new driver.”
Good Good was the first to issue a statement.
It read: “We posted a video to our channels that ultimately depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand. We have since taken that content down. And sincerely apologize. Good Good has always stood for making the game of golf more inclusive to all, and we will continue to ensure that is our mission moving forward.”
