With 2.69 million YouTube subscribers and a content model that plugs in celebrities, the channel cannot be considered a side project, and neither can it be ignored. Bryson DeChambeau has built one of the most-watched presences in golf outside tournament broadcasts. Now, as the conversation around a potential PGA Tour return grows louder, the two-time major champion is making clear that what happens off the course matters just as much as what happens on it.

“So, if I were to film a video during the week of one of their events with a content creator or somebody, a celebrity or whatnot, that would be in violation, and, from my knowledge, they didn’t let me do it when I was on there. I asked numerous times,” DeChambeau told Garrett Johnston on Wednesday at LIV Virginia in Potomac Falls.

“Me being able to create content on that golf course that week for that event should only accelerate the value, he said. Should only bring value to the tournament. That’s what I care about most. Entertaining, like I’ve always said from day one.”

The numbers make Bryson DeChambeau’s case better than any argument could.

Most Break 50 episodes have driven over 2 million views each, and at the time of his 2024 U.S. Open win, DeChambeau had more YouTube subscribers than the PGA Tour itself. Additionally, his episode with Donald Trump, filmed during the height of the presidential campaign, has accumulated 13 million views. The Steph Curry episode, filmed in Daly City, California, also eventually overtook with more than 16.5 million views. Their pair was the first to actually beat the Break 50 challenge.

During the conversation, Johnston told him that the PGA Tour has changed its policies and DeChambeau’s YouTube activity is “not considered a hindrance” from a media rights perspective. And yet, Bryson is not fully convinced.

“They didn’t let Grant Horvat or Garrett Clark do some videos during the Monday-Tuesday practice rounds.”

The Tour states that the golfers are prohibited from filming content during official tournaments, as the Tour owns all digital, broadcast, and archival footage rights. While golfers can film behind-the-scenes, practice rounds, or lifestyle content with limitations, they cannot film competitive shots or use phones for recording, calls, or texts during the tournament. However, in February 2025, the PGA Tour quietly relaxed its media guidelines.

It allowed videos involving players and the tournament footage to remain posted on social media by creators, which is a notable shift from years of routinely scrubbing such content. Multiple journals reported this change, citing examples like No Laying Up podcast filming a video at the Pebble Beach with Jordan Spieth and Barstool Sports Frankie Borrelli posting a full round video at the WM Phoenix Open Pro-Am.

The timing of the conversation becomes extremely significant with LIV Golf funding set to expire at the 2026 season and DeChambeau’s own contract ending at the same point. So the prospect of his return is no longer hypothetical.

In January, he told Flushing It that going to YouTube only and playing majors was “an incredibly viable option.” He has since doubled down, saying he wants to grow his channel three times over and film content in multiple languages. If his contract with LIV fails to renew, and his PGA Tour return continues to be bound by stern rules, DeChambeau may make a different decision altogether.

The PGA Tour has been publicly expanding its relationship with the content creator economy. The latest update is in December 2024, it launched a Creator Council, a body of top YouTubers and podcasters brought in to help shape content strategy. Throughout 2025, it ran three Creator Classic events, all produced for live broadcast on YouTube.

So on the surface, the Tour’s posture towards creators is open. However, what the 2x US Open winner describes, though, sounds like a different experience from the inside.

Are Media Rights Actually Preserved at the PGA Tour?

“You should talk to Garrett Clark about that then, because they didn’t allow him to post a Wednesday pro-am video if you want to get into the semantics of it,” said DeChambeau.

Clark is not a fringe figure that the Tour has kept at arm’s length. He is a recurring participant in the Tour’s own Creator Classic series, appearing at the East Lake in both 2024 and 25 as a member of the Good Good Golf team. The Tour has put him on its courses, streamed those rounds on YouTube, and counted his fan base as a part of its creator outreach. Yet, when it came to a standard pro-am Wednesday, Clark was turned away.

Creator Classic was not an official PGA Tour event, meaning creators were actively encouraged to film and post their own content.

In 2025, Grant Horvat announced that he was refusing an offer to play in the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship after the Tour made it clear he would not be allowed to create YouTube content from the experience.

“The reason I will not be playing in a PGA Tour event is due to the rules and regulations around media rights and filming during tournament play of the PGA event. Basically, that means I was not going to be allowed to film my round during the tournament play,” he said.

The question is whether the PGA Tour is genuinely open to creator content or enforces internal censorship.