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For years the PGA Tour has run an extremely tight ship when it comes to the athlete’s social media policy and what videos/clips can be used, or filmed, by the TOUR members. That is about to change.
The timing of the change is certainly auspicious for the growing wave of creators in the golf community who have utilized their personal brand to grow massive social media followings. It is also interesting timing with rumors that LIV Golf is set to fold at any moment and Bryson DeChambeau, with 2.69 million YouTube subscribers, has hinted that he will pursue YouTube Golf full-time in lieu of immediately attempting to rejoin the PGA Tour or DP World Tour.
PGA Tour Social Media Policy To Undergo Substantial Changes
First to report on the upcoming social media policy changes on the PGA Tour was David Rumsey of Front Office Sport. These changes were reportedly shared with TOUR members this week during a Player Advisory Council (PAC) subcommittee meeting held ahead of the Truist Championship in Charlotte at Quail Hollow.
The 2026 Player Advisory Council consists of Sam Burns, Corey Conners, Harris English, Rickie Fowler, Lucas Glover (Chairman), Brian Harman, Charley Hoffman, Max Homa, Hank Lebioda, Max McGreevy, Alex Noren, Scottie Scheffler, Neal Shipley, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, and Gary Woodland, with Player Directors Patrick Cantlay, Maverick McNealy, Keith Mitchell, Adam Scott, Camilo Villegas, and Tiger Woods.
According to FOS, the major changes to the TOUR’s social media policy for players will allow the golfers to share more on-site content. The bullet points listed from the report include:
- Players will now be allowed to distribute three minutes of content created on-site during competition days, up from two minutes previously.
- After a tournament round’s TV coverage window ends, players will now be allowed to post broadcast footage of up to six shots per round, totaling up to one minute of highlights, up from a single shot previously.
- Players can post more extensive highlights from TV coverage on social media 72 hours after an event ends—that’s considered archive footage, which is being increased to eight minutes allowed per video (up from five) and 120 minutes total on any player’s YouTube channel (up from 60).
- There remains no limit on how much on-site player-created content can be published during non-competition days. For example, DeChambeau could film an entire practice round at a PGA Tour event and publish it as part of his popular Break 50 series.
As you can see, these are substantial updates and will empower TOUR members to compete on social media alongside YouTube Golf juggernauts like Bob Does Sports, Grant, and others.
Will This Lure Bryson DeChambeau Back?
It it hard to fathom a world where these changes aren’t at least in some small part driven to placate someone like Bryson DeChambeau who has devoted an inordinate amount of time to YouTube golf and growing his own personal audience and brand. Of course, it will be utilized to allow PGA Tour members to start bolstering their own personal brands to compete with the YouTube Golf community in some ways, or at least saturate the market.
Earlier this week and speaking about the PGA Tour, Bryson told Skratch “if I was to film a video during the week of one of their events with a content creator or a celebrity, that would be in violation, to my knowledge… It’s their policy, they didn’t let me do it when I was on there.”
His comments came as a follow-up to earlier this week when DeChambeau said he’ll focus on his YouTube Channel instead of rejoining the PGA Tour following the cessation of the LIV Golf experiment. Bryson said “I think, from my perspective, I’d love to grow my YouTube channel three times, maybe even more. I would love to. I’d love to do a bunch of dubbing in different languages, giving the world more reason to watch YouTube. And then I’d love to play tournaments that want me.”
While these new PGA Tour social media policy changes wouldn’t completely open the door for Bryson DeChambeau to film content as he pleases, or even to rejoin the TOUR without having to jump over other hurdles, it certainly gives the PGA Tour the upper hand in the negotiations as Bryson (and others) can no longer point to the social media policy as the lone reason he will not rejoin.
What do you think, will Bryson DeChambeau stick to YouTube Golf and then show up just to play Major Championships? A move that would likely result in him getting smoked by competition without playing in meaningful tournaments week in and week out. Or will he bite off a slice of humble pie and rejoin the PGA Tour after all the bloviation?