Progolf returns to Austin, Texas, and brings the YouTube generation with it.
On Monday morning, the PGA Tour announced its return to Austin for the Good Good Championship, a PGA Tour fall season event debuting in 2026 and sponsored by the popular YouTube golf brand. Like most other PGA Tour fall season events, the Good Good Championship will be broadcast on Golf Channel and ESPN+, feature a field of 120 players and award 500 FedEx Cup points to the winner, in line with the Tour’s regular season events.
The announcement marks the return of professional golf to a market where it has long thrived, and to a city where many were sad to see the sport leave when the WGC Match Play was canceled in 2023. Events that overlap with the NFL season (the inaugural Good Good Championship is played Nov. 12-15) may not generate as many headlines or as much revenue as regular-season events, but they still help the Tour rake in some of its $700 million. per year in TV rights deals, and many millions more in title sponsorship deals like Good Good’s.
For the title sponsors of this event, the news is a strong indicator of YouTube golf’s growth into a bona fide golf industry. The Tour title sponsorship marks the latest expansion for Good Good in golf following a $45 million fundraising round in the spring. While the biggest focus for the Good Good brand during that fundraising round seemed to be expanding its prolific YouTube and e-commerce businesses, the Tour sponsorship represents a change of a different kind. From a branding perspective, this may be Good Good’s biggest move yet, completely bridging the gap between YouTube golf and its established friends on Tour.
While the cost of the Good Good sponsorship has not been disclosed, title sponsorship for full-field PGA Tour events is reportedly between $12-15 million per event – although fall events, which tend to draw weaker competitors than those in the regular season, may cost less. According to the release, the deal is a “multi-year partnership.”
The ongoing rethinking of the Tour’s competitive calendar has raised questions about the sustainability of events outside the Tour’s main sprint from January to the end of August. These days, the fall season is the sweet spot for Tour lifers and youngsters jockeying for status, though the low wattage of these tournaments compared to the rest of the season has made it easy to propose changes. The new of the TourFuture Competition Committeewas created in large part to find long-term solutions for parts of the Tour’s business, such as the fall season, even as that part of the schedule remains anchored for now. (Golf Channel will provide linear TV coverage of the Good Good Championship, according to the Tour’s release.)
The new Tour event also welcomes a new tournament host: the Omni Barton Creek, which will take over hosting duties from Austin Country Club, the longtime host site of the WGC Match Play.
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