Why Callaway's Good Good golf ad left the internet horrified
Callaway apologized after approving a Good Good promo in which Garrett Clark shoves female golfer Alexis Miestowski to the ground over a new driver. Viewers branded Callaway's Good Good generationally stupid golf ad a catastrophic misstep, and backlash kept spreading after both companies deleted the video on Aug. 21.
The since-removed commercial was meant to parody horror-movie obsession with Callaway's new Good Good-branded Quantum driver. Instead, it showed a man physically dominating a woman over sports equipment — and the internet reacted exactly as you would expect.
Key Takeaways
- Callaway CEO Chip Brewer admitted the company approved the video before publication and said that approval "should never have happened."
- Social media users, golf journalists, and female golfers condemned the ad as violent, exclusionary, and bafflingly unvetted.
- Good Good removed the clip on Aug. 21, but copies continued circulating and amplified outrage well beyond the original audience.
- Retail fallout included Dick's Sporting Goods, Target, and PGA Tour Superstore pulling Good Good merchandise; Golf Channel postponed a related series premiere.
- The controversy highlights a tension between golf's inclusion push and the "golf bro" culture still dominant in much of online golf content.
What happened in Callaway's Good Good golf ad?
The promotional video featured Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark charging toward Alexis Miestowski, a female golfer affiliated with the brand. Clark shoved her to the ground, stood over her, and delivered the line: "Do not touch my new driver."
The clip was reportedly styled as a horror-inspired story about Clark becoming dangerously obsessed with the Good Good-branded Callaway Quantum driver. On screen, however, it read as a man knocking a woman down over a golf club — not as campy satire.
Good Good and Callaway posted the ad to their social accounts, then pulled it on Aug. 21. Deleting the original did little to contain the damage. Copies kept spreading across X, TikTok, and Reddit, reaching viewers who had not seen the first upload.
Why did viewers call the ad "generationally stupid"?
Reaction was swift and largely unified in disbelief that the concept survived multiple checkpoints. On X, one user wrote that it was "a generationally stupid ad." Golf Digest reporter Christopher Powers asked whether anyone in the room had said, "guys hold on."
On r/golf, a discussion of the controversy drew more than 1,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments. One user noted the ad had "school project production value" and questioned how it passed anyone at Callaway with basic media sense. Another explained that joke ads usually go "over the top" enough to signal they are not serious — whereas this one showed a realistic tackle and an aggressive standover moment.
For many viewers, especially women, the problem went beyond one bad creative choice. Female golfers said it reinforced the exclusionary "golf bro" culture the sport has spent years trying to shed. Skratch social media director Nicole Rae called it "wildly disappointing" and said it "endorses violence against women in the scariest and most threatening way."
CNN Living Golf host Jasmine Sanders, known online as The Jazzy Golfer, pointed to the contradiction on LinkedIn: "Golf keeps talking about making the game more welcoming to women. You can't say that matters and then make violence towards a woman the punchline." Former Real Housewives of Orange County cast member Katie Ginella, who has spoken publicly about domestic violence, said she was "in shock" and would no longer support Good Good or Callaway.
How did Callaway and Good Good respond?
Good Good posted an apology on X stating the video "ultimately depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand." CEO Matt Kendrick issued a longer LinkedIn statement saying the spot was intended to parody a scene from the horror film Obsession but that its execution "missed the mark."
"Regardless of what we intended, we are responsible for what we put into the world and how it is received," Kendrick wrote. "We got this one wrong."
Callaway CEO Chip Brewer said the company was "disappointed by the content that was posted" and thanked Good Good for addressing it — language that appeared to place primary responsibility on the partner. Brewer also confirmed Callaway had approved the video before it went live.
"That approval should never have happened," Brewer wrote. "Mistakes were made, and we are taking the matter very seriously." He said Callaway was conducting internal and external investigations and announced changes to its approval processes.
What fallout followed the deleted ad?
Apologies did not quiet the backlash. Golf Channel postponed the Aug. 25 premiere of Big Break x Good Good until Sept. 1, citing time needed for "necessary production updates" after a sponsor reportedly requested its branding be removed from the series.
Dick's Sporting Goods removed Good Good merchandise from websites and store floors. Target and several PGA Tour Superstore locations did the same. Callaway removed the Good Good Quantum driver from its own website, though the club remained available directly through Good Good.
Competitors moved quickly to capitalize. Golf club brand PXG posted a video of professional golfers Olivia Cowan, Gina Kim, and Auston Kim with the caption, "Our drivers play nice with everyone."
Why does this clash with golf's push to welcome more players?
The uproar did not happen in a vacuum. Women and girls have accounted for 60 percent of on-course golf participation growth since 2019, yet much of golf's most prominent internet content still centers on groups of men, competitive stunts, and rowdy banter.
Good Good launched as a YouTube channel in 2020 and has grown into a major golf media and merchandise business with more than 2 million subscribers. Callaway partnered with the group in 2023, and the brand is now title sponsor of a PGA Tour tournament scheduled for November. Good Good was founded by male creators and only launched a separate women's channel in late 2025.
By partnering with Good Good to make golf feel younger and more internet-native, Callaway — one of golf's biggest institutions — ended up amplifying the very culture that makes some women feel unwelcome. That tension mirrors broader shifts in how brands and audiences evaluate advertising, a recurring theme in our Nostalgia: Then & Now coverage: what once might have slipped through a room now gets dissected frame by frame on social media.
Context also matters beyond sport. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly one in four women has experienced physical violence from an intimate partner, and more than half of female homicide victims are killed by a current or former male partner.
In that light, an image of a man pushing a woman down and standing over her is far too familiar to land as a harmless punchline. If the ad was meant to show the Quantum driver was worth fighting over, it failed. Instead, it demonstrated how easily violence against women can survive pitching, filming, editing, and corporate approval — all to sell a club.
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