Callaway and Good Good Golf made a bad ad

But the internet reaction is performative and ridiculous.

Golf equipment maker Callaway and YouTube-born media brand Good Good Golf released a promotional video in mid-August 2026 for a co-branded Quantum driver.

What is Good Good Golf, you ask? I had to look it up. I had no idea. It’s a popular digital media brand and YouTube channel founded in 2020 that features golf challenges, group games and fancy golf clothes.

Back to the promo video — the roughly 60-second spot, produced by Good Good and approved by Callaway before posting, ran on both companies’ social channels. It was pulled within about a day after a clip went viral.

Here it is:

As you can see, the ad opens in a horror-movie register: ominous music, a close-up of a driver in the backswing and a title card that reads “Good Good Studios presents: The Driver.” Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark then sees fellow creator Alexis Miestowski — a former Indiana University golfer and 2024 Epson Tour player — reach into a bag for the club. He charges and shoves her to the ground, stands over her, and says, “Do not touch my new driver.” The full video continues in the same mock-thriller tone and ends with a warning-style card.

It’s all very internet-y. You have to know who the two influencers are, to some extent, to care. Or to get it. Which if you are watching Good Good, you would know who they are. Further, Good Good’s CEO Matt Kendrick said that the ad was intended to parody a scene from Obsession, the 2026 Blumhouse/Focus Features hit directed by YouTuber Curry Barker. That film is a “careful what you wish for” story in which a wish turns love into violent, possessive fixation. The Good Good ad’s idea was that the new driver is the object of that same deranged attachment—“don’t touch it”—shot with thriller music and a menacing close.

The internet-horror boom (with films like Obsession and also Backrooms) is why a golf brand thought a jump-scare parody might feel current. And one could argue that it does feel current.

But . . . there’s the shove.

Viewers immediately condemned the shove as a depiction of violence against a woman and as making light of domestic abuse. It does seem in poor taste. Or at least not funny. But I’d argue the over-reaction is typical internet stuff. Performative over-reaction. It’s clearly a joke, not advocating for violence against women. It’s clearly a horror reference — don’t touch the driver you’ll be obsessed.

But that doesn’t stop the internet. It can’t just be a bad ad. No. It has to be reason to take the company down.

Boycott talk followed. Both brands — Good Good and Callaway — deleted the post (the internet does live forever though, easy peasy screen record above).

Good Good’s first statement on August 22 said the video “depicted actions that are not aligned with our values” and that the company stands for making golf “more inclusive to all.” Callaway initially expressed disappointment; PGA Tour officials also distanced themselves, noting Good Good’s upcoming title sponsorship of a Tour event, suggesting it may be in question.

A fuller apology came early August 25 from Callaway CEO Chip Brewer. He said Good Good produced the video but Callaway approved it — “That approval should never have happened. Mistakes were made” — and that the company was running internal and external investigations and changing its approval process.

Side note, there is nothing to investigate. Things get approved up the chain. First the marketing manager, then the director, then the VP, then the CMO. Sometimes. If a piece of content isn’t a big deal — brands release content all the time — it may just go half way up the ladder. Everyone was stuck in the this is a funny riff on horror and these influencers are so popular that they didn’t even think about the shove. They lost site of it. They weren’t advocating for violence against women. They could have flipped it and had the girl shove the guy and all would have been fine. They just didn’t think it was a thing. Never crossed their minds. And it really is kind of nothing, unless you are able to predict the internet reaction, which you could if you stepped outside of what you thought was funny about it.

The content, Brewer wrote, “does not reflect our values” and Callaway is “unequivocally against discrimination, domestic violence or threatening behavior of any kind.” Duh.

Good Good CEO Matt Kendrick separately said the concept was meant as a parody of a scene from the 2026 horror film Obsession, about a character consumed by a dangerous fixation. The driver, in that framing, was the object of obsessive protection. “The execution missed the mark,” Kendrick wrote. “Regardless of what we intended, we are responsible for what we put into the world.”

Callaway took co-branded listings down from its site while investigations continued. (The term “investigations” just makes me chuckle. It’s an ad. What’s to be investigated? There is no murder or robbery!)

The intended joke — golfers so obsessed with new equipment they would “protect” it like a horror-movie artifact — never landed; the image of a man knocking a woman down did.

But the handwringing continues and Good Good is actually suffering the consequences. Dick's Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy have pulled Good Good’s merchandise from stores. Never mind the fact that Callaway approved it so they are equally responsible. But no one is giving Callaway the boot from sporting goods stores, they are too important in the assortment. So the stores will take it out on the little guy that is less essential in their product mix to show that they are serious about not supporting violence against women!

Furthermore, the Golf Channel postponed a scheduled premiere of the reality show “Big Break x Good Good” because sponsors are bailing.

Good Good is also the title sponsor for an upcoming PGA Tour event called the Good Good Championship, but their sponsorship is currently in question.

This is all dumb, if you ask me. None of these brands looking down their nose and tsk tsk-ing Good Good (and to some extent Callaway, but not really) have taken a stand for women and the protection of women’s golf/sports. And yes, there have been males competing in women’s golf. Now the LPGA and the USGA have updated their policies to protect the women’s golf category — because of Hailey Davidson (a man) competing in women’s golf. But as that whole thing was unfolding, none of these brands actually stood up for female golfers. But it’s all so easy now to take a pretend stand as if Callaway and Good Good were actually advocating for violence against women.

My take: it’s all an over-reaction. Pull the ad because it’s bad. The PGA Tour and Dick’s Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy are all virtue signaling. They aren’t helping women with this performative garbage.