help! my boyfriend started swinging

i blame the youtube algorithm

a little note — there will be no letter next week as I’m off to Barcelona to celebrate my boyfriend’s sister’s wedding! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this letter. I’ll see you in July! Lucy xo

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In the past twelve months, my boyfriend has developed a passion for a new sport. He’s fallen head over heels for… golf. Yes, the game you typically associate with old men in Florida and hedge fund managers.

It started with trips to the driving range last summer. Then he started going to Chingford and play on the public course by Epping Forest. Then we got to the YouTube videos, which progressed to watching the competitions on TV, then the lessons, then the gear… One year on, I think it officially qualifies as a special interest.

And it’s not just him: all of his friends love golf too. They play together every weekend and just booked a golf holiday (yes, those exist.) It extends even further than their group of friends — he bonds with the boyfriends of my friends, they chat about their local courses over drinks and dinner. Maybe I’m noticing it more this year, but it feels like golf has become a Big Thing™️ in 2023.

When did golf get so popular with these boys, and where has it come from?

Google Trends never lets me down — I searched for two of the golf YouTube channels Jack watches and the data shows they’ve been growing in popularity since last summer. Rick Shiels and Good Good were already established, successful creators, but they seem to be going from strength to strength this year.

The channels’ success is probably related to the length of the videos — the creators are uploading whole games and tournaments, up to six hours of content at a time. It’s edited well, with commentary and digital scorecards to keep it engaging. Watch time is one of YouTube’s most important metrics — so in a rudimentary sense, the longer people watch a video for, the better YouTube thinks it is, and so they push the video out to more people. It wouldn’t surprise me if these golf channels have been the entry point for some of the new, younger fans of the sport; the one video that makes its way onto their homepage is the gateway to a whole new world.

Other creators are catching on to the success of the golf niche; The Sidemen, Max Fosh and Alfie Deyes have recently taken part in, or made their own golf-related videos despite not being golf creators themselves. I wonder how long it will take for the female golf niche to expand, and if this phenomenon will extend to other sports? F1 reached a brand new audience through the Drive To Survive Netflix series, and in the same manner golf seems to be reaching new eyeballs through online content creators.

So that’s my working theory — I reckon the YouTube algorithm has had a large role to play in golf’s spike in popularity this year. I’m curious to see how this plays out (no pun intended) on YouTube’s side; have they noticed the spike in engagement with golf content? Are they planning to promote it further? Golf could be a great genre for the platform to put energy into since live streaming took some of the focus away from long-form game-related content on the platform.

Are the young-ish men in your life also obsessed with golf? Where do you think it’s stemmed from? And if you have any advice on how to get my boyfriend’s attention back, please leave a comment — crowdsourcing might be my only hope.