Most articles you read about the Best Golf Youtube Channels will give you a list of the most vanilla, boring and cliché channels. The writers don't care what they write. The channel owners might even have paid for the listing.
In this article, I give you both my opinion on the best channels to watch, and also the top channels by the data. I skipped the clichés and pulled information that everyone can see from the channels themselves. I plugged the data into a formula which I will reveal to you so I could create a list of Youtube channels based on four weighted criteria:
- Subscriber numbers
- Average number of views per video
- What percentage of subscribers watch the average video
- Number of subscribers averaged per video
After that, I will give you the channels that offer the most value for you the viewer. The rankings only contain channels with over 100k subscribers. I will provide a list of must-watch Youtube channels as well.
The Best Golf Youtube Channels according to the numbers
Golf Youtube channel top 10 power rankings (April 2022)
- Good Good Golf (big crew of golfers making Dude Perfect style videos)
- Micah Morris (excellent amateur looking to go pro - part of Good Good)
- GM Golf (trick shot master turned NCAA rejectee - head of Good Good)
- Golf Sidekick (Simple amateur with a camera based in Thailand)
- Stephen Castaneda (Part of Good Good)
- Rick Shiels (The big cheese of Youtube golf)
- Me and My Golf (Adidas/Taylormade marketing branch)
- No Laying Up (Golf travel and story telling)
- Fore Play Golf (Bar Stool Sports golf channel attracts big stars)
- Bubbie Golf (Personable guy also part of Good Good crew)
How the Youtube channels were ranked
Mere subscriber numbers is not enough to assess the Youtube channels for golf. Total subscribers can include many dormant accounts, purchased subscribers and other fluffery.
I wanted to see how many views the videos get on average and the number of subscribers in relation to the view average - how much do the views match subscriber numbers? Organic subscribers is hard to quantify but engagement is a decent metric to assess a channel.
Weighted scoring system
That is why the weighting of the scoring system is as follows with the weighting mentioned:
- Subscriber count - 1
- Subscribers per video released - 2
- Average view count per video - 4
- Subscriber numbers as a percentage of the average view count - 4
That gives us a total of 11.
I ranked the channel according to each of the above metric where the channel is 1st place receives 190 points, the channel in 19th place receives 10. To create a weighted score, I calculated the scores as follows:
The channels on this list are all around 100k subscribers or more. Here are the full power rankings and I will provide some charts of each of the major factors in ranking the channels.
My personal top choices of Golf Youtube channels
While the top ranking golf Youtube channels I mentioned above are the best in the game in terms of metric, we don't live our life on metrics. We watch golf to enjoy it. So here are my most enjoyable and best Youtube channels, regardless of subscriber numbers. These are the channels I watch and because I watch them so much, I have done collaborations with most of them.
Golf Sidekick is clearly the obvious choice. The Golf Sidekick channel is full of guests, from pros shooting good scores, to Matt guiding people around the course to break 100, 90 and 80. This is the easily the best channel on Youtube, objectively. Golf Sidekick is based in Thailand and has created one of the top channels with just an iPhone and a willingness to help.
Who is Genevieve Ling? Genevieve Ling is a Malaysian lady pro currently on the LET Tour. She has featured on Golf Sidekick videos on numerous occasions and her channel is about course management, understanding the game, and life on Tour.
Not a Scratch Golfer follows Adam, a 7 to 8 handicapper who hits the ball average distances to show you how to play golf, how to score, and how to forget the nonsense of hitting further is always always always the best even if it goes offline.
Michele Low is a great golf coach based in Malaysia. She has her own channel and goes through so many things people do not understand, in a way that is understandable and approachable.
Micah Morris takes the game sincerely and is doing his best to become a pro or is a pro. I am unsure which. But he has a nice channel.
Mr Short Game, aka Matt, is a good guy with an honest, helpful channel with a variety of content so you can never be bored.
My rankings of the best channels in charts
Youtube Golf Power Rankings in a chart
Subscriber numbers
Rick Shiels is the leader of the pack by a long way. Random Golf Club Films and Mark Crossfield are the oldest channels both started in 2007. Rick Shiels and Peter Finch began their channels on the same day in 2011. The youngest channels are Fore Play and Good Good, along with Stephen Castaneda.
The breakdown of channels by the country they are located in looks like this:
- United Kingdom: 7
- United States: 10 (Good Good and crew makes up 6 out of those 10)
- Thailand: 1
- Canada: 1
Average number of subscribers obtained per video
Creating a crew with their own individual channels and focusing on creating a large community is the key to Good Good Golf's sudden and meteoric rise. They have a great crew of editors, videographers and cast members that allow them to create plenty of unique content.
Average views per video released
What is the audience retention rate of golf Youtube channels?
It's interesting to see channels subscriber numbers and number of views the channel gets per video on average. This can show you a retention rate, roughly speaking, of how many subscribers watch the videos. This is not entirely accurate but it's a good metric to see the reach of the channels and how engaged the audience is.
Conclusion
These were my favorite Youtube golf channels - I hope you will try them or discovered someone new. There are new channels all the time coming up and this list may change but as of April 2022, the Good Good crew are doing well and Golf Sidekick is up there with the big boys. That is amazing.