Dan Rapaport believes that Brad Dalke is going to inspire a number of professional golfers to follow a different path following his hugely impressive debut on the DP World Tour this past week.
Dalke received a sponsor invite for the BMW International Open in Germany. The 28-year-old is best known for the work he has done on YouTube, particularly as part of Good Good.
How many golfers in the current game will be remembered in 50 years time?
Who is leaving the greatest legacy?
Anyone who has watched YouTube golf will know that Dalke is widely considered one of the very best players on the platform.
But of course, there would have been doubts as to how that would translate in a golf tournament at the highest level.
Brad Dalke backed to inspire several players to pursue YouTube golf
Dalke played in The Masters and the US Open as a youngster. And while the DP World Tour is not the force it once was, there were still plenty of big names in the field in Munich.
So many would have assumed that Dalke would comfortably miss the cut.
Those doubters, however, could have hardly been more wrong.
Dalke was just a couple of shots adrift of the lead at the halfway stage. And while he struggled over the weekend, he still managed to finish in a tie for 30th.
He will also tee it up at the Rocket Classic on the PGA Tour next month. And speaking on Dan on Golf, Dan Rapaport suggested that he can now see even more players opting to try and take the same route as Dalke.
“Here’s a list, an incomplete list, of some of the players that he beat: Patrick Reed, Abraham Ancer, Casey Jarvis, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Eugenio Chacarra. This is a perfect use of a sponsor invite. And these are going away on the PGA Tour for the big events. DP World Tour events, if you’re paying attention, keep doing this. It brought way more eyeballs to the golf tournament,” he said.
“And it made me think, how many more people are going to start to go down the YouTube route? If you’re struggling as a tour pro, you’re not making it, because we saw Ryan Ruffels was a phenom, came out with a lot of hype on the PGA Tour, kind of disappeared from the professional game for a little bit, reemerges as a content creator, gets into a PGA Tour event that way.
“Brad Dalke finished second in the US Am, played in The Masters, struggled in professional golf, now he goes back, finds his love for the game again. And now he’s back playing in tour events and showing that he can compete in tour events. So it just made me think that’s going to be a more common route.”
YouTube golf could transform the Challenger Series on the PGA Tour
Dalke’s performance in Germany should certainly catch the attention of the PGA Tour as they prepare for the big changes from 2028.
The Challenger Series has a point to prove, with all of the top players unable to drop down and compete in track two events. It is going to be a tall task for those at Ponte Vedra to make casual golf fans care about the second tier.
But inviting players like Dalke to Challenger Series events would surely help a great deal.
Some players may not like to admit it, but Dalke is a much bigger name than some of those who were even in contention to win the John Deere Classic this past week.
There will be fans who only watch Challenger Series events because of the YouTube figures involved. And that is how they begin to associate with those who are plying their trade on track two full-time.
It may even reach the stage, as Rapaport suggests, where some players see YouTube providing a better pathway than the Challenger Series.
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