Why Your Club Needs to Think Like an Influencer

Millions of golfers are watching Rick Shiels, Dan Grieve and a new generation of creators every single day. The algorithm rewards their content. Their audiences grow. And most golf clubs are still posting a photo of the Sunday roast.

Golf has a new discovery channel, and it isn't your website

When someone who plays golf picks up their phone and opens Instagram or TikTok, they aren't searching for a golf club. They're watching a one-hole match between strangers. They're laughing at a spin-the-wheel challenge. They're learning how to escape a plugged lie in a bunker from a pro they've never met. That's the content the algorithm serves. That's what lands on For You pages. And that's what is growing audiences in the hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, for creators who understood one simple truth before most golf clubs did: people want to watch people, not places. - 3M+ YouTube subscribers for Rick Shiels - 717k Instagram followers for Dan Grieve - 200M+ video views in a year for Dan Grieve These are the numbers golf influencers are doing. The audience is there, it is engaged, and it is growing. Your club just needs to show up in the same space, with the same energy, on the same platforms.

Five content formats that actually reach new golfers

You don't need a production team or a six-figure budget. You need the right formats, consistently executed. These are the five that drive reach: - Challenge formats. Spin the wheel, the 7-9 iron challenge, closest-to-the-pin competitions between members or staff. Interactive, watchable, shareable. This is the single highest-performing format on golf TikTok right now. - Pro tips and instruction. Your resident PGA professional is a content asset most clubs are leaving completely unused. A 30-second tip on bunker play, chipping or course management puts a real face to your club and gives the algorithm something worth pushing. - Member matches and stories. One-hole grudge matches between members. A society visiting from out of town. A junior who just shot their first par round. Real people and real moments: the format that builds community and drives word-of-mouth at the same time. - Meet the Captains. A sit-down with the Men's and Ladies' Captain at the start of the year: their plans, their ambitions, what they want the year to mean for members. It's personal, it's warm, and it tells prospective members more about the culture of a club than any brochure ever could. - Behind the scenes. The greenkeeper at 5am. The kitchen team plating up for a wedding. The office team fielding calls on a competition day. Authenticity builds trust. Trust builds membership enquiries.

Your social media shouldn't look like a notice board

A post announcing the winter roll is back in play. A graphic promoting the Sunday carvery. A photo of the trophy from last week's competition. These posts serve your existing members, and that has value. But they will never reach anyone new. They are not built for discovery. The algorithm will not push them to a single person who doesn't already follow you. The clubs that are growing their membership through social media have made a deliberate shift: they create content for people who don't know them yet. They think about what a golfer in their area might be watching on a Tuesday evening, and they make something that belongs in that space. That is not complicated. It does not require a weekly production schedule. It requires the right mindset, and the right content when you do show up. The clubs winning on social media aren't the ones posting the most. They're the ones posting content that people actually want to watch. There's a difference between being active and being visible.

Your club has everything it needs. It just needs to show it.

Every golf club in the country has interesting people, beautiful surroundings and moments worth capturing. The influencers didn't build their audiences on anything your club doesn't already have. They just decided to show it, consistently, in the right format, on the right platforms. The question isn't whether your club has something worth filming. It does. The question is whether you're using it. Social media for golf clubs shouldn't look like a notice board. It should look like somewhere people want to be.