The video was quickly deleted after being widely condemned as making violence against women into a punchline, but Callaway's response has done little to distance the San Diego County company from the partner that created it: the golf giant says it is "disappointed," while apparently continuing the relationship.
The short advertisement promoted a special Good Good-branded version of Callaway's new Quantum driver and was published Friday, August 21, through Good Good Golf, the enormously popular golf-media company that has partnered with Callaway since 2023. In the video, Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark sees professional golfer and Good Good personality Alexis Miestowski reaching toward a golf bag containing the new driver. Clark runs toward her, forcefully knocks her to the ground and then stands above her.
"Do not touch my new driver," Clark tells her. Beneath the video appeared Callaway Golf branding and the message, "You have been warned."
The alleged joke, such as it was, was apparently that the new Callaway driver was so precious that physically throwing a woman to the ground was an appropriately exaggerated response to someone touching it.
The internet was not especially amused. Criticism spread rapidly through the golf community, with commentators questioning not merely the taste of the finished advertisement but the number of people and decisions apparently required for it to be conceived, filmed, edited, approved and released as marketing for a major golf company.
Kevin Van Valkenburg of golf publication The Fried Egg captured the bewilderment particularly well, writing that it was "almost breathtaking" that nobody involved stopped to ask whether there might be a better way to sell a driver. Skratch Golf's Claire Rogers raised the more consequential question: what are young girls watching golf supposed to take from something like this?
That is where Callaway's involvement becomes more difficult to dismiss as merely the bad judgment of an independent group of YouTubers. Good Good may have created the advertisement, and reporting indicates the company retained substantial creative control over content produced through the partnership. But the product being sold was a Callaway driver. The Callaway name appeared on the advertisement. Good Good's relationship with Callaway exists specifically to market Callaway products to the enormous younger audience Good Good has cultivated online.
Callaway entered into the partnership with Good Good in 2023, an arrangement once celebrated within the golf industry as "marketing gold." Good Good now reaches millions of followers across its various platforms, while Callaway has produced specially branded equipment tied to the company, including the Quantum driver featured in the offending advertisement.
After the backlash intensified, both companies removed the video. Good Good subsequently apologized.
"We posted a video to our channels that ultimately depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand," the company said. "We have since taken that content down, and sincerely apologize."
Good Good added that it had "always stood for making the game of golf more inclusive to all" and promised to continue pursuing that mission. Callaway's own response was considerably more restrained.
"We are disappointed by the content that was posted, and are appreciative of Good Good for addressing this," the company said. "We look forward to working together to ensure a more inclusive space in golf."
That last sentence is notable. Rather than announce a review of the partnership, suspend the collaboration or explain how a Callaway-branded advertisement depicting a man knocking a woman to the ground made it into public circulation, Callaway indicated that it looks forward to continuing to work with Good Good.
For a company of Callaway's stature, "disappointed" is an unusually passive description of an advertisement carrying its brand and selling its product.
This isn't an unknown golf startup operating out of someone's garage. Callaway Golf Company is one of the most recognizable equipment manufacturers in the sport, with its global headquarters at 2180 Rutherford Road in Carlsbad. The company traces its roots to 1982, became publicly traded in 1992 and today owns brands including Odyssey, TravisMathew and OGIO. Its own corporate materials emphasize standards of integrity and quote founder Ely Callaway's maxim that "Good ethics is good business."
It is also a company that publicly presents itself as supportive of women in golf. Callaway is currently listed as a corporate partner of the LPGA, and the company has previously promoted its role in women's golf while discussing the importance of engaging and celebrating female players.
The short advertisement promoted a special Good Good-branded version of Callaway's new Quantum driver and was published Friday, August 21, through Good Good Golf, the enormously popular golf-media company that has partnered with Callaway since 2023. In the video, Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark sees professional golfer and Good Good personality Alexis Miestowski reaching toward a golf bag containing the new driver. Clark runs toward her, forcefully knocks her to the ground and then stands above her.
"Do not touch my new driver," Clark tells her. Beneath the video appeared Callaway Golf branding and the message, "You have been warned."
The alleged joke, such as it was, was apparently that the new Callaway driver was so precious that physically throwing a woman to the ground was an appropriately exaggerated response to someone touching it.
The internet was not especially amused. Criticism spread rapidly through the golf community, with commentators questioning not merely the taste of the finished advertisement but the number of people and decisions apparently required for it to be conceived, filmed, edited, approved and released as marketing for a major golf company.
Kevin Van Valkenburg of golf publication The Fried Egg captured the bewilderment particularly well, writing that it was "almost breathtaking" that nobody involved stopped to ask whether there might be a better way to sell a driver. Skratch Golf's Claire Rogers raised the more consequential question: what are young girls watching golf supposed to take from something like this?
That is where Callaway's involvement becomes more difficult to dismiss as merely the bad judgment of an independent group of YouTubers. Good Good may have created the advertisement, and reporting indicates the company retained substantial creative control over content produced through the partnership. But the product being sold was a Callaway driver. The Callaway name appeared on the advertisement. Good Good's relationship with Callaway exists specifically to market Callaway products to the enormous younger audience Good Good has cultivated online.
Callaway entered into the partnership with Good Good in 2023, an arrangement once celebrated within the golf industry as "marketing gold." Good Good now reaches millions of followers across its various platforms, while Callaway has produced specially branded equipment tied to the company, including the Quantum driver featured in the offending advertisement.
After the backlash intensified, both companies removed the video. Good Good subsequently apologized.
"We posted a video to our channels that ultimately depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand," the company said. "We have since taken that content down, and sincerely apologize."
Good Good added that it had "always stood for making the game of golf more inclusive to all" and promised to continue pursuing that mission. Callaway's own response was considerably more restrained.
"We are disappointed by the content that was posted, and are appreciative of Good Good for addressing this," the company said. "We look forward to working together to ensure a more inclusive space in golf."
That last sentence is notable. Rather than announce a review of the partnership, suspend the collaboration or explain how a Callaway-branded advertisement depicting a man knocking a woman to the ground made it into public circulation, Callaway indicated that it looks forward to continuing to work with Good Good.
For a company of Callaway's stature, "disappointed" is an unusually passive description of an advertisement carrying its brand and selling its product.
This isn't an unknown golf startup operating out of someone's garage. Callaway Golf Company is one of the most recognizable equipment manufacturers in the sport, with its global headquarters at 2180 Rutherford Road in Carlsbad. The company traces its roots to 1982, became publicly traded in 1992 and today owns brands including Odyssey, TravisMathew and OGIO. Its own corporate materials emphasize standards of integrity and quote founder Ely Callaway's maxim that "Good ethics is good business."
It is also a company that publicly presents itself as supportive of women in golf. Callaway is currently listed as a corporate partner of the LPGA, and the company has previously promoted its role in women's golf while discussing the importance of engaging and celebrating female players.
Callaway has also demonstrated in the past that it is willing to distance itself from even enormously valuable partners when controversy threatens the brand. San Diego golf legend Phil Mickelson had been one of Callaway's most recognizable ambassadors for nearly two decades, signing with the company in 2004 and later agreeing to what was described as a lifetime equipment deal. But Callaway paused that relationship in 2022 following Mickelson's explosive comments surrounding Saudi Arabia and the formation of LIV Golf, and the longtime partnership ultimately ended.
The comparison has become particularly conspicuous locally because Mickelson himself recently landed at the center of another controversy involving a woman. Earlier this year, the six-time major champion was reportedly expelled from Rancho Santa Fe's exclusive Farms Golf Club following allegations that he made unwanted physical contact with a female employee. Mickelson's representatives disputed the characterization of the incident, no criminal charges were filed, and the San Diego County Sheriff's Office said it had not located evidence establishing that an assault occurred. The episode is entirely unrelated to Callaway and occurred years after the companies separated, but it provides an awkward backdrop for a Carlsbad golf company that once showed itself willing to suspend one of the sport's biggest stars over reputational concerns while now responding to its current partner's violence-themed advertisement by saying it remains eager to continue working together.
That makes the advertisement especially tone-deaf at a moment when women and girls are among the sport's most important sources of growth. Golf Digest, citing National Golf Foundation figures, reported that women now account for approximately 28 percent of traditional golfers, the highest proportion on record, and that women and girls have accounted for more than half of recent net participation growth in on-course golf.
In other words, while the golf industry spends enormous amounts of money attempting to persuade women and younger players that the sport is no longer the exclusionary men's club of generations past, one of its biggest equipment brands managed to attach its name to an advertisement whose central gag was a man violently knocking a woman away from his golf equipment.
Whether Miestowski willingly participated in the scripted joke is largely beside the point. No one is suggesting the video depicts an actual assault. Advertising is staged. Comedy is staged. The criticism concerns the decision to make the image itself the joke and to use it to sell a product.
Good Good's influence makes that choice particularly consequential. Founded as a YouTube channel in 2020, the company has grown into a major golf-media and lifestyle business with more than two million YouTube subscribers, millions more followers across social platforms and a reported $45 million funding round in 2025. Its videos are heavily consumed by younger golf audiences, exactly the demographic traditional golf companies have struggled for years to reach.
The PGA Tour has embraced that influence as well. Good Good is scheduled to serve as title sponsor of the inaugural Good Good Championship, a PGA Tour Fall Series event scheduled for November 12-15 at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin. The Tour nevertheless moved quickly to condemn the advertisement.
"The PGA Tour believes in golf's ability to bring people together and create a welcoming environment for all," a spokesperson said. "We do not condone violence in any form, and the since-deleted video does not reflect our values or commitment to inclusivity and respect."
Callaway, meanwhile, appears prepared to move forward with the partnership. And locally, that deserves attention because Callaway is not merely a distant national brand that happens to sell golf clubs in San Diego. It is one of San Diego County's most prominent homegrown sporting-goods companies, headquartered in Carlsbad and deeply intertwined with the region's golf industry.
The company is also still trying to expand another major golf-related business in its own backyard. Callaway's corporate history became closely connected to Topgolf after the companies completed their merger in 2021, although the businesses have since been moving through a major restructuring. San Diego has spent close to a decade waiting for a proposed Topgolf venue, with plans for a massive East Harbor Island entertainment complex still working through environmental review and government approvals rather than construction.
The contrast is hard to miss. San Diego has watched years of elaborate renderings, negotiations and promises surrounding the company's local golf ambitions. Meanwhile, one of Callaway's most visible contemporary marketing partnerships has now generated national attention for an entirely different reason.
The controversy also illustrates one of the hazards facing established corporations as they increasingly outsource portions of their cultural identity to influencers. Good Good offers Callaway something enormously valuable: authenticity with a younger audience that traditional corporate advertising struggles to manufacture. But that reach comes with a tradeoff. When an influencer partner produces something juvenile, offensive or simply astonishingly ill-conceived, the corporate logo sitting beside it does not magically become irrelevant because somebody else controlled the camera.
Callaway cannot simultaneously enjoy the marketing value of Good Good's personality when the partnership works and portray itself as merely "disappointed" when that same partnership places its brand underneath an image of a woman being thrown to the ground.
There is also a larger distinction between apologizing for offense and explaining failure. Good Good has apologized for posting the advertisement. Callaway has said it was disappointed. Neither statement explains how the video passed whatever approval process existed, whether Callaway reviewed it before publication, whether anyone at Callaway was responsible for approving the use of its branding, or what specifically will change to prevent a recurrence.
Those are not trivial questions when the companies' stated solution is apparently to continue working together. Callaway's own securities filings describe the company as committed to making golf accessible to people from a wide range of backgrounds and maintaining an inclusive workforce. Those aspirations sound considerably less meaningful when inclusivity becomes something invoked after a controversy instead of exercised before an advertisement goes live.
Good Good deserves criticism for creating and publishing the video. But Callaway should not escape scrutiny simply because its partner appears to have exercised creative control.
It was Callaway's driver. Callaway's name appeared with the advertisement. The collaboration exists because Callaway made a calculated business decision to place its products inside Good Good's enormously influential media ecosystem. If a multinational golf company wants the benefits of influencer marketing, it also assumes responsibility for what that marketing communicates about its brand.
Deleting the video was obvious. Apologizing was necessary. Explaining how anyone thought it was suitable advertising in the first place would be considerably more useful.
Callaway Golf Company is headquartered at 2180 Rutherford Road in Carlsbad.
Originally published August 25, 2026.
In other words, while the golf industry spends enormous amounts of money attempting to persuade women and younger players that the sport is no longer the exclusionary men's club of generations past, one of its biggest equipment brands managed to attach its name to an advertisement whose central gag was a man violently knocking a woman away from his golf equipment.
Whether Miestowski willingly participated in the scripted joke is largely beside the point. No one is suggesting the video depicts an actual assault. Advertising is staged. Comedy is staged. The criticism concerns the decision to make the image itself the joke and to use it to sell a product.
Good Good's influence makes that choice particularly consequential. Founded as a YouTube channel in 2020, the company has grown into a major golf-media and lifestyle business with more than two million YouTube subscribers, millions more followers across social platforms and a reported $45 million funding round in 2025. Its videos are heavily consumed by younger golf audiences, exactly the demographic traditional golf companies have struggled for years to reach.
The PGA Tour has embraced that influence as well. Good Good is scheduled to serve as title sponsor of the inaugural Good Good Championship, a PGA Tour Fall Series event scheduled for November 12-15 at Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin. The Tour nevertheless moved quickly to condemn the advertisement.
"The PGA Tour believes in golf's ability to bring people together and create a welcoming environment for all," a spokesperson said. "We do not condone violence in any form, and the since-deleted video does not reflect our values or commitment to inclusivity and respect."
Callaway, meanwhile, appears prepared to move forward with the partnership. And locally, that deserves attention because Callaway is not merely a distant national brand that happens to sell golf clubs in San Diego. It is one of San Diego County's most prominent homegrown sporting-goods companies, headquartered in Carlsbad and deeply intertwined with the region's golf industry.
The company is also still trying to expand another major golf-related business in its own backyard. Callaway's corporate history became closely connected to Topgolf after the companies completed their merger in 2021, although the businesses have since been moving through a major restructuring. San Diego has spent close to a decade waiting for a proposed Topgolf venue, with plans for a massive East Harbor Island entertainment complex still working through environmental review and government approvals rather than construction.
The contrast is hard to miss. San Diego has watched years of elaborate renderings, negotiations and promises surrounding the company's local golf ambitions. Meanwhile, one of Callaway's most visible contemporary marketing partnerships has now generated national attention for an entirely different reason.
The controversy also illustrates one of the hazards facing established corporations as they increasingly outsource portions of their cultural identity to influencers. Good Good offers Callaway something enormously valuable: authenticity with a younger audience that traditional corporate advertising struggles to manufacture. But that reach comes with a tradeoff. When an influencer partner produces something juvenile, offensive or simply astonishingly ill-conceived, the corporate logo sitting beside it does not magically become irrelevant because somebody else controlled the camera.
Callaway cannot simultaneously enjoy the marketing value of Good Good's personality when the partnership works and portray itself as merely "disappointed" when that same partnership places its brand underneath an image of a woman being thrown to the ground.
There is also a larger distinction between apologizing for offense and explaining failure. Good Good has apologized for posting the advertisement. Callaway has said it was disappointed. Neither statement explains how the video passed whatever approval process existed, whether Callaway reviewed it before publication, whether anyone at Callaway was responsible for approving the use of its branding, or what specifically will change to prevent a recurrence.
Those are not trivial questions when the companies' stated solution is apparently to continue working together. Callaway's own securities filings describe the company as committed to making golf accessible to people from a wide range of backgrounds and maintaining an inclusive workforce. Those aspirations sound considerably less meaningful when inclusivity becomes something invoked after a controversy instead of exercised before an advertisement goes live.
Good Good deserves criticism for creating and publishing the video. But Callaway should not escape scrutiny simply because its partner appears to have exercised creative control.
It was Callaway's driver. Callaway's name appeared with the advertisement. The collaboration exists because Callaway made a calculated business decision to place its products inside Good Good's enormously influential media ecosystem. If a multinational golf company wants the benefits of influencer marketing, it also assumes responsibility for what that marketing communicates about its brand.
Deleting the video was obvious. Apologizing was necessary. Explaining how anyone thought it was suitable advertising in the first place would be considerably more useful.
Callaway Golf Company is headquartered at 2180 Rutherford Road in Carlsbad.
Originally published August 25, 2026.