The thought occurs to you for the first time in the first ten minutes of Bryson DeChambeau’s Break 50 alongside Steph Curry.
At first, it’s just a kernel of an idea. But then it becomes more than that: A feeling, and before long, a very real question.
Why does he bother doing anything else?
That is the Bryson Effect, as best as I can describe it. He’s not quite revolutionizing the game through a mass of muscle or a law of physics as much as he is through the power of YouTube. It sounds trite, but the truth is inarguable: Bryson has blossomed from a golf superstar into an internet hero, the rare person capable of attracting the attention of both Mr. Nicklaus and Mr. Beast. With 2.5 million subscribers and a steady well of access to celebrities and viral stars, Bryson’s channel has sprouted into the kind of place where fans of all backgrounds can enter golf without fear of pretense or boredom.
So, how’d he do it? I hit the couch — erhm, books — for a week and took a look into the things that make Bryson a viral megastar, and I found a few common themes.
1. Authenticity
I can feel your eyes rolling already. In the eyes of some golf fans (and for good reason), Bryson is not the YouTube star he portends to be and spends plenty of his golfing hours outside of the heavily edited bubble of YouTube (and inside the heavily edited bubble of golf television) whiny or mopey or picking fights with his Ryder Cup opponents.
But DeChambeau has told us time and time again that YouTube is the place where he feels like he can be his goofiest self. While that might not manifest in the pained expressions that often find their way into his thumbnails, it does manifest in the videos that wind up on his channel.
When the cameras are rolling in his YouTube videos, Bryson shows a side of himself we don’t usually see on the golf course — someone who shares anecdotes from his time around great players, who approaches his famous guests with an air of curiosity and sincerity, and who isn’t afraid to laugh at himself. His vibe is unabashedly goofy and intentionally hyperbolic, and while that plays as some as a joke, I find it in line with the person I’ve seen when the cameras are off.
While Bryson might be a fierce — and sometimes overly intense — tournament competitor, that side of himself rarely finds its way into his videos. Instead his clips feel much more like an outgrowth of a sports-obsessed 15-year-old, not the fever-dream of a coldly calculating businessman.
2. Production Value
Bryson is not the only pro golfer to enter the world of YouTube over these last several years, but he is one of the few pros who has legitimately committed to the quality and consistency of his production setup.
His footage utilizes a series of high-fidelity cameras shot at tight intervals and edited with top-of-the-line graphics. In the Steph Curry Break 50, keen eyes catch how Bryson waited until his car has stopped driving to engage in conversation with Curry, ensuring a steadier camera shot and crisper audio, while drones and a multitude of shooters combine to ensure that no big moment goes missing. No, it’s not quite Citizen Kane, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
The truth is that this stuff isn’t that complicated to pull off, but so many YouTube-presenting brands fail at the easy stuff, yielding high-effort videos that disappear into an uncaring algorithm within seconds of publishing. If Bryson’s videos fail to perform, it’s never for a lack of technical knowhow, and considering the man at the center of this production is one of the best professional golfers alive, I give him credit.
3. Algorithmic understanding
I’m not sure if the credit for this one belongs to Bryson himself, but it’s clear somebody in his orbit understands the real business of YouTube, where videos are sorted based on the amount of attention they attract.
Bryson’s franchises feature a clear, understandable hook, a terrific thumbnail, and a first-minute edit that combine to entice viewers to keep watching (Break 50 being the best example of these traits). As the size of his YouTube production has grown, so has the scale of his videos, which now feature (comparatively) tasteful product integration and hour-plus run-times, helping to drive up the “Average View Duration” metric that decides whether videos perform or flop.
4. Celebrity access!
Here’s where it helps to have a deep Rolodex. Bryson has quickly stumbled into the true great skill of incredibly successful content creators: His inbound comes to him.
Thanks to his golf fame and YouTube bonafides, the work of securing high-quality, high-entertainment guests has dramatically eased. Celebrities like Steph Curry will join the show knowing they’ll get something out of the endeavor, too, be it YouTube subscribers, golf invites, sponsorships, or some combination of the three.
5. Golf ability
There is something to be said about the feeling of suspended belief you have while watching one of the great players of this generation attempt to break 50 in a two-man scramble from the forward tees. Whether DeChambeau performs or flops, he is the center of the show — and the general feeling of infinite possibility serves as a dose of lighter fluid to each of his videos.
Is his golfing ability enough to make it interesting no matter what Bryson does? No, and that’s why so many other pro golf types have failed where he has succeeded. But Bryson’s ability of all of the above, combined with his golf goodness, makes his golf goodness hard to ignore.