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Golf’s influencer, Grant Horvat, refused the exemption from a sponsor in the Barracuda championship this week, and his reasoning revolves around its Youtube content.
Horvat is one of the most popular content creators in the YouTube golf area, sporting nearly 1.4 million subscribers and playing with some of the best players in the world like Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson, to name a few.
He was invited to play the Tahoe Mountain Club this week for the Barracuda championship, but he refused the sponsor exemption because, as he explained, the tour would not allow his camera team inside the strings to film his laps.
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The personality of the YouTube golf course, Grant Horvat, interacts with fans after the second round of the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD Synnex 2025 at the Thornblade Club on June 6, 2025 in Greer, in South Carolina. (Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
“The reason why I will not play in a PGA Tour event is due to the rules and regulations concerning media rights and filming during the tournament game of a PGA Tour event,” said Horvat in a video on his Youtube page. “Basically, this means that I was not going to be allowed to film my round during the tournament game.
“For me personally, make YouTube to live and want to document everything I do – this is the reason why we had the invitation in the first place because of Youtube and because of the incredible experiences that I can share because of you guys.”
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Horvat said he hoped to be able to participate in a tour event in the future, but for the moment, he will not play with the rules of the place.
“I hope that in the future, we will be able to play in a PGA Tour event … and document and film everything to share with you because I know what I would feel in a event and a boy of PGA Tour, I want that in front of the camera,” said Horvat in the video.
The PGA Tour may have considered the exemption from a sponsor for Horvat as a means of reaching a new demographic group. However, Horvat remained faithful to his disciples, which includes almost a million on Instagram, and did not want to play if he did not imply cameras.
The Barracuda is not a regular PGA Tour field, because the open championship, the last major of the year, is also played in the United Kingdom this weekend. Players like Scheffler, Rory McILroy and many others will not be available in California this week.
The personality of the youtube golf Grant Horvat looks after Putt shot the eighth green in the second round of the BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by TD Synnex 2025 at the Thornblade Club on June 6, 2025 in Greer, in South Carolina. (Johnnie Izquierdo / Getty Images)
The PGA Tour recently relied in the golf content creator space lately. They had “Creator Classic” tournaments, which were similar to golf liv events.
