The YouTube Golf Effect: Why Takomo Keeps Showing Up In Your Feed

I live in Connecticut, and it’s the middle of winter, which means no golf for me. I could hit golf balls into a screen indoors, but I honestly hate that. 

So yeah, I’m living vicariously through YouTube golfers.

And not in a casual way, either. Some people see a three-hour YouTube video and think, "I'm not clicking that." Not me. I’ll watch three hours of scramble golf with the same level of enthusiasm as the final round of a PGA Tour tournament (excluding the majors, of course, that's still the pinnacle of golf). 

So, Grant Horvat, Bob Does Sports, and the Bryan Bros have basically become the center of my golf offseason. They’re also, whether they realize it or not, the reason I ended up on a Zoom with a representative from a Finnish golf company I’d barely heard of a year ago: Takomo.

The Marriage Between Takomo & YouTube Golf

Let me be clear up front: this isn’t an ad. Nobody paid me to write this. I heard multiple creators I enjoy watching talk up Takomo clubs, and I did the most journalistically responsible thing I could think to do: I reached out to the company and asked if someone would talk to me about their product and marketing strategy. 

That’s how I ended up interviewing Joonas Laasila, Takomo’s Head of Partnerships and Influencer Marketing. He's the guy who helps run the influencer machine that keeps putting Takomo in your YouTube feed.

When Laasila joined Takomo three and a half years ago, he was the fifth employee. He says the company is now up to 46. That’s impressive growth in a short period of time, so something is clearly working and resonating with golfers. 

A Connecticut golfer’s offseason rabbit hole leads to an interview with Takomo’s influencer marketing lead on why YouTube now drives club discovery and brand loyalty.

(Takomo)

He’s also a golfer, which matters more than you’d think in this space. He started playing during COVID and has worked down to a 7.8-handicap, which is both impressive and mildly offensive (because I also really started golfing during COVID, and I'm a 12). 

For a direct-to-consumer golf brand, meaning not sold in Golf Galaxy or PGA Superstore, Takomo had to face an immediate problem: people can’t just walk in, grab a 7-iron, and see what it feels like. Laasila even admitted that it's hard for people to test their clubs because while they offer a trial period, it's time-consuming and tedious. 

But it also allowed the company to realize that because its business is 100 percent online, it might as well go all-in on an online marketing strategy. 

That’s the logic Laasila described. According to him, Takomo’s CEO Sebastian Haapahovi saw early potential in YouTube before Laasila even joined. They sent out irons for early reviews, and the response was immediate. One early batch sold out quickly (Laasila estimated within a week or two) and that was the proof of concept. There’s a market for brand-new iron sets that don't cost at least four figures, and YouTube can move product.

So they leaned in. Hard.

The Creator Criteria That Actually Matters

Laasila described a moment where the CEO essentially handed him "a war chest" and told him to build the influencer program. That’s not the traditional OEM playbook. TaylorMade isn’t handing one marketing dude a pile of money and saying, "Do whatever you want." 

But Takomo isn’t trying to be TaylorMade.

When I asked how they evaluate creators, Laasila gave the obvious answers first: subscribers, engagement, overall sentiment online. Sure. That’s marketing 101. 

But then he got to the part that’s harder to quantify: vibe.

YouTube golf star Grant Horvat celebrates with the trophy after winning the Creator Classic prior to the 2025 THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

(Ben Jared/PGA TOUR)

He said they look for people who feel like someone other golfers would actually want to hang out with, someone you could play 18 holes with and then grab a beer in the clubhouse. They don’t want creators turning into NASCAR drivers wearing jumpsuits covered in logos. They want the clubs to show up naturally in content.

If you watch YouTube golf, you know exactly what he means. The creators who win aren’t always the ones screaming "USE MY CODE." It’s the ones who casually say "that was a crisp seven iron" after hitting one, and it lands because you trust them.

That trust is the entire game.

Here’s the thing about golf clubs: once people pick a brand, they get emotionally attached. I'm speaking from experience. 

Brand Loyalty in Golf Is Emotional, Not Rational

I’m a Callaway guy. As a 12-handicap, I’m decent enough to have strong opinions and bad enough that those opinions are often suspiciously self-serving.

But I’m loyal. I’ve tried other stuff. I always end up back with Callaway, even though I’ve got a PXG putter in the bag. It's not because I have a deep philosophical reason, it's mostly because my brain likes the comfort of familiarity. And I like the simplicity of the Callaway logo, honestly. 

So I told Laasila it would take a lot to get me to switch. What was his pitch?

His first move was smart. He turned it around.

"What do you value in your Callaway so much that it would be hard for you to switch?" he asked.

And I had to admit the truth. I don’t have a great answer. It’s not rational. It’s mental. 

Golf is played largely between the ears. Confidence is the ultimate on-course performance enhancer. When I stand over the ball believing the club in my hands is the good one, that matters.

Laasila didn’t dismiss that. He leaned into it. He talked about confidence being a major part of hitting the shot you want, and then he pivoted into what Takomo can control: matching your setup.

If someone loves a specific shaft, he said, Takomo can even sell heads-only and let a builder create a familiar build. And he pointed out the other reality that most golfers live in: plenty of casual players aren’t buying brand-new $1,400 iron sets. They’re buying a year or two behind (which is what I did with the Paradyms), because full retail is basically a luxury purchase now.

Which brings us to Takomo’s favorite topic.

The DTC Price Argument and the ‘Honest Company’ Pitch

If you’ve heard Takomo discussed online, you’ve heard the hook: premium quality, lower price. So I asked the direct question: how do you do that without compromising quality?

His answer was simple: no retail overhead.

Laasila claimed retail costs in the U.S. golf space are roughly 45 percent, meaning brands that are in big-box stores bake that cost into the pricing structure. Takomo sells online only, so it avoids that retail markup.

Former PGA Tour pro turned YouTube golfer Wesley Bryan is one of many creators working with Takomo. 

(Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

Put another way, if Takomo took its current pricing and layered a traditional retail margin on top, they’d be much closer to what the major OEMs charge. 

He also repeatedly used the phrase "honest company" to describe Takomo, which sounded like a shot at the rest of the industry. When I asked if he meant other brands aren’t honest, he clarified that he was talking about marketing claims, the kind of "this driver goes 10 yards farther because we invented a new space-age material" messaging.

His funniest line was also the most accurate:

"If actually all the promises of added distance were true from the beginning… we would all be hitting the ball like 3,000 yards."

Correct.

If Takomo’s strategy can be summarized in one sentence, it’s this: YouTube is the new fitting bay.

Not literally. But psychologically.

It’s where trust is built. It’s where products become normal. It’s where golfers see gear in action without feeling like they’re being sold to, even though they are absolutely being sold to.

And when enough creators people trust keep saying the same thing about the same clubs, they'll likely start doing what I did: get curious, and reach out for the story behind the story.

Which is exactly what Takomo was betting on from the beginning.