The world’s wealthiest pastime is bigger, brighter, and more diverse than ever. Find out how the sport’s shifting shape is redefining where the game is growing and who is leading the charge.
When asked what Eastside Golf founders Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper mean to a 15th-century Scottish sport, the answer is simple.
“They mean everything for the sport, to the culture,” Chris Paul told Boardroom. “All of us equate everything to Tiger Woods, but now you can show up and see the Eastside Golf logoman? It’s iconic.”
This stylistic symbolism all exemplifies a New Golf Order – both socially and industrially.
In 2024, Tiger Woods is competing against Nike and forming a new league. Phil Mickelson is in business with Bubba Watson, while Jon Rahm’s rumored $300 million contract eclipses earnings ever deemed imaginable.
Golf – a Stateside staple embedded in old guard game and corporate America access – is going through a groundswell of new energy, with over 45 million American amateurs playing the game each year. This wave of interest is even rerouting the prestigious pro circuit.
“This is the only time we will see this in our lifetime,” Katie O’Reilly, Executive VP and Head of Team Business Operations at LIV Golf, told Boardroom. “This seismic shift happening in a professional sports landscape.”
But this unlikely upheaval isn’t only affecting PGA players and Baby Boomers. Over six million Millennial men and women golf in America, with thousands flying to foreign lands and distant cities just to play the game. Gen Alpha amateurs are actively growing their range — and résumés – 18 holes at a time.
“The modern-day golfer is constantly being defined,” Eastside Golf CEO and co-founder Olajuwon Ajanaku told Boardroom. “You can pick up a golf club? You’re the modern-day golfer.”
Heading into 2025, Ajanku and his PGA professional partner Earl Cooper are just two of many talents taking the 15th-century sport to new markets and dimensions, acting as the bridge between Atlanta and Augusta, Morehouse and The Masters.
“When you think about golf, there’s a ton of barriers,” Cooper told Boardroom. “Golf now has a challenge to get with the times.”
Occupying the fertile fairway between putt-putt and PGA, Golden Tee and green jacket, a $100 billion domestic industry is expanding across continents and income classes by tee time and t-shirt through a lifestyle lens the sport has never seen.
For Boardroom’s November Cover Story, we sought players of all abilities and backgrounds who are actively changing the dress code, competitive climate, and eventual executive space as part of the New Golf Order.
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Poppin’ Tags
It was only a few years ago that Ajanaku was asked to leave a country club because his joggers didn’t have belt loops. Fast forward to 2024, and he counts The PGA of America and Elysian Park Ventures as investors in his sportswear company.
A seed round run up by EP Golf Ventures has positioned Eastside Golf as a game-changer in the sport’s $9 billion annual apparel industry, shifting the patterns and people that once defined the game. The momentous influx of streetwear style and sneaker culture consumption has golf’s global apparel market cap expected to reach $13 billion by 2032.
“It’s reinvigorated my style,” Super Bowl champion and Emmy Award winner Victor Cruz told Boardroom. “In golf, there’s no wrong answer to what you wear. Throughout 18 holes? The-Dream is making maybe four outfit changes.”
From cashmere sweaters to tactical rain pants, the retired All-Pro receiver treats the fairway like the runway. Still, it’s a former Chicago Bulls baller who’s making more green on the golf course than any of his athletic contemporaries.
“Anytime a Jordan shipment comes, it’s special to me,” CC Sabathia told Boardroom. “But for me? It’s all about the swag on the golf course. Even some of the stuff they make for the baseball guys, I’ll have them put turf bottoms on them so I can wear them on the golf course.”
When Sabathia signed with Jordan Brand in 2007, the Jumpman imprint was making about $800 million in annual revenue strictly through lifestyle sneakers and apparel, all rooted in basketball. MJ’s namesake subsidiary slowly introduced golf spikes to the market as part of a host of larger sports marketing initiatives that saw the brand reach a record $7 billion in 2024.
“Everything now is geared around my Jordan stuff on the golf course,” said Sabathia. “That’s all I care about: the golf stuff.”
At 44 years old and only four years into his fairway journey, Sabathia’s resume reads differently than the other three million Americans who picked up a club for the first time in 2020. He saw the sport as an opportunity to serve as the new-age boardroom, giving him the opportunity to rub elbows with businessmen and pros alike. However, the 6x MLB All-Star’s attachment to footwear and buying consumptions couldn’t be closer to the generation he narrowly edges in age.
“Millennials grew up reading sneaker blogs and participating in the sports and fashion landscape,” sports marketing consultant and former Nike brand director Jordan Rogers told Boardroom. “There’s a segment of us that golfed or were golf adjacent. I remember being frustrated that my life off the course couldn’t translate to my life on the course.”
Today, the modern golf vernacular is much more in discourse with streetwear than ever before. That’s why brands like Jordan, Malbon, and Eastside Golf are disrupting the space by meeting the modern golfer right where they are.
“Prior to Malbon? There was no DTC in golf,” said Rogers. “There was PGA Superstore, Golf Galaxy, and your local pro shop. The internet and social media have allowed us to go directly to consumers.”
This same spending is impacting other spaces. Instead of hopping on Zoom, golfers are chartering flights. In 2024, the global golf tourism market cap exceeds $20 billion. It’s the mix of friendly leisure and corporate retreat that’s taking off in each hemisphere.
Still, the local country clubs are deemed the game’s best investment.
“The people inside the club are what you’re paying for,” said Cooper. “The owner of this, the family of this…you eat at the club, you do Christmas at the club. It’s not just golf, it’s a lifestyle from the kids to the grandfather.”
“The LA golf scene? All the clubs have record levels of membership,” Chad Mumm, the executive producer of Netflix’s Full Swing and co-founder of Pro Shop, told Boardroom. “And the business activity that’s happening out there? It’s the ultimate place to network.”
Before securing $20 million in funding for Pro Shop, Mumm produced true crime thrillers for HBO and cooking shows for David Chang. Once Full Swing aired, a coveted tee time became the time to talk shop.
“When I became the golf guy in Hollywood? All of a sudden, I found myself in situations with A-list movie stars, athletes, and musicians,” said Mumm. “And it was all through golf.”
This type of connection proves true across verticals.
“If you’re a rookie in the NFL and you get into golf? It will add three to five years to your career,” Cruz said, noting that the game can endear one with management and increase lockerroom likability.
“It can add anywhere from $8 to $12 million to your portfolio,” Cruz said. “That’s real money, especially for a guy that may be the third receiver on a depth chart – we’re not even talking No. 1 draft picks and the guys that get paid the big money.”
Even for lottery lands in other sports, the same notion proves true.
“What makes golf so unique business-wise is that if you can’t play basketball? I really can’t go hoop with you,” Paul said. “I can’t give you a point every time you hit the rim or get across halfcourt. But in golf, the handicap system makes it where I’ve played with some of the best players and the worst players.”
“Golf’s a great equalizer because when you step on tee everyone feels the same amount of pressure,” Mumm said. “Golf has a way of exposing you in a humbling way. It doesn’t matter what your bank account says or where you live — can you get the ball in the hole?”
In 2024, golf has gotten its groove back by loosening its grip on tradition and adapting to new times. Still, half the population is underrepresented in the global game.
The Real Pro-Am Tour
Golf’s appeal to A-list athletes and entertainment executives has been magnified by the sport’s growing style presence, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg of where the game can grow.
“Women is where the growth is,” Ajanaku said. “Women are in the same group as us. They were not allowed before 1961 to be part of the PGA.”
Historically, golf has been seen as an “old boys club,” with the bulk of dollars landing in the lap of the men’s game. Culturally, that’s shifting, albeit slowly.
Cooper cites Nelly Korda, a 26-year-old from Florida who currently sits atop the LPGA rankings and carries an athleticism and swagger similar to the man who made the PGA must-see-TV.
“What makes her truly representative of the new wave is how she transcends golf,” Cooper said. “She has a Richard Mille deal, she showed up at the Met Gala. She represents where golf is going – she is it.”
Though Korda can galvanize the sport as an entertainment property, the growth still matters most for those who will never be paid to play the game. At its heart, Eastside Golf sees the sport as a Trojan horse for those far from pro in golf but very much motivated in other endeavors.
“I’ve played golf with NBA coaches, business executives, leaders in industries,” journalist, host, and producer Greydy Diaz told Boardroom.
Before blossoming into a career in media, Diaz attended programs at the Boys & Girls Club in Massachusetts, backed by former Pebble Beach CEO Bill Perocchi. Perocchi, once a child of the worst housing projects in Massachusetts, made it his mission to be as present as he was with kids in need as he was at the $3.5 billion golf course he once ran.
Now, Diaz has been hitting the course for more than a decade, and she’s already reaping the results. She sees the game as not just a competitive pastime to get fresh and get outside but an active means of aiding her career goals and aspirations.
“I’ve developed professional relationships, and it almost feels like we’re forever tied because we played 18 holes together,” Diaz said. “That’s like five hours of getting to know someone.”
The intimate access to high-profile people is perhaps the game’s greatest gift.
“I’ve played with Bill Clinton, I’ve played with President Obama,” Chris Paul reflected. “Golf is one of those things where you get to learn a lot about people. You get a chance to see if they really got a 5 or they really got a 6.”
Thanks to drive, mentorship, and opportunity, Diaz is living the dream CP3 is actively embarking on and the ambition Earl and Olajuwon aim to seed through Eastside Golf.
“Our theory has always been how do we invest in young professionals? Because the young professionals are folks that can see the difference immediately and start at the beginning to pay dividends,” Cooper said. “And then they begin to see people that look like them, that love them, that are around them, their aunts, their uncles, and say, ‘You know what, this game is normalized.'”
“When you do anything, it’s nice to see people who look like you,” Paul said. “I’ve played golf with my uncles who grew up as just caddies. I’ve been able to show them different courses they would never see, which I’m grateful for.”
Even if that dream is closer to reality in 2024, it’s far from fully realized.
“Golf is something that scares people,” Cruz said. “If I can bring people to the game and they can reciprocate that to the next person? That’s what I’m into.”
This type of progress is music to Earl’s ears.
“That’s what’s going to change this game: betting on young professionals,” Cooper said. “Staying down and committing to the next generation so that ten, 20 years from now? There’s real change.”
That real change is already taking place at a grassroots level as young boys and girls who never would’ve thought to take up golf are growing through the game that was once gaited.
Just ask Cruz, a retired NFL star using the game as a means to network in his second act as a media pro while his daughter writes her own story on the course.
“I don’t think she even knows how talented she is,” Cruz said. “She just won her first tournament. She’s 12 years old.”
For Cruz, golf is allowing him to advise fellow football players, make media contacts, and reenergize his wardrobe. For his daughter – and thousands of other young people picking up a club that wouldn’t otherwise have access – the game is already even bigger than all of that.
“At the very least? She gets a college education out of it,” said Cruz. “Just playing the game of golf will take her all around the world.”
Thirty years ago, such high hopes would seem far-fetched for any athlete not born into the sport’s historical hierarchy. Today, this brazen belief is instilled not only by the game’s more inclusive nature but by the game’s GOAT, who’s currently rewriting the rules of the sport all over again.
“Tiger Woods is the last product of monoculture for golf,” Rogers says, citing a point made in basketball marketing by Nate Jones.
Besides becoming the game’s greatest star as a person of color, he’s creating his own world across categories by exiting his longstanding relationship with Nike to launch his own empire in Sun Day Red.
Woods will have his work cut out if he’s not actively competing on the golf course and in the C-suite. That’s why golf’s GOAT is betting big on himself by looking beyond the PGA Tour to launch ventures in league play.
He’s not alone.
The Entrepreneur Athlete Era
At his peak powers, Tiger Woods ran golf and the Forbes list, climaxing in a decade-long run where he’d top all athlete earners globally whilst permanently attaching his name to PGA Tour trophies. Now nearing 50 and already a billionaire, his biggest competition is not necessarily Father Time or the record books.
Rather, it’s a familiar foe turned sacrificial lamb who’s turned the entire pro golf sphere upside down.
“Phil Mickelson died so Bryson DeChambeau could live,” an industry insider told Boardroom.
Since Lefty left the PGA for the greener pastures of the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf League, the division of the tour has proved a multiplier of opportunities. Sparked by Greg “The Shark” Norman biting into golf’s tight tradition and deep pockets, LIV has since stolen talent from the PGA loudly and proudly.
In April 2024, Norman’s native Australia roared as Jon Rahm’s Watering Hole welcome at LIV saw pandemonium akin to Hulk Hogan’s WCW debut. Like any industry, competition is driving both innovation and price.
Experts estimate Rahm’s undisclosed LIV contract to touch $300 million over anywhere from five to ten years. It’s the type of money Jaylen Brown will make in 500 some nights of NBA action, or CJ Stroud will see if the Texans make him their Patrick Mahomes.
The difference is Rahm won’t take any hits in either pocket, and he’ll travel the world to the tune of only 14 tournaments a year. It’s a less taxing lifestyle and a more malleable model that the bravest in the game have already bet big on.
“The great thing about LIV Golf is the ability to pivot, change, and do things more fluidly than other tours,” Phil Mickelson told Boardroom.
“We know it’s going to be bigger, badder, and better than ever before,” Bryson DeChambeau told Boardroom.
Disruption aside, it’s also turning former adversaries into business partners.
“Creative juices are flowing,” Bubba Watson told Boardroom. “You’re in the meetings for all 54 guys and for the league. It’s a start-up business, and you’re trying to grow it.”
Aiming to make golf more like Formula 1, LIV looks to make golf a team sport with ruckus and luxury fanfare, much like international racing. Range Goats GM Randall Wells cites the process of building LIV Golf already ahead of schedule with teams eventually building home courses in American and international markets.
“It’s just going to continue growing over the next five to ten years,” DeChambeau said. “Where I see it heading, you’re going to see a lot more interactions from teams. I think the competition between the teams will get heightened. There are already some rivalries going on right now, but [it will only grow as] the years go on and people win championships.”
“We know it’s going to be bigger, badder, and better than ever before.”
– Bryson DeChambeau
The pressure from LIV has forced talks between the PGA and the PIF, with fans hoping for a super league that’ll have Tiger, Phil, Bryson, and Rahm all duking it out once again.
Until then, Tiger is working with the PGA to form his own new entry: TGL.
Created by Woods and business partner Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports, the team concept made up of PGA talent and played on an 18-hole virtual course is already announcing franchises in major markets backed by the likes of Lewis Hamilton, CC Sabathia, Michael Rubin, and Shohei Ohtani.
“TGL stands out as it creates a unique dynamic,” said Cooper. “It has a chance to rewrite some traditions. We might even see some trash talk.”
To hear that trash talk, they’ll have some strong sonic competition.
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Bring the Noise
Culturally, golf has gotten louder with new leagues and young energy upping the ante on the silent sport’s volume.
“I had a moment where my dad told me to turn the music down,” Cooper said. “I had to explain that times have changed.”
For those too green to the game to ever compete against Tiger or Phil for millions of dollars, the same trash talk is taking place at courses all over America where Metro Boomin beats and Chainsmoker songs blast from carts carrying mobile speakers. It’s exactly why professional tours and amateur invitationals are hiring execs from the entertainment space and partnering with culture conferences and music festivals to grow.
LIV looks to take advantage of the space by bringing on Adam Harter, the former Pepsi exec who booked Beyonce for the Super Bowl, as their CMO. Already they’ve had Akon sell out an event in Miami and Tiësto take over a tournament in Chicago.
The merger of music and sport is something that made basketball bigger than a game and a model golf looks to duplicate.
“Fabolous performed at Liberty National Golf Course for the Eastside Golf Invitational this year while wearing our brand,” said Cooper on the brand’s flagship event that supports HBCU programs. “I’d imagine we’re also the first golf tournament to feature a vinyl record DJ.”
The cultural fusion of club, concert, and country club is why Eastside Golf is powering December’s Rolling Loud Invitational.
It all speaks to a world where golf is a game for all in 2025, even if the biggest impacts of the ground swell are still decades away.
Kick in the Door
Eastside Golf may be worn by rappers and sold at sneaker boutiques, but is golf’s growing aesthetic actually changing how people once perceived as outsiders are accepted into the country club culture?
The answer appears to be yes.
Mumm, a television executive and golfer for years, has seen the sport’s cultural shift take shape not just across social media but inside the exclusive enclave that is the Los Angeles country club scene.
“It used to be just bankers and doctors; now, it’s a lot cooler,” Mumm said. “Even the clubs that used to be stuffier? You show up, and members are wearing Jordans.”
Simply put, golf’s cross-cultural movement is happening online and outside. At ground level, it’s transforming a game long-blocked by barriers into a great unifier across eras and interests.
“It’s taking the purists closer to culture,” said Mumm. “That hasn’t happened since the days of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and The Rat Pack. Famous people always played golf. They just didn’t do it on Instagram, and they didn’t dress this well.”
Always affluent and finally cool, golf is gaining ground across cultures and industries in a major way.
“Meetings on the golf course are back,” said Rogers. “When we grew up, you were told you needed to learn golf because that’s where business happens, and I think that went away. I think it’s completely back.”
Production Credits
Creative Director – Michelle Lukianovich
Writer – Ian Stonebrook
Story Editor – Griffin Adams
Video Producer – Audrey Blackmore
Senior Video Producer – Craig Newton
Production Company – Noir Films
On Set Photographer – Evan Pierce
Head of Video – Andrea Masenda
Head of Social – Yoni Mernick
Head of Editorial Operations – Bernadette Doykos
Head of Audience Development – Jon Wiener
VP, General Manager – Nate Loucks
CMO – Sarah Flynn
Co-Founders – Rich Kleiman & Kevin Durant
