Callaway drops Good Good and pledges $1M after ad backlash, then gets blamed by partner

Callaway Golf has terminated its three-year partnership with the YouTube collective Good Good and promised $1 million to organizations working to prevent violence against women, ending a week-long crisis over a promotional video both companies had signed off on. The split was announced on August 27, seven days after the spot appeared online.

The 60-second ad for the co-branded Quantum driver showed Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark pushing golfer Alexis Miestowski to the ground as she reached for the club, then warning her not to touch it. Good Good said the scene was meant to parody the horror film “Obsession”. Viewers saw something else, and the clip was pulled within days amid accusations that it trivialized domestic violence.

Callaway’s first statement said the company was disappointed by the content and looked forward to a more inclusive golf culture, without mentioning that it had approved the material itself. That omission became the story. On August 25, chief executive Chip Brewer issued a second message conceding that Callaway had green-lit the video. “That approval should never have happened,” Brewer wrote, promising internal and external reviews of how partner content is cleared.

Why it matters

The August 27 announcement went further than most corporate apologies. Callaway said its content review had not been comprehensive enough, described tightened approval procedures and attached money to the words. Crisis specialists quoted by PR Daily read the sequence as a brand moving from a defensive holding statement to genuine accountability, even if it took two attempts.

The commercial fallout spread quickly. Dick’s Sporting Goods, Golf Galaxy and PGA Tour Superstore removed Good Good and co-branded Callaway merchandise from stores and websites, Golf Galaxy withdrew its sponsorship of the Golf Channel series “Big Break x Good Good”, and the PGA Tour said Good Good had stepped away from a FedEx Cup Fall event scheduled for November 12-15 in Austin, Texas.

What’s next

Good Good is not accepting the role of sole villain. Clark posted an eight-minute apology calling the spot the worst ad he had ever seen. Then, on August 28, chief executive Matt Kendrick wrote on X that Callaway had commissioned and approved the film, asked his company to take the fall and staged what he called a coordinated media blitz around the donation. He later clarified that he had not seen the ad before it ran, that the marketing staff responsible had left the company, and that Good Good has no plans to sue.

Crisis adviser Patrick Riccards told CBS News that the creators’ problem is bigger than one lost contract: a brand built on likeable personalities now has to rebuild trust with retailers, broadcasters and the tour itself. For marketers, the lesson is blunter. When a partner produces the content, the approving brand still owns the consequences, and any statement that hides that fact will be found out.