Bryson DeChambeau gave Phil Mickelson surprising YouTube advice

Bryson DeChambeau has put a lot of work into growing his brand both on and off the competitive golf course, with his popular YouTube channel playing a big role in expanding his fan base.

DeChambeau enjoys discussing his YouTube channel, his thought process behind growing it, and his conviction that it has a long-term place in the golf ecosystem. With DeChambeau blazing the YouTube trail, some other pro golfers have started channels of their own, including Tommy Fleetwood and Phil Mickelson.

On Tuesday at his 2025 U.S. Open pre-tournament press conference, DeChambeau was asked if any players have asked him for advice on starting and growing a YouTube channel. He said there have only been a few, with Mickelson being the one who is most in the weeds.

“Phil. Phil Mickelson has been one of the only ones to do that,” DeChambeau said. “Jon Rahm has talked to me a little bit about it. He’s busy with his family, and I totally respect that, admiration for that. Phil has been extremely interested. He sees that as also a viable option for commercialization, the future, inspiration, education, entertainment. He did a short game series back in the day. He knows what teaching means to the public. So he’s been one that’s talked to me a lot about that, and it’s been fun to help a little bit, and now he has Grant Horvat, and it’s been great getting to help him a little bit.”

DeChambeau and Mickelson have traded knowledge on their areas of expertise, with Mickelson giving DeChambeau short-game pointers and the two-time U.S. Open champion riffing on how to grow a YouTube channel.

“It’s so funny because he’s taught me a bunch in short game, so we kind of exchange ideas in that role,” DeChambeau said. “He teaches me a couple things out of the bunker and wedges, and I’m like, all right, here’s something we do for our channel that makes it a little more interesting. Kind of fun stuff. It’s fun.”

So, what advice has DeChambeau imparted on the 54-year-old Mickelson about getting his channel to take off?

DeChambeau gave his LIV Golf cohort three pillars, including one that isn’t typically something those who do creative work on the internet recommend.

“Well, first off, I said, you can be yourself,” DeChambeau said. “You have that creative control to be yourself, and I think that’s what’s so beautiful about it. You hire the right team around you that understands you, and it frees you up to be yourself, one. I said, two, you can do the content that you want to do. Anything you want to do, you can do it.”

Then came the surprise.

“Three, listen to the people in the comments section,” DeChambeau said. “Go through, read them all, see what they want from you. Those are the things that we look at the most. That’s why we’ve grown our channel, and I say ‘our’ because it’s a team. I’ve got a team behind me. We’ve grown our channel to over 2 million followers now and couldn’t be more thankful, and it’s literally by listening to the comments section, by looking at the comments and seeing what they want.”

Bryson reads the comments. Who would have thought?

As for other pros’ thoughts on YouTube golf, Rory McIlroy said at the Players Championship that it’s not for him. Xander Schauffele quickly dismissed the idea of starting his own channel on Monday.

However, Schauffele and Collin Morikawa both used YouTube to prep for the challenge at Oakmont, with the latter using DeChambeau’s latest video — which has 2.8 million views as of this writing — to get a sense of what he was walking into.

“I did watch a little bit of Bryson’s video,” Morikawa said. “I want to say there was another video on Twitter that had like a flyover that I watched. But it’s so hard — like I watch it and then I try and almost forget about it because it’s nice to have a good sense of what it’s like, but then when you actually step foot on 1 or you step foot on 17 and 18, your head and how I process a golf course completely changes because maybe it looked like this on a TV, but then you step there and you’re like, oh, it’s how I would shape this hole, how I would play this hole is completely different.”

No word on if Morikawa left some pointers for DeChambeau in the comment section.