Bryson DeChambeau might become golf’s Mr. Beast. Sit back and enjoy it

If you think Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube golf is entertaining now, just wait. The Mr. Beast-ification of DeChambeau’s content is on the way.

Don’t know that that last sentence means? That’s okay. You’re probably 35 or older. (That’s also okay.) Mr. Beast, as he is known on the Internet, is an awkward 26-year-old from Kansas named Jimmy Donaldson, who isn’t just among the most popular YouTubers on the planet. He is the most popular. With 343 million subscribers, he has a bigger audience than anyone else making videos. And it’s not particularly close.

Importantly, for your golf viewing purposes at least, one of those hundreds of millions of subscribers is Bryson DeChambeau.

DeChambeau’s recent turn — both in popularity and also in golfing form — really caught hold at the Masters last April, where he contended for multiple rounds for the first time in his career. It was the same week we all learned about his fascination with Mr. Beast.

“Continuing to grow those platforms in the way we know how is something I’m keen on doing and I’m excited to do for the future,” DeChambeau said, while holding the first round lead. “I think that’s where everything is going. You look at what Mr. Beast has done, and there’s a few other super famous people right now — Jynxzi and Sketch — and they are growing their avenues and their aspects, and it’s cool to see the cross-platforming capabilities. Like these individuals coming and playing golf and seeing how much influence they have is really cool. It’s just another avenue.”

An increasingly popular avenue. DeChambeau’s own YouTube account has grown by a factor of four in the last 12 months, from roughly 400,000 subscribers to about 1.7 million. Winning the U.S. Open in dramatic fashion certainly helps. But DeChambeau also developed a relationship with Donaldson, eventually creating some content together. We call that a collab.

In the notes of his own video, Mr. Beast linked to DeChambeau’s YouTube page, the industry version of a courtesy ‘thank you’ that might direct a few subscribers his way. But the real offering he gave to DeChambeau was the idea of stepping back from the camera and letting other people do the work for you. Mr. Beast’s entire existence is built on pitting normal people against each other, or even themselves, in wacky challenges he and his crew film. Everyday you survive in the wilderness, you get $10,000. Face your biggest fear for $800,000. Keep your hand touching a jet longer than anyone else, you win the jet.

The common denominator in all those challenges is obvious: DeChambeau as lead competitor. He’s been a protagonist in every challenge — it is his YouTube account — which serves a great purpose because he’s one of the 10 greatest golfers on the planet. But using DeChambeau as prop no. 1 has a ceiling that Mr. Beast doesn’t face, because he plays golf that is unrelateable. And the infective nature of Mr. Beast content is that the challenges are so simple in nature that viewers have no choice but to imagine themselves taking part, wondering just how long they could survive in the wilderness while cashing $10,000 every day.

Now, DeChambeau is taking his stab at that same type of gamification. Just last week DeChambeau posted for the first time a video that mimics Mr. Beast so exactly you’d think it was produced by his own staff. Over the course of 26 minutes, DeChambeau is seen as a golfing Willy Wonka — the video is sponsored by a chocolate company, after all — traipsing around a course in Dallas challenging a bunch of amateurs to various golf competitions. Sometimes he steps in as the sophisticated opponent, but often it was just an amateur playing against another, or against themselves.

Make a 3-footer for $1,000? Press your luck on a 6-footer for $2,000. How simple is that?

Beat Bryson in a chip-off? Not so easy, but a lot easier when he offers you three attempts.

Take one swing with your pitching wedge to hit the green from 137 yards. If you succeed, you’ll be $5,000 richer. (Before Uncle Sam takes his cut, of course.)

The reason this content works is partly due to DeChambeau’s energy. He feels like a generous carnie creating games on a whim for the prize of one-month’s salary. It’s also due to the golfer’s fallacy — because embedded within all of us is a belief of our very best golf shots. (And a misremembering of most of our worst.) Golf on a macro level is damn difficult. But golf on a micro level feels far more predictable. Far more doable. That’s what brings us in.