The astonishing part of this disaster is not that somebody had a stupid idea because stupid ideas are abundant. Its that THIS particular stupid idea survived every stage required to become official, co-branded advertising.
Somebody conceived it.
Good Good produced it.
Garrett Clark performed it.
Somebody filmed it, edited it and added the threatening little “You have been warned” tagline.
Good Good cleared it.
Callaway reviewed it.
Callaway approved it.
Both companies posted it.
That is not “A mistake.” That’s a relay race of terrible judgment in which every participant successfully handed off the baton.
The finished concept was a man (Clark) running over and shoving woman golfer Alexis Miestowski to the ground because she reached for his golf club, then standing over her and saying, “Do not touch my new driver.” That was the joke. Touch the man’s prized possession and he will physically put the woman on the ground. Even under the most charitable possible reading (It was just slapstick! It was supposed to parody a horror movie!), the punchline remains the same. The actual video is somehow even more witless than its description makes it sound.
And for what? To sell a driver.
There were approximately one million ways to communicate “Garrett is hilariously protective of his new club” without having him shove a woman to the ground. Have him grab the bag and run. Put the driver in a safe. Chain it to his wrist. Give it a security detail. Make him sleep beside it. The creative possibilities, aside from these benign ideas, are practically limitless, yet this collection of professional content creators and corporate marketers somehow landed on “man assaults woman” and apparently decided they had cracked the case.
It is influencer-grade brain rot married to enterprise-grade incompetence.
Then came the response, which managed to demonstrate that the same decision-making apparatus responsible for the ad was also responsible for crisis communications.
Good Good released the standard “not aligned with our values” statement, which is the corporate equivalent of discovering your values only after the comments section explains them to you. Callaway initially said it was “disappointed by the content that was posted” and praised Good Good for addressing it.
That wording is extraordinary in hindsight. Callaway sounded like an innocent third party that had wandered onto social media and been unpleasantly surprised. Then its CEO admitted the company had approved the video before it was posted.
You cannot be “disappointed by” content as though it arrived on your doorstep anonymously when your own company reviewed it, approved it and published it. That first statement wasn’t accountability; it was an attempt to stand several feet away from the smoking crater while everyone was still looking at Good Good.
The consequences were entirely predictable. The video was deleted, copies continued circulating, a sponsor requested that its branding be removed from Big Break x Good Good, the premiere was postponed and the standing of the Good Good Championship became publicly uncertain.
That’s the larger business failure here. These companies risked sponsor relationships, consumer trust and a major PGA Tour partnership for a 15-second joke that was not merely offensive, but staggeringly unfunny. They didn’t take a daring creative risk that was misunderstood. They detonated real commercial value in service of content with the sophistication of a middle-school hallway video.
And then Callaway published this…apology? (insert shrug emoji)
To its limited credit, the second statement finally admits the one fact the first response conspicuously avoided: Callaway approved the video. From there, however, it immediately begins trying to dilute that admission.
“While the video was produced by Good Good” is not necessary to accepting responsibility. Its a blame shield placed in the sentence before the apology has even begun. Yes, Good Good produced it…and Callaway approved it. That is the exact reason Callaway is apologizing.
Then comes the immortal phrase: “Mistakes were made.”
By whom? Callaway knows. Its internal approval system presumably contains names, messages and timestamps. “Mistakes were made” is passive-voice Febreze sprayed over an active decision. People watched the ad and said yes. The company should have at minimum written something to the effect of, “We approved it, and we failed.” Subject, verb, responsibility…very simple.
The note then talks about “the consequences of our mistake,” centering the inconvenience now being experienced by Callaway rather than the audience it insulted or the damage it caused. It says the issue was escalated “as soon as we recognized the seriousness” of it, which is hardly reassuring. The public recognized the problem immediately, then Callaway recognized it after the public revolted. That’s not evidence of a functioning values system, it’s evidence of functioning notifications.
Next is the best/worst part: an almost comical paragraph explaining that preliminary statements were issued and “now this statement has followed.” Thank God! I mean, people might have wondered whether the statement they were reading existed.
We’re also promised internal and external investigations, approval-process changes and assurances that this will never happen again. No scope. No responsible executive. No timeline. No commitment to publish findings. No concrete description of what changed. Just the familiar crisis-communications fog of investigations occurring somewhere, changes being made somehow and lessons being learned eventually.
The apology never names Alexis Miestowski, the woman golfer that Callaway and Good Good literally put on the ground to create their punchline. It never directly apologizes to women in golf. It never plainly says, “We approved an advertisement that used a man shoving a woman as a joke to sell our product.” Instead, it expands into a legal department’s keyword sampler about discrimination, domestic violence and threatening behavior while avoiding the clean, specific sentence that actual ownership requires.
Then Callaway pauses its apology to remind everyone that it believes its been “a positive force for diversity and inclusion.”
Is that humility? Or is that submitting character evidence on your own behalf? An apology is not the moment to hand yourself an award for all the other times you think you behaved well. If your instinct while apologizing is to explain why this incident is inconsistent with what a good company you normally are, you are still arguing with the verdict.
The ad was idiotic. The approval was indefensible. The first response was evasive. The second response is longer and marginally more honest, but still stuffed with blame-sharing, self-protection and empty process language. And as many marketers, PR and communications pros have already stated, this one will be served up as a case study for years to come on how NOT to handle situations like this that brands may find themselves in.