[Image: Getty/Ryan Ruffels/YouTube]

Australian professional golfer Ryan Ruffels will expand his YouTube network to include a new channel with former world No.1 Jason Day, in a sign of the video search engine’s rapid growth in golf content.

The YouTube golf scene was boosted significantly in 2024 with the PGA Tour staging “The Q at Myrtle Beach” where several YouTubers competed for a spot in a PGA Tour event, while LIV Golf star and reigning US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau kicked off a wildly popular channel that has garnered tens of millions of views.

Ruffels, a Victorian who splits his time between Florida and California, was a star amateur who turned pro in 2016 at the age of 17. He played on the PGA Tour and its affiliated circuits but in 2022 lost his Korn Ferry Tour status while battling injuries. Ruffels’ career includes 10 made cuts from 20 events on the PGA Tour, as well as a T-2 on the secondary Korn Ferry Tour and five second place results on the South American circuit.

This year, he created a growing YouTube channel that has gathered 31,000 subscribers. He regularly uploads videos that receive over 50,000 and 100,000 views. Melbourne-raised Ruffels has produced episodes from instruction to matches against his sister, LPGA Tour pro Gabi Ruffels, women’s world No.1 Nelly Korda and pro golfer/influencer Luke Kwon.

In January, Ruffels will launch a YouTube channel with three other Australians – major winner Day, as well as Day’s caddie, Luke Reardon, and pro golfer Rika Batibasaga.

“I’m starting a channel with ‘JDay’ in the next few weeks; we’re doing one together with two other lads,” Ruffels said. “Jason has been a good friend of mine for a long time, and he’s seen what I’m doing with it, and has become interested.”

Day, a 13-time PGA Tour winner, said, “We will do all sorts of things from just fun [videos] to instructional stuff so I think it will be interesting.”

Ruffels said the crew already had three videos filmed and edited. “They’ll start coming out [about] mid-January, and we’ve got a few filming dates [scheduled] in February,” he said. “We’re all getting together here in Palm Springs [California] as well as in Florida. So we’ve got a bunch of stuff there that’ll be a lot of fun.”

He said golf fans will enjoy a side of Day not previously seen.

“I think it’ll be fantastic for someone like him, because he’s kept very private [but] I think he’s got a tremendous personality and so much to offer in terms of his knowledge and just who he is as a person that I think that’ll show up really well,” Ruffels said.

Ruffels will continue his touring golf career and hopes to tee up in qualifying school for the Australasian tour next year.