February 2026 - The Life of Bubbie

A new and very "Good Good" golf journey in the social media era
This article appeared in the February 2026 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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Tom "Bubbie" Broders of Good Good Golf fame will be returning to his hometown to appear at the 2026 Chicago Golf Show®.

Perhaps you’re under the impression that the life of Tom “Bubbie” Broders, who will be appearing at the 2026 Chicago Golf Show®, has been just one meticulously planned straight-line journey into the stratosphere of golf social media royalty and riches. Where hanging out and making videos for cash with his “Good Good Golf” buddies was something he plotted out step-by-step in his dorm room at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, between classes in Urban & Regional Planning, his major course of study.

Or perhaps you’re located decidedly outside of the “Good Good Golf” demographic and neither know nor care who Bubbie is or what he does until he manages to earn his place among golf's true luminaries the way Jack, Arnie, Hogan, Tiger and the least of their challengers did: by grinding it out on the PGA Tour.

Either way, Bubbie and his bros continue to ascend through the YouTube universe to the point where they’re not only better known than most of today’s PGA Tour players, but more popular. It’s now to the point that Good Good Golf has become so well-established that it has become a title sponsor of a PGA Tour event.

In the beginning, Tom Broders, now 28, grew up in Palatine, an unpretentious middle-class suburb northwest of Chicago, where he mostly played baseball, taking up golf at age 12 and ending up on the Palatine High School golf team. At some point, his mom, God love her, started calling him “Bubbie,” the endearing nickname that would become her son’s widely-known social media persona. (Thanks, Mom!) The family wasn’t rich, so Bubbie, a high school freshman, got a job as a caddie at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in nearby Kildeer. There, he worked hard, did a good job, became popular among the members and earned an Evans Scholarship – free college tuition/room and board in Oxford, an hour from Cincinnati. The perfect scenario, every parent’s dream.

Life’s seldom that simple, of course, and Bubbie’s was no exception. His initial idea of majoring in Mechanical Engineering went by the boards early.

“You have to be a very intelligent person to study Mechanical Engineering,” he said.

Like a lot of college kids, he liked to party. Booze. Drugs. Etc.

“I got in trouble with the law a couple times,” Broders said. “I was drinking and doing some not-good stuff.”

After his sophomore year, the head of the Evans Scholars Foundation told him that if he didn’t shape up, his scholarship was gone. Message received. Alcoholics Anonymous has a spiritually focused protocol and Bubbie was all-in.

“To be honest, that's kind of where I found my faith,” Broders said. “I found God there.”

But would a couple of months away from his substance of choice be long enough to kick the habit?

“My parents were obviously worried.”

He returned to the Evans Scholars house in Oxford – where he and his fellow caddies lived – and convinced his housemates that he was clean. They elected him president for the year.

“A big move in my life,” he calls it.

Kicking substance abuse is “by far my biggest accomplishment. It's one of the most important things in the world to me. Gosh, that's just opened up the doors for me. So now I have all this extra time that I used to spend under the influence, now I can invest it into something positive and something productive.”

During his senior year, 2019, he launched Bubbie Golf and started developing trick shots. The idea was to put the short-form trick shots on Instagram, gain followers and eventually move to long-form content on YouTube and monetize the operation. The trick shot that changed his life took 11 days to perfect.

“I figured out a ping-pong ball is 40 millimeters in circumference and a Klean Kanteen [stainless steel water bottle] is 44 millimeters in circumference. So, I'm going to try and chip a ping-pong ball into a Klean Kanteen. I did it for 11 straight days until I finally made it. I posted it, put my phone away, went to play video games, opened it up later, it was absolutely blowing up. It was going really viral. It did over like 3 ½ million views, and I just kind of rode that momentum and made sure to film trick shots every day.”

Soon thereafter, Buffalo Wild Wings emailed him, wanting to pay him $5,000 to license the video to use in one of their commercials. He didn’t understand.

“So, I asked someone, ‘I'm going to have to pay y'all $5,000 to be in your commercial?’ And the lady responds, ‘No, we're going to pay you $5,000 to license your video to play in our commercial.’ I thought I had just hit the lottery. That was my first check ever. I was like, ‘I can’t believe this.’”

One night in February 2019, he went to a driving range in Ohio, shoved a tee into the top of an alignment stick, stuck it in four feet o
the ground, and used a driver and a baseball swing to blast the ball dead straight under the lights and into the night sky. Six months later, ESPN used it on one of their broadcasts and he gained 20,000 Instagram followers.

“To me, it’s just God,” Broders said. “That’s it.”

Broders met Garrett Clark, founder of Good Good Golf, when he was looking for someone online to play the Call of Duty video game with. Later, Broders was helping a friend move to Dallas at around the same time Clark and his fellow Good Good crew had just moved there from Kansas City. Broders got together with them to be in one of their videos.

For Tom Broders (right), what started as filming golf trick shots in his free time has expanded to being an integral part of a dynamic and successful golf brand. Good Good has more than 1 million Instagram followers, with Broders' personal account - @bubbiegolf - having nearly 430,000.

“I’ve never holed out before in my life,” Broders said. “First time I'm in one of their videos, I hole out from 81 yards. Again, to me the only way to explain that is God. Later that night, they just asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to be a part of Good Good?’ I’m like, ‘Sure.’ I call home to my mom and dad and said, ‘Hey, guys, I just moved to Dallas.’”

That was five years ago.

Over the years, Good Good has been wildly popular on YouTube and the income has flowed. They also have been managed from the beginning by a venture capital firm that handles the business side.

“We handle the content because that’s what we’re good at. They build the brand,” Broders said.

The success of which is one reason so many young golfers from elementary school through college and beyond can be found wearing Good Good caps. Today, Good Good has a partnership with Callaway Golf. Now they’re looking at real estate, entertainment centers, mini golf and other ventures.

For Bubbie, life is Good Good.

Barry Cronin is the editor of Chicago District Golfer.

Big, Bigger, Biggest
The 2026 Chicago Golf Show® presented by the CDGA, Feb. 27–March 1, is shaping up to be the biggest ever.

Thousands of golf-loving winter shut-ins are expected to emerge from hibernation to gather at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont to catch the 41st version of the show, which will feature Good Good Golf’s Tom “Bubbie” Broders and superstar golf instructor Hank Haney, former longtime coach of Tiger Woods.

“Since we came out of the pandemic [in 2023], we’ve had three really good shows,” said show operator Tom Corcoran. “This year’s adding up to be the best ever.”

Nearly 160 companies will show their wares across 150,000-square feet of exhibit space, with golf equipment and golf travel destinations being the two largest product categories, according to Corcoran. The show, which began in 1989, missed two years (2021 and 2022) because of COVID-19.

Once again, the CDGA will have a massive presence with a 16,000-square-foot CDGA Town Square, where members can renew their annual memberships. Town Square also will encompass two very popular 80-foot Longest Putt contests benefitting CDGA-affiliated charities. A large Presidents Cup booth will be located in the Town Square, where tickets may be purchased to this year’s U.S. vs. International Team match play tournament at Medinah Country Club’s Course No. 3. The new Tour Edge golf ball also will be unveiled, and this year’s retail area will be expanded to include the CDGA-branded 1914 Collection of polo shirts, quarter zips and elevated headcovers.

Attendees will be able to find bargains on equipment, apparel, shoes, balls, bags and more.

In addition to bargains, there’s free stuff. Anyone can get a free round of golf courtesy of GolfVisions, which runs a dozen courses all over the Chicago area. Members of the Illinois PGA – a longtime supporter of the Chicago Golf Show – will offer free golf lessons to get you tuned up. First Tee – Greater Chicago specializes in introducing young children in an inviting way.
—Barry Cronin