Photo: Happy Dad
Big John Golfs plays golf the way a lot of people play it on a Saturday: a few beers deep, out with his buddies, with money on the line. The difference is that he can still shoot under par while doing it, and hundreds of thousands of people follow along.
As of October 8, 2026, he has 847K followers on Instagram, 643,943 on TikTok and 96.8K subscribers on YouTube. He also has a multi-year deal with Happy Dad, the hard seltzer brand co-founded by NELK’s Kyle Forgeard, and has headlined two livestreamed matches billed as the Polymarket Open and the Polymarket Classic. Here’s who he is and how he got here.
Who is Big John Golfs?
Big John is a golf creator from Michigan who posts as @bigjohngolfs on Instagram and YouTube and as @bigjohnnn17 on TikTok. Happy Dad’s August 2026 announcement describes him as a “Michigan-raised, Palm Beach-based scratch golfer and creator,” and trade coverage of the deal put his age at 24.
According to an archived February 2025 version of his own website, he was born and raised in Birmingham, Michigan, went to Brother Rice Catholic High School, and then attended Junior Players Golf Academy in Hilton Head, South Carolina. His Instagram bio ends with “JUP/DET,” which a golf-data site reads as Jupiter, Florida and Detroit.
Big John tells his own backstory in “How did I get here?” (YouTube, November 2024).
What is Big John’s real name?
He goes by Big John, and his brand partners, Polymarket and the press all call him “Big John” or “Big John Golfs.” We haven’t found a full name on any of his accounts, and the names floating around on biography sites contradict each other, so we’re not going to guess.
How old is Big John Golfs?
He was 24 when Happy Dad announced the partnership in late August 2026, according to Beer Business Daily and CPG Wire’s coverage of the deal.
How did Big John get famous?
The short version, in his own telling: golf kid, golf academy, three years at Michigan State, then a construction job, then content.
He says he started playing at 12, played high school golf and went to a golf academy in Hilton Head at 16. That’s where he met Carter, the creator better known as DOD King. In a February 2025 interview on The Scratch Golf Show, he said he spent three years at Michigan State University before dropping out. He was working construction when, after a video shoot in Palm Beach, a friend told him to quit and do content.
He credits DOD King with bringing him into golf YouTube. Big John appeared on DOD King’s channel as early as March 2024. By his own account, he then spent about six months making content with a friend, Brady, as Team North before going solo. He and DOD King had a public falling-out in early 2025, which both of them addressed in videos, and later patched it up on camera. His Instagram bio now lists him as a “7.5% share holder” in CVA Golf, whose Instagram account runs under DOD King’s name.
The breakout came fast. In that same interview he said he gained “the majority of my following” in two months during the summer of 2024. His TikTok account dates from November 2023, before the summer surge he describes.
One of his biggest TikToks, posted April 2026.
The numbers since then are steep:
- TikTok: 207,081 followers on March 25, 2026, and 643,943 on October 8, 2026. That’s about 3.1 times as many in just over six months.
- YouTube: 16.8K subscribers in July 2025, 22.6K in November 2025, 93.7K at the end of August 2026 and 96.8K now.
- Instagram: 847K followers and 1,444 posts. Happy Dad said he had more than 460 million Instagram views “in the past 90 days” when it announced the deal.
What kind of content does Big John make?
Golf, usually with something riding on it. He’s said he likes to drink six to eight beers, play well and gamble with his buddies. Happy Dad’s description is broader: “relatable day-in-the-life content spanning golf, family, drinking, running, working out and balancing an active lifestyle.”
The drinking and nicotine challenges are the most distinctive part of the channel. A few that did big numbers on YouTube:
- “First one to pee their pants loses”: nine holes, nine beers. The full video has 199,066 views and the Short has 175,198.
- “We had to finish the bottle in 18 holes”: a whole bottle of liquor in a single round, 110,301 views.
- “I Played a Golf Tournament DRUNK… Then Shot 67 (ft freezertarps)”: a livestreamed tournament round, 180,994 views.
- “We took one ZYN per hole”: a nicotine pouch every hole, 266,125 views. It’s one of his most-viewed long-form videos.
- Drunk runs: a recurring series where he runs while drinking. His Instagram reel “6 MILES DRUNK” has 103K likes, and a TikTok on the same theme, “HEALTH WITH JOHN,” has 1.1 million plays.
Other creators have built videos around the bit too. BustaJack Golf pranked him with fake beer (180,554 views), and Nick Nayersina’s “I Went Drunk Golfing With Big John And Josh Richards!” has 267,452 views.
“Health with John”: his take on running six miles and drinking six beers.
Not everything involves a drink. The most-viewed long-form video we found on his channel is “I Finally Played In A REAL Golf Tournament” (270,348 views). Other recurring formats on his channel have included:
- “Net Worth”: he starts from zero and gambles his way up in matches.
- Golf dates.
- 2v2 matches against couples.
- Callout matches against college golfers and other creators.
His most-viewed YouTube Short we found, “what’s the official ruling here?”, has about 1.69 million views.
Then there’s the catchphrase. “All Heart” is in his Instagram bio, his YouTube sign-offs and his Kick handle, allheartgolfs. Happy Dad named its new platform after it.
Big John and Polymarket
Big John has headlined two livestreamed matches branded by Polymarket, the prediction market, which ran trading markets on the outcomes.
The Polymarket Open (May 31, 2026). YouTube golfer Cheddy challenged him to a one-on-one match, streamed on Big John’s Kick channel. According to the rules a golf account posted on X before the event, it was 18 holes of match play with a side bet on who could drink more. At tee-off, Polymarket’s odds had Big John as a 78% favorite, and Polymarket’s own market resolved in his favor. Midway through, Polymarket’s sports account declared “There is a new king of social media golf.” We couldn’t find a final score.
The full Polymarket Open match, from Cheddy’s YouTube channel (May 31, 2026).
The Polymarket Classic (August 1, 2026). A 2v2 match: Big John and Paige Spiranac against J.R. Smith and Claire Hogle. Big John and Spiranac won, building a 7-1 lead, and Fadeaway World reported that he shot a 67 “despite having a few drinks in the round.”
He has also promoted a “FOG” sign-up code for Polymarket in his own posts since May 2026, offering new users $50 on a first deposit of $20 or more. We couldn’t find the commercial terms, though, so it isn’t clear whether the matches were paid sponsorships or one-off events.
Big John and Happy Dad
In late August 2026, Happy Dad announced a multi-year partnership with Big John and launched “All Heart. All Happy Dad.,” a retail and social platform named after his catchphrase. Happy Dad was co-founded in 2021 by CEO Sam Shahidi, John Shahidi and Kyle Forgeard of the NELK Boys.
The plan, per the announcement:
- This fall: social content, on-premise events and a YouTube series in college football markets, with Big John golfing against legal-drinking-age college students.
- Spring Break: a major activation.
- 2027: a nationwide expansion.
Happy Dad’s line is that the relationship came first. “I was drinking Happy Dad before we ever partnered, so joining the family felt natural,” Big John said in the announcement. CEO Sam Shahidi went further: “We believe Big John represents where the next generation of drinking culture is going.”
It’s a deal he more or less called. In his February 2025 interview, he said he was working on landing alcohol and gambling brands. About a year and a half later, he had headlined two Polymarket matches and signed with Happy Dad.
Happy Dad is an alcohol brand for adults 21 and over.
Brand deals and sponsors
Beyond Happy Dad, his YouTube descriptions and link-in-bio pages show a steady run of creator-economy sponsors and promo codes:
- Sponsored videos: Factor, Function Health and BetterHelp.
- Promo codes: HelloFresh and Huel.
- Discount links: Reaper Golf and Sunday Swagger.
It’s a pretty typical mid-size creator mix, with a golf layer on top.
Is Big John actually good at golf?
By most evidence, yes. He describes himself as roughly scratch and Happy Dad calls him a scratch golfer, though we found no official handicap index. The best independent evidence is the Polymarket Classic, where Fadeaway World reported he shot 67 on a livestream. He also titled a 2026 video “I Played a Golf Tournament DRUNK… Then Shot 67.”
Who has Big John collaborated with?
Beyond DOD King, Cheddy and Paige Spiranac:
- NELK: he appeared on FULL SEND GOLF in January 2026, and posted “WE MADE A HOLE IN ONE! (ft Nelk)” in August.
- Divot Dudes: “We Sandbagged BIG JOHN with a Secret Pro Golfer…” has 713,499 views, the most-watched video about him on another creator’s channel that we found.
- ShortGameKing: a putter-for-pink-slips match, 196,752 views.
- Nick Nayersina and Josh Richards: the drunk golf video above.
What is Big John’s net worth?
There’s no reliable figure. No reputable outlet has reported his earnings, and the one net worth number we found comes from a biography page that confuses him with another creator. Social Blade estimates his YouTube earnings at $4.9K to $78K a year. That’s a rough algorithmic estimate, and it leaves out sponsorships, Instagram, TikTok and Kick.
Where to watch Big John
He’s been at this longer than it looks
If you only found Big John this year, it’s easy to assume he came out of nowhere. His own timeline says otherwise.
He started playing golf at 12, and at 16 he went to the golf academy where he met DOD King, the creator who later pulled him into content. His TikTok account dates from November 2023. By March 2024 he was showing up on DOD King’s YouTube channel. He spent about six months in a duo, Team North, before going solo, and he was posting long-form videos on his own channel by October 2024.
That November, in a video called “How did I get here?”, he said the algorithm could drop him any day and he’d be back on a construction site. He kept posting anyway. His YouTube channel now has more than 1,000 videos, and his Instagram has 1,444 posts.
The numbers that made 2026 look sudden, with TikTok tripling in about six months and YouTube going from 16.8K to 96.8K subscribers in 15 months, sit on top of close to three years of posting.
Follower, view, play and like counts as of October 8, 2026.