Tom Knapp cannot catch a break, let alone a big one.
Shortly after The Hollywood Reporter published an interview with the Golf Channel senior executive timed to the return Big Break, Knapp was forced to pull its premiere episode.
“Golf Channel is postponing tonight’s premiere of Big Break x Good Good to next Tuesday 9/1. This will allow for necessary production updates following a request from one of the show’s sponsors to remove its branding from the series,” the Versant-owned cable network said in a statement sent to THR. “Golf Channel will air encore presentations of Payne Stewart Award coverage this evening.”
The sponsor in question is no ancillary advertiser: Golf Galaxy, owned by Dick’s Sporting Goods and the title sponsor of Big Break x Good Good, yanked its endorsement hours before Tuesday’s scheduled airing, THR has learned. Golf Galaxy has no beef with Golf Channel — Knapp is simply caught between his Big Break boulder (below) and a hard place — but being in business with Good Good Golf these days is pretty bad bad.
As we wrote in our preview story:
Less than a week after our Zoom conversation with Knapp, an unrelated Good Good collab went viral for all of the wrong reasons.
In theCallaway x Good Good commercial, Good Good golfer Alexis Miestowski reaches for Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark’s Callaway driver with Good Good cobranding. Clark rushes her, knocks her down, stands over her and warns: “Do not touch my new driver.”
It was an idiotic ad widely condemned online and by the PGA Tour itself. Among the problems here: pro golf’s major leagues is hosting the Good Good Championship this November, and the winner of Big Break x Good Good is set to get a sponsors exemption into the tournament — for now at least — on Tuesday, PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp said this entire thing has become “a bit of a fluid situation.”
Beyond the bad ad, Rolapp says he was “disappointed” by how Good Good initially handled the controversy, adding: “It sounds like in the last 24 hours they’ve made some progress. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and see how it develops.”
At first, Good Good’s response to the backlash was brief and vague: “We posted a video to our channels that ultimately depicted actions that are not aligned with our values as a brand,” the company stated.
Good Good CEO Matt Kendrick’s latest mea culpa, a (leaked) lengthy internal email obtained by THR, included the following (in part):
We fully understand and own the mistake that was made. The advertisement was intended to be a parody of the movieObsession, but the execution missed the mark and included content that should not have been published on our channels. In no way were we trying to make light of or support violence of any kind, but we recognize that intent does not erase impact.
As noted in our Tuesday story, nobody seems to see the Obsession parallel Kendrick is referring to. Good Good has not responded to THR‘s questions about the supposed parody.
EP#101: Blair O’Neal and Wells Adams in Big Break x Good Good presented by Golf Galaxy on Golf Channel.
Cy Cyr/Golf Channel 2026/VERSANT MEDIA
As of this writing (and we know every hour with this story is critical!), many more questions remain unanswered.
Dick’s Sporting Goods, the parent company to Golf Galaxy, did not immediately respond to THR‘s request for comment on its withdrawal as Big Break title sponsor and the future of its dealings with golf equipment- and clothing brand-maker Callaway, a mainstay in the sport. The ad, since pulled, was made independently by Good Good but received Callaway’s approval. (Callaway, which manufactured the line of drivers in the ad, has also since apologized.)
It is also not immediately clear to what lengths Golf Channel will go to scrub Golf Galaxy’s title sponsorship from Big Break x Good Good. It is one thing to remove the branding from key art, but another to take it out of a completed season of television. The one-week delay could end up just being a stall tactic — it is fully within the realm of possibility that Big Break‘s (2003-2015) big return doesn’t make the cut. And either way, should the PGA Tour remove Good Good as the title sponsor of its Nov. 12-15 Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa event (total purse: $6 million), will the Big Break x Good Good winner — televised or not — still receive automatic entry to the field of 120 golfers?
It’s not good (good).