RIDING THE CREST OF A WAVE

Joe Ferguson sits down with Rick Shiels in Singapore to discuss YouTube golf, his partnership with LIV and what the future holds...

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Rick Shiels is the biggest golf YouTuber in the world, boasting more than 2.9 million subscribers on his main channel. This year, he shocked the YouTube golf world when he announced that he was signing a deal with LIV Golf to be an official ambassador and content creator. I recently caught up with Shiels at the LIV Golf Singapore event to find out how he is settling into his new role, whether the online backlash that followed has made him question his decision at all, and what this move will mean for his content and channel moving forward...

So, we're sitting here a little under three months after you announced your deal with LIV Golf. How has it been?

It's been a wild adventure if I'm honest with you. It's been really, really fun. The time I've had with the players has been incredible. When I was flicking through my phone the other day looking at the players I've already filmed with, it's crazy - Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm, Joaquin Niemann, Sergio Garcia. The list is astonishing already and we're only three months in. And I think it's going to continue to get better.

What sort of reaction were you anticipating when you signed the deal with LIV and how has it played out in reality?

I thought everybody in the world was going to absolutely love the announcement! No, listen, I went into it knowing full well there was going to be some kickback and some negativity around it, and I did a really good exercise actually just before I announced it.

The day before the announcement, I spent an afternoon writing down every negative comment that someone could ever leave - literally pages and pages of negative comments and I thought to myself, 'If somebody writes something worse than that tomorrow, fair play, right?' I will give them a round of applause.