Before Grant Horvat, Good Good Golf or Bob Does Sports, there was … Karl Vilips.

Take the home video of a tiny Vilips, 2 years old, playing backyard soccer in Australia with a look of playful wonderment. It’s a solid kick, but he immediately declares that he’s ready to play golf. Take Vilips, 8, playing golf amidst a pack of kangaroos, a scene that would fit neatly into an adventure film. Or Vilips, 13, in a lively match against an 83-year-old.

It’s a digital scrapbook that doubles as neat foreshadowing of a future PGA TOUR pro, and it’s all online for the world to see. These moments and many more (833 videos total) comprise Vilips’ robust YouTube channel, launched by his dad, Paul, in 2008 when the younger Vilips had just turned 7, less than a month after the PGA TOUR launched its own YouTube channel. One could argue that Vilips is the original YouTube golfer. The channel was born from Paul Vilips' desire to give his son the requisite resources to pursue a golf career, without preexisting means for the costly pursuit. The channel was home base for Paul Vilips’ fundraising efforts to send his son to high-level American junior golf tournaments, and it attracted the attention of United States junior golf academies, which led the younger Vilips to America and eventually to the PGA TOUR.

Vilips, 23, worked tirelessly for nearly two decades to bring their shared idea to fruition. The idea, of course, was solely a foundation. There were no guarantees it would work. But it did.

“Without it, I don’t think I’d be able to get everything I’ve gotten up to this point,” Vilips said. “My dad had a vision, and it panned out.”

Vilips is competing in this week’s PGA Championship at Quail Hollow Club, his first major championship as a pro (he also played the 2023 U.S. Open), less than a year after turning pro out of Stanford. He qualified for the PGA Championship by winning the Puerto Rico Open in February, his third TOUR start as a member after a back injury sidelined his season debut – and less than three weeks after becoming the first playing ambassador of Sun Day Red, the clothing line founded by Vilips’ hero Tiger Woods in early 2024.

Vilips won in his fourth Korn Ferry Tour start last summer and earned his first TOUR card via the Korn Ferry Tour’s season-long standings, needing just 10 starts when the other 29 of 30 graduates all needed 17 starts at minimum. His team includes swing instructor Colin Swatton (Jason Day’s longtime coach) and mental coach Rick Sessinghaus (confidant to Collin Morikawa). Vilips’ playing style, which he describes as “bomb and gouge,” could make him a dark-horse contender this week at the brawny Quail Hollow Club.

His star is quickly rising, and it all traces back to the digital content game.

Paul Vilips first uploaded to Karl’s YouTube channel on Aug. 25, 2008, with a seven-second clip from Australian current affairs show “Today Tonight” where host Monika Kos described the younger Vilips as “Perth’s tiny Tiger Woods.” Vilips was just 6 at the time. Even if he doesn’t end up winning 82 PGA TOUR events, the statement proved accurate in many ways, as Vilips followed Woods to Stanford and then quickly into the TOUR winner’s circle.

Kos’ words may have been hyperbolized, but that seven-second clip manifested much of the next decade-plus. Father and son continued to grow their YouTube channel at a time when the video-sharing platform (founded in 2005) was in its nascent days. YouTube golf content creator Garrett Clark, whose channel now boasts 1.3 million subscribers, remembers watching Vilips’ journey from afar in his youth. So does second-year PGA TOUR pro Michael Thorbjornsen, who developed a close friendship with Vilips in junior golf that progressed to four years as Stanford teammates; now they live in the same apartment complex outside Jacksonville, Florida.

YouTube golf has entered a golden era with creators like Horvat, Good Good Golf and Bob Does Sports, among many others, paving the way for a next-generation content approach focused on extended cuts of competitive matches, zany challenges and friendly banter. It has led to events like the TOUR’s “Creator Classic” series, most recently at The Philadelphia Cricket Club ahead of last week’s Truist Championship, where creators play the same setup that TOUR pros are preparing to face the next day.

From Australia, Vilips was at the forefront of it all – and it’s no hyperbole that YouTube supercharged his journey to the PGA TOUR.

Vilips was born in Indonesia and moved to Perth on Australia’s west coast as an infant. His dad exposed him to many sports from an early age, such as tennis, soccer and cricket. But he displayed special talent in golf, and Paul Vilips, as a single parent, vowed to do anything possible to help Karl succeed.

“Not everybody’s on the same page as us crazy parents, because we all think our kid’s going to make it to the PGA TOUR,” Paul Vilips said. “Even the head professionals at clubs would come up to me and say, ‘Why are you wasting yours and other people’s time on your dreams with your son, because don’t you realize the ridiculously small odds of your son making it?’ And my usual reply would be, ‘So what you’re saying then, is that there is a chance.’

“If there’s a small chance, why can’t he be the kid that makes it?”

Paul Vilips, who had a marketing background and was raising his son on a modest disability pension, knew he couldn’t afford to give Karl the best training, equipment and opportunities on his own. Enter YouTube. In summer 2008, Paul Vilips began diligently editing and uploading various videos to the channel when many sports leagues and teams were just catching on to this new approach to creating content and connecting with fans. The content was consistent in delivery yet varied in approach – you might see some short-game practice, or an extended cut of a tournament round, or even swimming and skateboarding. It was meant to illustrate his son's potential and create an emotional bond with the small but growing YouTube golf community.

At first, a younger Vilips didn’t quite understand what his dad was doing and was taken aback by the constant documentation. But as he began to recognize his YouTube channel as a marketing tool to increase his resources to pursue a golf career, he continually leaned in. He became more comfortable in front of the camera and grew to appreciate it. (An added benefit: He had no trouble adjusting to the PGA TOUR’s omnipresent camera operation once turning pro last summer, as evidenced by his winning ways.)

“My dad wanted to put me out there and show people that I was good,” Vilips said last fall. “When I was 6 or 7, I didn’t think too much of it. I just played golf, and he would film it, and then people caught on, they started asking him to commentate. It’s funny, you now see people responding to me on Instagram; they always think of him commentating over the camera. I think that’s been a small part of a lot of people’s childhood growing up playing golf, which is really cool for me, to be able to be a part of that.

“There was a point where I didn’t like it, and I think that’s just part of being an adolescent, you don’t like doing things, and as I got older, I leaned into it a lot more and enjoyed doing it, understood why he did it … It’s also cool now to go back and watch what I was doing at 12 years old, how much I have changed. Trying to think of that week and relive it in a way.”

Camera-wise, Paul Vilips filmed on 720p resolution, but YouTube converted the footage to 480p in its early days, which is why several of the channel’s early videos appear grainy. The elder Vilips took feedback seriously as he curated the channel. He uploaded shorter clips at first, but after reading about the demand for longer videos, he began to post full rounds. Interview-style content and challenges were soon to follow, and there’s one specific match-play challenge that Vilips holds close to this day – he was 8, playing against a 19-year-old from the same tees. They tied.

Vilips, who doesn’t watch too much of his YouTube channel from age 13 and upward, estimates he has watched that one 100 times. He admires that youthful energy, notably a fist pump on the final hole, and he doesn’t want to ever forget it’s in there.

“I couldn’t reach any of the par 4s in two,” Vilips remembered. “I probably shot 80 that day, which was really good for me as an 8-year-old, but that one I watch frequently because I was just really passionate that day, and I was hitting it really good, and the course just looked so good on camera.”

For Vilips, the YouTube channel now serves as a nostalgic scrapbook, a bonus to its critical role in his development as a golfer – and a close reminder of the journey to this point. Between the YouTube channel, a website and relationships with local media outlets, Paul Vilips drummed up interest to fundraise for cross-oceanic trips to high-level American junior golf events. The first trip was for the 2008 U.S. Kids Golf World Championship at Pinehurst No. 2 when Karl was 6; his dad said if he could shoot a nine-hole 36 from 1,000 yards, a comparable yardage to the U.S. Kids setup at Pinehurst, he would start fundraising for the overseas trip. Karl shot 37 on his first try but insisted he be allowed to try again, and he eventually succeeded.

Between his first two overseas trips for the U.S. Kids, Vilips and his dad scavenged roughly 3,000 golf balls from Perth-area courses to fund a new set of TaylorMade Burner irons (negotiating 30 cents per ball with a local pro shop) – after showing up for his debut with seven clubs and realizing the other kids all had full 14-club sets. Through YouTube-infused fundraising, he garnered the financial support for annual overseas trips until he moved to the United States full-time on scholarship, his dad coaching him all the while.

The Vilips’ fundraising effort was supercharged by digital connectivity and the rapid evolution of social media, but at its heart was a centuries-old concept: Humans are wired to help others.

“There’s an old saying that it takes a village,” Paul Vilips said. “That’s the situation for players like Karl; he’s not the only one. There are a lot of players like him that don’t necessarily come from the means where the parents can afford. People would say to me, ‘Why don’t you get a proper coach for Karl?’ I would say, ‘Well, fine, give me your checkbook and I’ll get a proper coach. Until then, it’s little old me that’s got to coach him.’

“Most parents, I’m sure 99.9% of them, would do whatever they need to do to help get their kid to whatever it is, whether it’s tennis, golf or playing the violin.”

After finishing seventh at his first U.S. Kids Golf World Championship (with seven clubs), Vilips returned the next year and won the Boys 7 age division. He won again in 2011 (Boys 9), and he added titles at the Junior World Championships at Torrey Pines in 2012 (Boys 9-10) and 2014 (Boys 11-12). Paul Vilips kept documenting his son’s success on YouTube as the greater golf world took notice. Vilips was eventually offered a scholarship to Hilton Head Preparatory School in South Carolina and moved to the United States at age 11, representing a firm commitment to professional golf as his chosen pursuit.

Vilips has since acclimated to American culture (fantasy football is now among his favorite pursuits, and he spends ample fall Sundays watching the entire NFL slate). It didn’t even take long for his Aussie twang to become Americanized.

“At first, as an American with an Australian accent, it felt (other kids) were making fun of me. More they were just giving me crap for it,” Vilips remembered. “I lost the accent in probably three months, and now I ask people, ‘Where do you think I’m from?’ They say Ohio.”

Vilips eventually transferred to Saddlebrook Preparatory School outside Tampa for a star-studded high school career that attracted Stanford’s attention. He played four seasons for the Cardinal and although success came slowly at first, he won his first college event at the 2024 Pac-12 Championship as a senior, leading to the No. 10 spot on the 2024 PGA TOUR University Ranking and conditional Korn Ferry Tour membership for that summer. He needed just four starts to find the winner’s circle, carding rounds of 67-62-64-66 for a two-stroke win at the Utah Championship presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health.

Paul Vilips was there for an emotional hug that punctuated a lifelong journey against the odds. Karl’s first thank-you in his winner’s speech was to his dad, who fought back tears.

Seven months later, Vilips won the Puerto Rico Open to secure exempt PGA TOUR status through 2027 and qualify for his first PGA Championship. He received a congratulatory text from Woods, his hero, moments after finalizing his three-stroke victory. He reveled in the whirlwind of winner’s obligations and turned reflective when asked in his press conference: “What advice would you give to young golfers and amateur golfers aspiring to transition from amateur to professional status?”

“I would say there's no mountain too high,” Vilips said. “Got to put in a lot of hard work to win and to compete, and it takes a lot of experience. So I would say give it a shot. You never know what can happen.”

Paul Vilips – who will attend this week’s PGA Championship – would agree 100%.