MYRTLE BEACH CLASSIC

May 6, 2026

Ryan Ruffels

Dunes Golf and Beach Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Welcome Ryan Ruffels here to the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic. You are here after winning The Q just a week or so ago. Talk about that experience and getting the opportunity to play here.

RYAN RUFFELS: Yeah, I mean, I guess I was talking to someone earlier, it was released about a week or so ago, but I've been sitting on it for a month or so, so it's a strange kind of feeling, because most of the time in golf when you win something, the accolades and the recognition come immediately.

I've kind of had to wait a few weeks and then have it all come out this last week was a bit of a different experience, but that was a lot of fun, amazing opportunity. An opportunity that I didn't think would ever be available to someone like me. I'm very lucky.

THE MODERATOR: Your last PGA TOUR event that you played in was back in 2022, so it's been quite a stretch. What's the anticipation level like sitting around waiting to tee off tomorrow?

RYAN RUFFELS: I'm excited. I think it's a very different experience this time than any other time that I've played in a PGA TOUR event. I think this time coming from more of a YouTube space, it's been a lot more fanfare. A lot more support. My social media is going crazy leading up to event. When I Monday qualified for Shriners, I went under the radar and could do my own thing.

Very different experience but equally as excited. Any time you get a chance to play on the PGA TOUR, it's an amazing thing, and I'm very lucky to be here.

THE MODERATOR: Can you talk about that a little bit? Life has changed for you. You were an outstanding amateur and had a lot of tags on you to be a top player, and you played some on the PGA TOUR, a couple of years on the Korn Ferry TOUR. Then we didn't hear from you for a while. Just talk about that transition.

RYAN RUFFELS: Yeah, it's been interesting. Definitely not how I saw my last I guess ten years going, for sure. You always have an idea of what you want things to look like. I'd say most of the time they probably don't end up exactly the way that you planned them. For me it certainly didn't, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be in a lot of ways.

I think you roll with the punches. You take the good with the bad. You figure out where your next opportunity is going to lie and how you're going to make something of yourself.

For me, I thought there was a real opportunity to kind of go down the social media path. I felt like I knew a lot of people in the space. I knew a lot of professional golfers. My game was still very sharp. As anybody chasing the professional golf dream knows, it's a tough one. When you're not right at the upper echelons of the game, it's expensive too.

I kind of wanted to use YouTube as maybe an avenue down that down the road I could give myself opportunities in professional golf. Here we are. I guess that plan is somewhat falling into place.

THE MODERATOR: You've spent a lot of time in Myrtle Beach obviously recently given the situation. What are your impressions? You have you been here before?

RYAN RUFFELS: No, I had never been here before in my life. There's a lot of mini-golf down that main street. That was pretty cool. Yeah, when I was driving up, I didn't know what to expect.

We played some amazing courses up at River's Edge and then at Pawleys Plantation for The Q. They were fantastic courses that were gracious enough to host us. Then the day after the Q I got to play out here in a little match that I played in.

So I got to have a nice little look at this place about a month or so ago, and then coming back here this week, it was good that I've already seen it. It felt familiar.

The course itself is a phenomenal, phenomenal golf course. The condition is about as good as I've ever seen of any golf course. Yeah, we're having a lot of fun at Myrtle Beach. We rented an Airbnb down the road by the beach. Exploring a little bit. Yeah, it's a good time.

THE MODERATOR: Having seen this something golf course a couple of times, how do you think it fits your game? As far as your game goes, what are you sort of excelling at right now? What do you feel like you need to work on a little bit?

RYAN RUFFELS: Yeah, it's a big, long golf course. I think I was looking at it yesterday. It was about 7,200, 7,300 yards, par 71, which is -- that's a long course. That suits me.

Driver I think is a really important part of my game, something that I always kind of go back on. Yeah, I hit the ball a long way and hopefully straight. So, yeah, that part suits me.

I think I've become a really good chipper over the last kind of year or two. So if I need to scramble a little bit, I'll hopefully have that kind of to my advantage. Yeah, I think those two things combined are really good.

I think my game currently, my ball striking has been quite good over the last kind of six months or so. I think as I've stepped away from professional golf, it's just taken the temperature down on my own game a little bit. It's not so intense every day in terms of critiquing myself and the different parts of my game, so it's allowed my kind of, I guess, natural talent and athleticism to shine a little bit more because I'm able to play more freely, and it's not everything to me every time I step up to the tee.

So I'm excited to see if that holds up on a PGA TOUR level. Who knows? I'm sure excited to get the opportunity to try.

THE MODERATOR: They say success breeds confidence, and you had a little victory last year with your sister at the Grass League Championship in the team event. Just talk about that experience and winning that tournament.

RYAN RUFFELS: Yeah, that was really cool. Once again, just another thing that I didn't ever foresee happening that happened. I think if you're a brother/brother or a sister/sister kind of combination, you might get a chance to play like Alex and Matt did at the Zurich or, I'm sure Nelly and Jess maybe at a Solheim Cup, but as a brother/sister there's not many opportunities outside of the maybe the Grant Thornton where you might get a chance to play with each other.

To be able to play with my sister, who is obviously a phenomenal player in her own right out on the LPGA Tour, was such a cool experience and to win that with her. Everyone has been telling me that she carried me, so this week maybe I can hold my own a little bit.

I'll remember that forever, and I think she will as well.

THE MODERATOR: You've had a top-20 finish on the PGA TOUR. In the number of events that you've played, you've made a number of cuts. What is your expectation this week to satisfy a good week?

RYAN RUFFELS: I have no expectations whatsoever. I'm excited to be here. I think I'm very capable of a very strong finish. I know that my game if on the right week and approached the right way is very capable of great things this week. I don't want to say exactly what, but I know what I kind of think I'm capable of.

Yeah, no expectations. I'm going to go out there. It's a very unique opportunity. Not many people get a chance to do this, and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it. If it shakes at the end of the week that I have a great finish, then so be it, and that will be awesome.

THE MODERATOR: Any questions?

Q. How has it been being back on tour? Any interactions with any of the guys you know, as you've kind of been away for a little bit? It's a community feel out here. Have you run into anyone?

RYAN RUFFELS: I was kind of thinking that when we were out there yesterday, I know a lot of people out here. I either grew up playing junior golf with them when I was playing PGA TOUR events a few years back. I was playing with them or amateur golf.

I know a lot of people out here. I'd say I know probably half the field at least and a few of the players. Like Pontus Nyholm, who I'm staying with this week, he's one of my best friends in the world. So it's different for me having that prior experience than maybe those other players that were in the Q.

I was kind of saying yesterday I think in the practice round, I wonder if any of the other boys qualified, who they would have played a practice round with? I've got one of my best friends here, which is really cool. Maybe a lot of the other guys might not have known anyone.

Yeah, it's cool to see a lot of familiar faces. Everyone here is super accomplished. You don't get to the PGA TOUR without being a phenomenal golfer. So I'm lucky to be in the same field as them, and I foresee the competition being maybe slightly stronger than the Q.

Q. When it comes to a preparation for a week like this, I'm sure your PGA TOUR pedigree helped you prep for different events you've played, Grass Leagues or the Q. Now, how do you flip that and take what you've learned from YouTube golf and preparing for being on the biggest stage?

RYAN RUFFELS: I think for me the biggest thing that I've learned about my game since I've started doing a little bit more social media is that I play much better when there's just not this hyper-focus every day on what I need to fix and what I need to improve and that sort of thing. Being okay with let the chips kind of unfold over the course of months as opposed to days.

It's very easy I think when your tournaments week in, week out to always be this didn't feel good last week, and I got to be on this week. It just keeps going, keeps going, keeps going. At the end of the season you're exhausted and pretty worn out if you didn't play the way you want to.

I think kind of just stepping away and letting myself just kind of play every day and just see where that shakes out, not so much pressure on myself, I think that's allowed me to be much more consistent and also just let my natural kind of athleticism take part in my golf game. I'm excited to see that hold up.

Maybe this will be one opportunity. Maybe there will be more. Maybe there won't. But, yeah, I think I'm in a good spot. I definitely feel that I'm in the most or the best head space that I've been in in a long time playing in a PGA TOUR event.

Q. When you first start getting into being a creator, an influencer, did you see that the proliferation of it ahead of you? Could you kind of predict that? Because there's a lot of different events that you guys can now play in that are affiliated with larger tours. Did you envision that happening for yourself and all of these other guys that are doing the same thing?

RYAN RUFFELS: I hoped, I would say. I think when I started doing YouTube a little bit more seriously in to 2023, '24, myself and then The Lads started in 2025, I had ambitions that I could turn something like YouTube into opportunities professionally. I didn't really know how. I just thought that it might happen.

I thought that the YouTube space was starting to take a turn towards more competitive golf with better players and having that opportunity. Yeah, it was more, like, I was hoping that that would happen as opposed to thinking that it could. I just kind of kept going, kept going, kept going.

I started to see some of my friends get the opportunities. I know Luke Kwon started to play in a few events over in Asia and things like that. I thought, that's interesting. I started to see just, yeah, things popping up. I was, like, okay, maybe it's going in the right direction.

When I got Jason Day involved with The Lads, that was obviously a little bit even more connected to the PGA TOUR. Things started to move in that direction, and then the opportunity, The Q, popped up, which was just a direct qualifier basically into a PGA TOUR event, and that the ultimate, wow, okay, here's a straight-up opportunity to play on tour.

That was the first, like, I'm smarter than I look, I guess. Yeah, that was really cool. Maybe there will be more going forward. I think maybe if I play well this week, that shows that creators can play golf. Yeah, we'll see.

Q. As a content creator, I'm sure you pay attention to the followers that you have and the subscribers that you have on YouTube. Obviously there's been an uptick since you won The Q. Have you noticed that, and what's your reaction to that?

RYAN RUFFELS: Yeah, it's been a crazy week, to be honest. Like I said at the start, I won The Q what feels like a long time ago, so I kind of didn't even realize that there would be such an uptick because after I won, I couldn't speak about it for a month.

I just figured that that was that, and I'll go play the PGA TOUR event. When the videos were released this last week, and I think Grant's video maybe has just under 3 million views and Bryan Bros has a million and a half or a couple of million views. I'm not quite sure.

Yeah, my social media went ballistic this last week, and that's something else to manage. That's the new part of playing an event that I'm not used to. I could kind of go under the radar, and this week I'm probably not going to go under the radar. That's a whole different experience.

Once again, I'm doing something now professionally that is for an audience and to kind of garner people's attention. I've been able to do that this week, and that's a successful thing. The more successful I become both in my golf and content creation, the more that will just become bigger and bigger.

I'm very lucky to have massive support, and I look forward to hopefully giving them something to cheer for this week.

Q. Did you ever see YouTube golf being the catalyst that ultimately gets you back to a tour event?

RYAN RUFFELS: I hoped. Like I said just before, I really hoped that that would be the case. I'd heard of The Q in the past. It hasn't -- I think this year was probably the biggest that it's ever been. I know it's happened in the past, and they've had different variations of it mixed with mini tour players and that sort of thing, but never with just content creators itself.

Yeah, like I said, I hoped. I was ambitious that maybe if my following was big enough, that a tournament might see me as valuable to them to add to the field as an unrestricted sponsor exemption or something like that, but something so direct like The Q where I just played good enough, beat the people in the field, and you'll be in, and they're all creators, I maybe didn't think it would be that straightforward.

Q. Why choose to keep your game sharp from in between to 2020 and now? What was the drive to keep your game with this promise not even on the table? What was the drive?

RYAN RUFFELS: I mean, I love golf. I absolutely love golf. I don't think, to be honest, my personality can carry a video if I'm not playing great golf. Like, I think part of my whole brand is that I'm a good golfer, and I can use that as kind of my thing. I can go challenge people. I can play 1 v. 1 against professionals, against YouTubers, that sort of thing.

I like to think that I'm not boring, but I'm not a Bob Does Sports or anything like that where I can just carry it with vibes and that sort of thing. Yeah, I love mixing it up with all the different personalities on YouTube. It's a ton of fun.

Yeah, I'll always keep my game sharp. It's a passion of mine. I absolutely love professional golf. I love seeing how good I can get at golf, and I get super frustrated when I'm not playing the way I know I can play. I think as long as I'm in my form of golf as a profession, I will always have the ambition to keep my game really sharp.

Q. Speaking of, how is the game in adverse weather?

RYAN RUFFELS: I group in Melbourne, and we can have some pretty bad weather in Melbourne in the winter. I've spent many, many Saturdays and Sundays playing club comps in some brutal weather in a kind of July, June -- June day. No shortage of experience. The last kind of big event I played in was the Vic Open down in 13th Beach down in kind of the peninsula there. That's super, super windy down there. It can get quite cold, and I played great.

Should be good. Hopefully, yeah.

Q. Relationship with your caddie Duane, you met this week. Talk about that.

RYAN RUFFELS: Didn't meet this week. First time caddying for me this week, but I've known him forever. He's married to Sarah Jane Smith, who is a phenomenal player on the LPGA Tour. Another Aussie player. So I've known had him for a while.

He looks after the Golf Australia kind of house here in the United States. When all the Australian player amateurs come through for, say, the summer golf or things like that, Golf Australia has a kind of place in Orlando that they can call home for in between weeks and stuff like that. He's run that for the last couple of years.

I lived in Orlando for the last seven or eight years. We got to know each other. He's an amazing human being. He was a phenomenal golfer himself at one point. He's been around the tour forever. He's caddied for my sister a few times. Nothing but good words to say about Duane. He's a fantastic dude, and I'm going to have a lot of fun walking the fairways with him.