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At least one Callaway executive and multiple Good Good Golf employees are being ousted in the aftermath of their controversial co-branded driver ad.
Last week, the golf equipment manufacturer ended its partnership with the YouTube group, and Good Good walked away from its title sponsorship of a PGA Tour event.
Good Good VP of brand and marketing Jeffrey Lefkovits has been fired and Callaway director of content and production Alex Upegui is departing the company, sources with knowledge of the moves tell Front Office Sports. At least one other Good Good employee whose identity is not yet known is also being let go.
Upegui, who had been in his position since 2023, is believed to be the highest-ranking employee at Callaway to approve the ad in which Good Good cofounder Garrett Clark was depicted shoving fellow Good Good member Alexis Miestowski to the ground.
Callaway CEO Chip Brewer said in a statement on Aug. 25 that the company was “conducting both internal and external investigations and have already made changes to our approval process aimed at ensuring this will never happen again.”
Callaway’s Aug. 27 announcement about severing ties with Good Good included the following line: “In this instance, our content review process was not comprehensive enough. We have taken appropriate internal corrective actions and significantly strengthened our approval procedure to help ensure this does not happen again.”
Good Good CEO Matt Kendrick told FOS on Friday that his company’s marketing team approved the ad, and that his company had “removed people responsible for the ad” but declined to identify who. Lefkovits had been promoted to VP of brand and marketing in June.
“The biggest thing is we realized we have to put better processes in place and we’re doing that,” Kendrick told FOS last week, admitting he had not seen the ad before it ran.
Beyond losing its Callaway deal, Good Good also dropped out of sponsoring the inaugural Good Good Championship PGA Tour event, which will still be played in November and is currently listed as the Austin Championship. Golf Channel also canceled Big Break x Good Good, which was set to be a revamp of the network’s old competition reality series that was scheduled to premiere last week.
Good Good merchandise has also been pulled from major retailers including Golf Galaxy, Dick’s Sporting Goods, PGA Tour Superstore, and Target.
Lefkovits, Callaway, and Good Good declined to comment for this story, while attempts to reach Upegui were not immediately successful.
