All of your favourite rappers are obsessed with golf. Here's how they're inspiring change on the links

Written by Adam Aziz

At a 2022 Professional Golfers' Association tournament, rapper Schoolboy Q, who participated in the tournament, told the PGA Tour: "Life is a golf game. Some good shots, some bad shots. But most importantly, keep going because you never know." 

Hip-hop fans may have done a double take: Was that really the rapper behind songs like "Man of the Year" and "Collard Greens" on a golf course comparing the sport to the game of life? It was, and the truth is, hip-hop is in the midst of a love affair with golf, and has been for decades.

"[Golf] was always very aspirational and equated to wealth," said Nelson Silverio, vice president of storytelling and publicity for the PGA Tour. "Your Bad Boy videos of the '90s, they're holding golf clubs." 

The music video Silverio is referring to is for the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1997 hit, "Mo Money, Mo Problems." In the video, "Mase Gumbel," a character played by rapper Ma$e that was based on sports commentator Bryant Gumbel, narrates as the Bad Boy Records team, one of rap's most iconic record labels, sinks a winning putt against "Fuzzy Bad Feet," a play on golfer Fuzzy Zeller, who had made racist comments about Tiger Woods at the 1997 Masters. 

That year, Tiger Woods became the first Black golfer to win the Masters, one of the four men's major golf championships, inspiring many hip-hop lyric references, including Jay-Z on "Who You Wit II" ("I sink this ball in your hole/ I'm Tiger Woods"), Mos Def on "Body Rock" ("Got the opposition shook like Tiger Woods about to tee off")  and Ras Kass on "Soul On Ice" (Remix) ("Tiger Woods aint even up to par in the game of survival").

"Golf is expensive," multi-platinum rapper Russ explains. "Anything that is expensive tends to get