Whether shooting for the fairway or Instagram, Mac Boucher always takes the creative approach

Globe and Mail

20 hours ago

If you were to ask Mac Boucher how he's managed to become – by one metric, at least – the most popular Canadian golfer at PGA events without actually being a part of the PGA Tour, he'll demur and say something about just knowing how to shoot videos that look great on Instagram.
'Everyone and their mother's doing social media now. I think I just got in at the right time and then stayed consistent, and I think I just have a good eye for it,' he said earlier this week, sitting in the media tent during a rare moment of downtime before the Canadian Open kicked off and he had to go feed the Instagram beast some more.
Surrounded by a crowd, Boucher, by nature an introvert, will mock his shot choices as 'real stupid,' insist he's incapable of hitting a draw – a shot with a gentle arc – and when someone suggests he's like the Babe Ruth of golf because he'll occasionally just point at an obstacle – say, a stand of trees that would scare away most pros – and then slice his ball clear over or right through it, he'll quip: 'Yes, minus the talent.'
That collision of self-effacement and daring – and, to be sure, an understanding of how to shoot cinematic videos that pop off the screen – has brought Boucher (rhymes with 'voucher'), 35, almost 600,000 followers on Instagram, more than any other Canadian golfer, as well as tens of thousands more on YouTube and TikTok.
His sponsors include TaylorMade, Primo Golf Apparel and Adidas, which set him up last month to give lessons on stance and swing to Super Bowl-winning quarterback Patrick Mahomes. This weekend, fans watching the Open on TSN will see Boucher show off his sense of humour in a fun spot for BMW. (In a nod to the shot for which he is best known, the car in the ad bears the vanity plate: SLING KNG). He recently struck a partnership with Tim Hortons.
Boucher describes all of these as 'pinch me' moments, lifetime dreams come true, but they're tinged by the dark chapter in his life that first spurred him to pick up a club in his late teens. Golf is nothing if not a sport that teaches resilience in the face of constant (often self-inflicted) misfortune. Boucher has embraced that fact, making a virtue of his own imperfections as a player instead of fighting against them.
He grew up in Uxbridge, Ont., a small town of rolling green just north of Toronto, in constant motion: playing hockey, swimming, competing in triathlons. At 17, swimming began to give him debilitating headaches; doctors found a benign cyst in his brain. An operation could have left him with balance and vision problems, so he opted against surgical intervention and pivoted to a sport that, as he said, 'wasn't so hard on the noggin,' and would still allow him to indulge his competitive nature.
In January, 2021, while in Dubai avoiding the COVID lockdowns back home, Boucher began posting to Instagram. In one 14-second video, his drive leaps out of the left side of the frame and then eventually lopes back in and skitters toward the flag in the middle of the frame, just missing it.
The clip was shared tens of thousands of times, including by some big accounts, and his follower count began to climb. Since then, Boucher said, he's posted two to three videos each day without fail, fuelling a steady (albeit exhausting) increase of followers who watch him jetting around the world from one gorgeous course to another, filming improbable shots against jaw-dropping backgrounds.
'The creativity in the shots – it's kind of the new age of golf, right?' said Jamie Miller, the president of the New York State Golf Association, who was part of Boucher's fivesome at the Championship Pro Am on Wednesday. 'It's different than the traditional stuff, which is great for the growth of the game.'
When he spoke, Miller had just broken his driver, a Callaway, on the first tee, and Boucher had offered to hook him up with a TaylorMade club. Boucher called his on-site TaylorMade rep and the new driver arrived in time for the fourth hole. His videographer, a friend who trails Boucher whenever he hits the course, filmed him handing the club to Miller: If a marketing moment falls in a forest and no one is around to record it and post it to social media, would anybody hear?
Lately, Boucher and his videographer and another friend have been working on a series of longer-form videos for YouTube, inspired by the constant requests he gets from guys to recommend places for them to go on trips with their buddies.
Rob LeClair, an executive with Staples Canada who was finishing up a round at the Pro Am with Ryo Hisatsune, approached Boucher for a selfie. 'I watch his YouTube, I watch his Instagram videos, I watch all of it. It's so fun,' he said.
But Boucher's appeal runs deeper than that, LeClair explained.
'The way he thinks and sees things that other people don't, like: 'I can hit it through those trees.' And then he swings it around 100 yards! It's just mind-blowing to see.'
'He has a different approach to being successful. If you relate that to real life – you don't have to hit it straight down the middle, you can hit anything and still be successful.'
A little while later, Boucher's caddie opened an app to demonstrate that philosophy in concrete terms. On the fourth hole, a 158-yard par 3, the pro in the group, Patrick Fishburn, had shot an elegant draw off the tee that curved 18 feet left to right. Boucher's drive off the same tee went 197 feet left to right – and ended up in almost the same spot.
'For me, it's understanding what my body's capable of,' Boucher explained, back at the media tent. 'It's just cause and effect,' and knowing how to incorporate his natural tendency to shoot sling shots. 'I think most people could probably benefit from that, instead of trying to be something they're not on the golf course.'
Though he doesn't play a traditional style of golf, Boucher insists he's a traditionalist 'in the sense that I'm very much a golf nerd. I love to learn things, and the numbers – I geek out about that type of stuff, which is what allows me to hit the shots I'm hitting.
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'I do appreciate that the new generation is YouTube golf and that's what's getting eyes on golf, but I still think the PGA Tour is what I am interested in.'
Even so, he acknowledges that golf as it is being played on the tour is too slow. 'Who has the attention span – not to mention the time – to sit on a couch and watch a six-hour round of golf,' he said. 'Unless it's the Masters and it's happening one time a year and you just don't want it to end?
'I'm someone who loves going out at 7 p.m. with a buddy and ripping around in an hour and a half, 18 holes.'
He'd tried to qualify for this year's Canadian Open but he's been dealing with an injured right thumb which, he said, he's 'torn all the tendons on – there's nothing really holding any more.'
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If he has surgery to repair it, he'll be out for 10 months: Not really an option at the moment, given his commitments and the need to build up his content on YouTube.
And since blowing up on Instagram, he's had to steel himself against the inevitable haters. 'It's arguably more pressure now to play tournaments, because there are all these people that are just watching and waiting to pounce on you if you don't play well,' he said.
By the time the Open draws to a close on Sunday, Boucher will be gone, off to P.E.I. for a couple of appearances. Earlier this year, he was back and forth between North America and Australia and New Zealand three times in two weeks. It's a lot, he acknowledges.
'I'd like to kind of settle down and not have the consistent suitcase life,' he said. 'I've created a decent-sized brand for myself where I can say no, which is nice.'
Still, he admits, 'I don't really think much in the future. It's the way I've always been. I probably should, but it's worked this far.'