Adam Fine’s ‘Not A Scratch Golfer’ Videos On YouTube Strike A Chord With High-handicappers
Vancouver's Adam Fine Found Golf Helped Him Through A Life-Threatening Illness - YouTube Photo Capture
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Adam Fine grew up not far from Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Park, where he and his buddies were regulars at the local pitch and putt course. “It is possible I played there a thousand times,” Fine says.
Yet he didn’t consider himself a golfer.
“Pitch and putt I always loved, golf itself was an absolute non-starter,” he says. Then golf helped save his life and everything changed for Fine. He’s now not only an avid golfer, but the game he embraced during a life-threatening illness provides him his living.
About two years ago, the now 34-year-old Fine started his own YouTube channel. It’s called Not A Scratch Golfer, which of course describes most of us.
Fine’s journey to becoming what he calls a real golfer — no offence intended to all you pitch-and-putters out there — came when he was working sales in the tech industry in California’s Silicon Valley.
He started feeling lousy in the early days of an illness later diagnosed as an auto-immune liver disease. The golf course became his refuge, the only place he was able to feel comfortable. “Even in the early stages of it, golf just stuck out as something I could still go outside and do and be active at, with my limited health,” he says.
“It started as 'let’s find a pastime,' but I guess every golfer can relate to the fact that I caught the bug.”
Fine says it is not a stretch to suggest golf helped save his life. “It sounds corny, but I swear that it’s true,” he says. “The most persistent day-to-day symptom that I had with my illness was that I was really, really itchy. I won’t get into the medical reasons for it, but this wasn’t a rash type thing, it was like being itchy from the inside out. It was absolutely debilitating. It was to the degree where I couldn’t comfortably maintain a conversation with someone because I just felt like my skin was on fire.
A Screen Shot From Adam's Video 'Why Your Golf Swing Doesn't Matter'
“For whatever reason, I’d go to the golf course and I didn’t feel that way. People have different theories about that, but the best one I have is that golf, especially as a beginner, requires so much attention I guess that I was able to compartmentalize what I was physically feeling. It was literally the case where the second the round was over, after holing out on 18, I’d walk back to the parking lot, and before I was back to the car I just felt like hell again.”
Fine’s health continued to deteriorate and got so bad he returned to Vancouver. He needed a life-saving liver transplant and finally got one on March 22, 2018. As it did during the early stages of his illness, golf played a huge role in his recovery.
After surgery, Fine decided he needed to take some time to decide what to do with his life. While pondering his future, Fine played golf. Lots of it. “After a life-threatening event, you kind of ask yourself what it is I want to be doing. 'Am I going to jump back into the same type of job?' I decided I was going to enjoy golf for a while. One thing led to another and golf did become the career.
"Even when I started the YouTube channel, it was intended to be a hobby and then fast forward about six months after that and I was making some money at it and I thought, huh, I guess this can be a job.”
As he got serious about the game, Fine had started watching some of the golf content on YouTube. Most of it was instruction-based and Fine decided to try something a little different.
A fellow golf YouTuber took Fine under his wing and encouraged him to start posting some videos. “I never thought lots of people would watch, I just thought it would be a fun activity . . .the next thing I knew it was like 100,000 people are watching most of these videos. I guess there’s something to this.”
Watch Adam Fine's YouTube videos 'Not A Scratch Golfer' HERE.
Fine has whittled his handicap down to 5.9 and feels like his videos have struck a chord with high-handicappers. “I think a lot of high-handicap golfers watch my content and for lack of a better word maybe find it inspiring or inspirational because they sort of say, ‘hey, there’s a guy whose golf swing looks like mine who plays off a single-digit handicap and maybe I should just lean in and see what’s happening here instead of watching swing instruction.'
"So I think I appeal to a lot of high-teen handicaps trying to get better and they watch my content, not for instruction per se, but to get a feel for what low-handicap golf is like. The most overwhelmingly positive response comes from the people who are looking at the content in that way.”
Fine posted his first video in March of 2021 and two years later now has done more than 130 of them. He’s got to play some great courses, including Pebble Beach and Pacific Dunes, where he shot a personal-best 71. Fine, who is a member at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club, shoots most of his local videos at Kings Links, Fraserview and University golf courses. He has built a devoted group of followers, which has helped him monetize things.
A Few Of The Comments From One Of Adam's YouTube Videos
He’s not making crazy money, but says it’s comparable to what he was earning during his Silicon Valley days. And this is a lot more fun. It’s also a one-man show. Fine shoots and edits all of his videos himself and he's able to play his rounds in a reasonable amount of time.
“It’s funny, if there is ever pushback from a course, that is always the question. Can you maintain a good pace of play and the answer is absolutely. Because it’s just me out there with an iPhone and a tripod. So literally when I am putting my golf bag down behind me, I also place the tripod and hit record.”
The hard work comes when he sits down at home to edit his videos. “I can get a video done in a day,” he says. “But it’s a long day. It is like an eight-hour edit because I am not good at it.”
Fine’s biggest challenge is keeping the content fresh and making sure he posts new videos regularly. “Finding the motivation for each video, what compelling thing do I have to share here that people will care to watch, is definitely a challenge. My sweet spot is to try and release between four and eight videos a month which is a lot of output. That has definitely been the biggest challenge.”
Some of Fine’s most popular videos have titles like ‘How To Attack The Golf Course As An Amateur Hack’, ‘How Amateurs Can Flirt With Par (With A Crap Swing)’, and 'Why You Want To Be a ‘Boring’ Golfer.’
He still has to pinch himself on occasion when he thinks about what he’s doing for a living. “I still have something similar to imposter syndrome because I think to myself I make videos about golf for a living. I don’t make videos very professionally and I don’t golf professionally.”
Fine is determined to enjoy every minute of his new golfing adventure.“It’s never lost on me that on the turn of a dime I could lose my health again,” he says.
“So I don’t live every day like it’s my last, but it has certainly added perspective that I might not have another 50 years here.”