NIL unlocks a new wave of golf sponsorships – in high school

Name, image and likeness is impacting Colorado high school golf in numerous ways

By Jim Bebbington

Last summer as Logan Hale, a star golfer who had just graduated from Erie High School, played in the final round of the Inspirato Colorado Women’s Open, one man shadowed her group carrying a tripod and camera.

Greg Glynn, the founder and CEO of Pliable Marketing, was shooting photos of Hale in action as part of one of the region’s first NIL relationships for youth golf.

Glynn is among a new category of sports agents who are reaching into the high school ranks for clients—something that just a few years ago would have been illegal.

But all that changed with the arrival of NIL.

“This new era of NIL is going to have a positive impact on young golfers, especially because of how social media plays such an important part now in an athlete’s overall brand/personality,” Glynn said.

For decades if high school and college athletes – including golfers – wanted to make money on the side and still be eligible to compete their options were very limited.

They had to work jobs that had zero connection to their roles as athletes – something that was possible but very difficult given the time many have to spend with their sports.

Or, they had to cheat. Taking money under the table from boosters or no-show jobs could be lucrative, but if it was found out the athletes’ amateur careers were over.

That all changed with the era of Name/Image/License.

In July 2021 the NCAA began to allow college athletes to profit off of their names, images and licensing abilities.

Nearly all the highest-profile examples have been football and basketball athletes – some are facing pay cuts when they graduate and turn pro.

But for golf, the opportunities – and complexity – are very real.

Sisters Lauren and Katelyn Lehigh of Loveland were two of Glynn’s first clients.

For the Lehigh sisters, their goals for playing though are already different.

Lauren followed up a strong career at the University of New Mexico with a run at professional golf. Her sister Katelyn, currently studying and playing for Fresno State University, is preparing to enter the field of sports leadership.

And that is where her partnership with Glynn helps, she said.

“I wanted to stay and work in sports somewhere and creating the network of people who already know me,” she said.

When she and her sister Lauren signed up for Glynn’s services, he worked alongside them setting up calls with potential clients for them to sponsor their products. Most calls don’t yield a deal, but every call is from another sports-industry person who she has met, Katelyn said.

“The money isn’t being thrown at us like at the bigger schools,” Katelyn said. “We have to work at that and I don’t have the time for that. And that is when Greg comes in.”

All three of Glynn’s clients have sponsorship agreements with a brand of energy bars, Ignite.

They connected when Glynn first saw Lauren competing in a summer tournament.

“Lauren had swagger, I saw that and saw the way she handled herself,” Glynn said. “I reached out and said ‘Are you interested in athlete branding and NIL.’ We got a call together and she says to me ‘I have a sister and she’s going to want this too.’”

Their experience was so positive, Katelyn said, that when Glynn began to recruit Logan Hale he asked the three of them to speak first on a phone call for the Lehigh’s to answer Hale’s questions.

All four were supposed to be on that call one morning.

Bizarrely, a car hit Greg’s office building in Maine just as the call began.

“We just told him to hang up; we’ll take it from here,” Katelyn said.

By the time he rejoined the call Hale had had all her questions answered and was ready to sign up.

Hale is now a freshman at University of Denver.

The phenomenon is already widespread. One of junior golf’s highest-profile female athletes of this summer – a Californian named Asterisk Talley – was just signed by the international agency the William Morris Agency. Talley, 15, finished in the top five for numerous junior and women’s amateur tournaments and made the cut, finishing 44th, in last summer’s U.S. Women’s Open.

Katelyn said high school students looking to become active in the NIL space would be wise to get good advice.

“The scarier side of NIL is the compliance side,” she said. “Make sure everything is done is legal. I disclose everything with my compliance department. You can lose eligibility. You’re trying to write a contract, what services am I going to provide and what am I getting out of that? Be clear. What is Ignite doing, what is Greg and what am I doing? If they didn’t know anybody like Greg I would warn them to be careful, especially with recruiting.”