The result? A lot of eyeballs and an assuredness that he\u2019s exactly where he\u2019s supposed to be. <\/p>\n
Last time he teed off on the PGA Tour, Ruffels did so under the radar as a relative unknown. That was 2022 at the Shriners Children\u2019s Open. <\/p>\n
He won\u2019t be gifted that anonymity this week at the ONEflight Myrtle Beach Classic.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n The former PGA Tour player-turned-YouTube creator makes his long-anticipated return to the Tour this week in South Carolina thanks to winning The Q, a creator-led qualifier at Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club.<\/p>\n \u201cThis time coming from more of a YouTube space, it\u2019s been a lot more fanfare. A lot more support. My social media is going crazy leading up to event,\u201d Ruffels told reporters Wednesday. \u201cWhen I Monday qualified for Shriners, I went under the radar and could do my own thing. Very different experience but equally as excited.\u201d<\/p>\n The 28-year-old Australian was the 13th-ranked amateur in the world before turning professional in January 2016, when he debuted at the Farmers Insurance Open. <\/p>\n In the 10 years since, he\u2019s bounced around from the PGA Tour Americas to the Korn Ferry Tour.<\/a><\/span> Yet, nothing\u2019s had a bigger impact on his game than social media, and how he\u2019s learned to leverage it as a path back into the most competitive golf circles.<\/p>\n \u201cYou always have an idea of what you want things to look like,\u201d Ruffels explained. \u201cI\u2019d say most of the time they probably don\u2019t end up exactly the way that you planned them. For me, it certainly didn\u2019t, but I think I\u2019m right where I\u2019m supposed to be in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n \u201cYou roll with the punches: You take the good with the bad,\u201d he added. \u201cYou figure out where your next opportunity is going to lie and how you\u2019re going to make something of yourself.<\/p>\n Ruffels figured there was a real opportunity to go down the social media path and felt like he knew enough of the right people to feel confident about launching his YouTube channel <\/a><\/span>that now draws more than 66,000 subscribers. <\/p>\n He said he maintained his game despite bringing the \u201ctemperature down a little bit\u201d to show it off on YouTube.<\/p>\n \u201cAs anybody chasing the professional golf dream knows, it\u2019s a tough one,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re not right at the upper echelons of the game, it\u2019s expensive too. I kind of wanted to use YouTube as maybe an avenue down that down the road I could give myself opportunities in professional golf. Here we are.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess that plan is somewhat falling into place.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Brooks Koepka headlines the field at Dunes Golf and Beach Club. Here\u2019s when he will tee off Thursday and how to watch.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Ruffels used his 20 career PGA starts to his advantage at The Q.<\/p>\n Grant Horvat, who won the Creator Classic Series event at TPC Sawgrass last year, jumped out to an early lead behind four consecutive birdies, but it was Ruffels\u2019 bogey-free back nine that proved to be the trump card of the two-round event. The tournament started with match play contests at Rivers Edge Golf Club before being whittled down to the four players that advanced to Pawleys.<\/p>\n Ruffels was able play a round at Dunes Golf and Beach Club following his Q victory, his first experience at the course.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a long course \u2014 that suits me,\u201d he said. \u201cDriver, I think is a really important part of my game, something that I always kind of go back on. … I\u2019ve become a really good chipper over the last kind of year or two. So, if I need to scramble a little bit, I\u2019ll hopefully have that kind of to my advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n So, what\u2019s the biggest difference between being a Tour professional and a social media star? <\/p>\n Ruffels says it\u2019s the cadence of which criticism is heard, obtained and learned from.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so intense every day in terms of critiquing myself and the different parts of my game, so it\u2019s allowed my kind of, I guess, natural talent and athleticism to shine a little bit more because I\u2019m able to play more freely, and it\u2019s not everything to me every time I step up to the tee,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Brooks Koepka returns to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, this week as the betting favorite to win an opposite-field event.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Ruffels\u2019 sister, Gabriela, has had her own success on the links. She finished T-9 at the 2025 Evian Championship, just a decade after leaving tennis for golf. <\/p>\n Winning has become part of her DNA, with the brother and sister duo claiming the the 2025 Grass League Championship in a team event<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cJust another thing that I didn\u2019t ever foresee happening that happened. I think if you\u2019re a brother-brother or a sister-sister kind of combination, you might get a chance to play like Alex and Matt did at the Zurich or, I\u2019m sure Nelly and Jess [Korda] maybe at a Solheim Cup, but as a brother-sister there\u2019s not many opportunities where you might get a chance to play with each other,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cTo be able to play with my sister, who is obviously a phenomenal player in her own right out on the LPGA Tour, was such a cool experience and to win that with her. Everyone has been telling me that she carried me, so this week maybe I can hold my own a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll remember that forever, and I think she will as well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n Matt Fitzpatrick and his younger brother Alex combined for a 1-under 71 in alternate shot play on Sunday, to pull out a drama-filled, single-stroke victory in the Zurich Classic and usher the younger Fitzpatrick onto the PGA Tour through 2028.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n window.fbAsyncInit = function() { };<\/p>\n (function(d, s, id){ Ryan Ruffels has been rolling with the punches for the better part of a decade. The result? A lot of eyeballs and an assuredness that he\u2019s exactly where he\u2019s supposed to be. Last time he teed off on the PGA Tour, Ruffels did so under the radar as a relative unknown. That was 2022 at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/No-more-incognito-Ryan-Ruffels-brings-massive-YouTube-following-to.com2Fbrightspot2F572F0e.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30010"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30012,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30010\/revisions\/30012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Last man standing <\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
The next Fitzpatricks? <\/h2>\n
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