The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Burnerverse

In the curious corner of the internet known as #Golftwitter, a band of burner accounts have formed an informal quasi-alliance that is loosely called The Burnerverse. The Burners that populate the Burnerverse fancy themselves as guardians of sorts, a top-100 logo-clad army who rally around their love of golf’s traditions and trappings.

There is no membership application for the Burnerverse. There is no test or interview. There simply is the Burnerverse. Either you align, or you do not.

I spent two weeks among the Burners learning their ways and their language. These are my findings.

The Burner Manifesto

The Burners are bonded by a belief that Grow the Game initiatives, coupled with the post-pandemic boom in interest, has left the game overpopulated by far too many baggy-fit Malbon casuals and BIG LETTER HAT Stoolies. As far as the Burners are concerned, all of the Johnny-Miller-come-latelys are making golf worse. The Burner rally cry aimed at the grow the game newcomers is direct: #SHRINK.

As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is nothing new under the sun. Almost everything the Burners debate or discuss on X, formerly twitter, can be found on a GolfWRX forum or the Golf Club Atlas message board. Their crusade is not the first call to traditional arms nor will it be the last.

While the Burnerverse shares an appetite for decorum, there is also a healthy dose of tactless flaunting. There is, however, something unique about the Burners that makes their whole schtick entertaining and compelling. It’s hard to put a finger on it, but their entire ethos borders on a shamelessness that would make their fuddy-duddy forefathers tremble with rage. Whether their posts draw applause or pearl clutching, you cannot deny the entertainment value. Consider this sampling by the wildly popular @seminolesammie69:

While the post reads: “Tonight’s loadout.”

What the post really says: “Yes, I play courses you’ve never heard of. No, I’m not about to apologize for Burning Tree being a ‘men only’ club. And yes, I have to decide which Rolex I wear every damn night. Yell at a wall if that bothers you.”

This effort by @camyoungburner says a lot:

Occasionally, the Burnerverse will provide a post that promotes thoughtful debate. This effort not only did that, but gave the Burners a chance to show how well they know ball.

Before the Burnerverse

#Golftwitter has long benefitted from the presence of elite burner accounts like @ANTIFAldo and @wokekenzie. But it was the summer of 2024 when a lesser-known burner emerged that would begin to lay the groundwork for what eventually became The Burnerverse: the singular @Eldricks_hoes, AKA Country Club Snob.

The Saga of the Snob

Country Club Snob (the Snob) blended his posts with equal parts cringe, perceived privilege, and snobbery. Constantly belittling and taking jabs and the public player, the mid- to entry-level country club member, and the quickly forming culture around post-pandemic golf. His popularity soared in the summer of 2024 as post after (sometimes hilarious but often tasteless) post were shared widely.

As it turns out, his jabs at the mid-tier club life proved to be a bit too detailed. He was ultimately doxxed as a member of a mid-tier club in the heart of SEC Country, Knoxville, Tennessee. The exact kind of mid-tier life he deprecated with so many tweets. In the end, the Snob was a caricature of his own life. Soon after he was doxxed—poof—the Snob was gone. His sarcastic tone and unapologetic affinity for the (supposedly) finer things in golf strongly echo in the highly entitled Burnerverse. If there’s a Big Bang moment for the Burnerverse, it’s the downfall of the Snob.

In the Beginning

Most people will agree that the Burnerverse first started to take shape around November 2024 in the vacuum left by the departure of Country Club Snob in August. A language started to form within a handful of accounts that spoke to a certain ideology of what was right and wrong in golf. Take clothing for example: certain things were “expand” (Johnnie-O, Peter Millar), certain things were “shrink” (Bad Birdie, MUNICIPAL). In fact, there was a lot of @shrink.

“Shrink was a response to the cringe we see so much of in the golf world,” @TuckedPins, known as NetStick in the Burnerverse, shared with me. “People blaring music from their Bluetooth is shrink,” NetStick said, “Don’t get me wrong, listen to your music at an appropriate level, that’s fine, but just be considerate and learn how to act on a golf course.” A single-digit player who lives in Pennsylvania and works in insurance, NetStick believes that conformity to golf’s traditions makes the game better for everyone.

This view is widely shared among the purists in the Burnerverse who have no time to waste watching an 8-man-scramble on YouTube. @ChipJohnson01, aka Perry “Chip” Maxwell, is another Burner with roots deep in golf traditions. For him, the Burnerverse is about finding a community of like-minded souls. “I've played golf since the day I could walk. I'm someone who appreciates what the game was before COVID and before everyone and their mother wanted to play. For me, the Burnerverse has been a community of people who share the same values about the game and like to talk about niche golf stuff." And, boy, do these guys like to talk.

The Spaces

Led by #BallKnowers like @SeminoleSammy69, the Burnerverse congregate almost nightly into Spaces on X, like so many Night’s Watchmen defending the realm of golf. The lively discussions can cover predictable topics like equipment, golf courses, watches, gas station food, and, of course, top 100 golf courses and other “sick” clubs. Just a few days ago, @RevRabbiJohnson playfully lamented to @NotDaRealGil that it “must suck to only have one connection at Grove XXIII.” The Burners love to discuss their access and connections.

Due to the anonymity and general free-for-all laissez-faire nature of the Burnerverse, you’re also going to get some wild cards in these Spaces sessions. By wild cards, I mean vile racism and sexism. While listening to one of the Spaces a few weeks ago, I was floored to hear the N-word used openly. When another Burner rightfully challenged the offender to not use that kind of language, the offender doubled down, stating he was of Greek heritage and using hateful slurs was somehow part of defending his way of life. An uncomfortable silence followed, and the conversation shifted back to resort golf. Such is life in the Burnerverse.

Who the Hell Are These Guys?

The Burnerverse gives off a very ESPN GameDay-frat house-SEC-vibe. You know the type: twentysomethings who are still effectively living off their parents and enjoying junior memberships at clubs on the outskirts of second- and third-tier cities like Birmingham and Knoxville. That vibe is misleading, however, as the Burnerverse spreads from coast to coast, with high-density pockets in places like New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas and Florida. Many of them are single-digit handicappers, including a smattering of former collegiate players. Donny “Turtleback” Ross (@DonnyRoss1872) is the apex predator of the Burners with his alleged plus 5.4 index and a razor-sharp wit to match.

A pattern emerges in the X bios of the Burners. Most have account names that play off the names of men who formed golf’s Golden Age. This is often done in jest. Take @ThrobbyJones, for example. The bios are brief, but often include GHIN indexes, number of top-100 clubs notched and, in some cases, a brand allegiance.

The Burnerverse is decentralized with no home base and no specific leader or leaders. There are, of course, a few that stand out. Some brief dossiers:

@NotdaRealGil is among the best the Burnerverse has to offer. His strengths include photography, architectural and historical acumen, and, surprisingly, penmanship. A muni golf product who now appreciates the game on a heightened level.

@Leftyzag is the rare Burner who puts his face in pictures and videos. Family man and a stick (+2). Celebrator of both private and public golf. Blade putter for life, Titleist enthusiast and a craftsman with a wedge.

@underwritedeez is one of the more culturally tuned-in burners. No one is safe from his sarcastic takes than run the gamut from food to sport to politics. Recently started streaming live hole-in-one challenges.

@OuimetEnjoyer is the rare left-handed, brand agnostic burner. Top-3 player in the Burnerverse. Ridiculous list of truly hard-to-get invites litter his feed. Frontline #shrink soldier. Fearless, under-appreciated follow.

The #Brands

Whenever a large group of impressionable single young men with large amounts of (their parents’?) disposable income comes together, the #brands won’t be far behind. What’s unique about the Burnerverse is they somewhat call the brands to them via a barrage of social media tags.

As for apparel, their loyalty to brands like B.Draddy, Holderness & Bourne, Johnnie-O and Peter Millar is bulletproof. This isn’t a group that takes a lot of sartorial chances, so you’ll not see much from some of golf’s more forward-thinking designers. Related, one could easily write 3,000 words about their love of logos, specifically Top-100 club logos, and the psychology around their fascination. And it is 100% safe to say if I was in a bar sitting next to two grown-ass men discussing the Yale logo as Biff Roberts, @ButlerCabin1894 does below, I’d ask them to step outside and beat some sense into them.

As for equipment, Titleist, along with all of the peripheral Acushnet brand companies like Footjoy, Scotty Cameron and Vokey, is the clear front-runner. No surprise here as the Burnerverse likes tradition and traditional brands. That said, anyone who posts a set of Miura or Fourteen blades would be applauded.

The Burners have an app. Kind of. Course Vaults is a newly designed, highly addictive app that allows users to track and rank the courses they’ve played. Unlike most golf brands or products that focus on Instagram’s platform to launch and promote, Course Vaults’ founder Zico zigged where others zagged. “We intentionally went to golf twitter,” he told me. “We found pretty early that the Burnerverse was filled with passionate posters that were louder and more vocal than the other corners of golf twitter.”

The Burnerverse took a liking to Course Vaults almost immediately as evidenced by @NOTdaRealGil’s 275 reviews (Royal Dornoch and Merion East tied at the top receiving 9.9 out of a perfect 10). As I write this, Burners are posting pictures of themselves wearing Course Vaults merch. It appears as if Zico has found his seleção.

There’s a quote in the 2020 documentary The Social Dilemma: “If it’s free, you’re the product,” which brings us to @BowTied_Golfer, and his free newsletter The Tuxedo Collective. His breadth of insider knowledge gets eaten up in the Burnnerverse in the same way 13-year-old boys read The Robb Report to learn more about the Lamborghini they’ll buy as soon as they finish college.

Wondering how to best prepare for your interview at one of America’s elite country clubs? Worry not. This is the newsletter for you. As for the 99% of us who will never join an elite club, BTG still delivers refreshing and aspirational content, written in a pithy and authoritative tone that reads almost like a manifesto. BTG also leads a weekly discussion on Spaces.

What’s Real, What Isn’t

For all its colorful characters, the Burnerverse is occupied by a fair share of casuals who wouldn’t know The Valley Club from Hidden Valley Ranch. For them, it’s not about a love of golf, rather a love of the game’s trappings. The sense of agency and belonging one might feel in certain restricted corners of the game speaks to these Burners: a narrow view of what golf is or should be, informed by access, commercialism and exclusion.

One golf Burner who is decidedly not part of the Burnerverse is @Tweeth_Mitchell. I asked for his thoughts on the Burnerverse. “If you imagine someone who is considering golf for the first time, and they see the Burnerverse and think, ‘That looks cool,’ they start to do the things Burners do—dress like them, go to the places they go. Then, they have their Martin Luther moment and realize what golf is really about, which is much deeper than logos and status. So, for them, the Burnerverse serves as an entry point before they become enlightened.”

Tweeth’s words stuck with me in the weeks I embedded myself among the Burners. There is no doubt about the passion many of them have for the game, for life, for the good life. But the Burners don’t know what they don’t know. You can love a Timex Expedition just as much as a Rolex Daytona. Your membership doesn’t define the person you are. Wear whatever brand you want, with whatever logo you want. The magic of golf, the relationships it forges, the ability it has to galvanize people, happens every day at beat-up municipal courses all over the world, not just elite private clubs. The gold is in the game itself, not the finery that surrounds it.