YouTube star Chaz Bowker’s unlikely path from chef to top-ranked adaptive golfer
A familiar scene usually plays out when Albert “Chaz” Bowker steps to the first tee. Those paired with the man who only stands a few inches taller than a standard-length driver assume he’s in the wrong place—until they see him swing his own club.
“When I go to the same tee boxes as them, they look at me like, ‘What is this guy doing?’ ” the 4-foot-4 Bowker says. “I let them hit, and I go, 'Alright, I’ll probably be past your ball or next to it. Watch this.’ I just hit it, and they look at me like a madman. I’ll go, ‘Yep, sorry. It’s gonna be a long day for you.’ They’re just rattled completely.”
That scene of surprise is happening less often these days for the YouTube golf star—especially after the inaugural Internet Invitational. The event put on by Barstool and Bob Does Sports aired in November and featured 48 of the biggest names in the space teeing it up at Missouri's Big Cedar Lodge. The field’s shortest player stole the show. Chaz was eliminated in the team competition before the $1 million final, but his impressive two-day performance included a clinic in driving accuracy that would have made Calvin Peete proud, as well as a pair of clutch $12,000 putts.
“The reactions have been awesome,” says Bowker, who has been getting recognized more in airports when he travels. “A lot of people are reaching out saying how much they love my swing, and the support is unreal. Knowing all my hard work over the past years through struggles really pays off, and it makes me happy.”
KNIVES OUT: Bowker traded the kitchen for the course for fear that a hand injury would ruin his golf game.
Bowker, 28, says he was 7 when he realized his size was going to keep him from excelling at other sports like football and basketball. He pivoted to golf thanks to his dad, an old set of his grandpa’s clubs and … a hacksaw. “I told my dad, ‘Let’s cut these down and put new grips on.’ We did that and there was just a spark,” Bowker says. “I fell in love with the game.”
Bowker wound up making the varsity golf team at Santa Ynez High School in California as a freshman and playing for four years. After graduating, he took a break from the game to go to culinary school in Italy. He describes the experience as “The time of my life,” and upon returning to the Santa Barbara area, he put his cooking skills—and Italian cuisine and culture certification—to use by working as a chef at S.Y. Kitchen for seven years.
Unfortunately, Bowker’s father, Peter, passed away during this time in 2020, but that also inspired Chaz to get back into golf. “He always said, ‘This is your sport, bud. Stick with it,’ ” Bowker says of his father. “The spark came back and said, ‘Chaz, go play golf. That’s your happy place.’ ”
The man who can cook a mean salmon puttanesca began serving up golf content on the side, but he didn’t attract much attention until a meeting with trick-shot artist Joshua Kelley in the fall of 2024. Many content collaborations followed, including one where Chaz, playing on stilts so that he can be at the same height as Kelley, who at 6-foot-4 stands a full two feet taller, makes a long putt from off the green.
Bowker eventually started his own YouTube channel in June 2025—the description reads “I’m 4’4” and like to hit it far”—and he already has more than 22,000 subscribers with only three solo videos at the time of writing. The most popular is a nine-hole match against Los Angeles Lakers star Austin Reaves in which Chaz beats the scratch player to win Lakers tickets. Chaz collected on the bet and was a few rows from the court for the Lakers season opener in October.
Bowker is now competing in more official events as well, including playing in the first four U.S. Adaptive Opens. So far, his best finish in that championship was T-14 in 2024, when he also tied for second in the short-stature category. Ranked No. 1 in the U.S. in that category, Bowker’s goal is to beat World No. 1 Brendan Lawlor from Ireland.
“There’s a rivalry there, but we’re good mates and stuff,” says Bowker, who also shot even par over two days at the inaugural Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) Adaptive Championship in May 2025. “The European side of disabled golf right now is a little bit bigger than the U.S., but the U.S. is definitely stepping up ever since the USGA got on board and other groups . . . are putting on events,” Bowker says. “Once those events get out, there’s going to be a lot more Europeans coming out, so we’ll have a showdown.”
Chaz’s appearance—alongside one-armed golfer Andrew Austen—in the Internet Invitational also brought attention to the adaptive golf community. “It feels absolutely amazing because we’re spreading awareness,” says Bowker, who currently has a 2.0 Handicap Index, but plays to as low as a plus-2 from the adaptive tournament tees.
His grandpa’s cut-down clubs in the past, Bowker signed an equipment deal with Callaway last April that has helped him get more tournament ready and average more than 240 yards off the tee. He’s also left the cooking career in the past. “I’m putting down these knives because if I cut off my fingers, I’m not gonna play golf,” Bowker smiles. “There might be another adaptive impairment, the short-stature hand impairment.”
Bowker constantly grinds on his golf game while working in outside service at Alisal Guest Ranch & Resort in Solvang, Calif., but he hopes to eventually make YouTube Golf his full-time gig.
“There’s two different types of Chazzy,” Bowker says. “Chazzy Tournament and Chazzy YouTube. When I film YouTube, I’m more fired up and ready to talk to people and have a good time, but when I go to play my tournaments, I’m fully locked in. [My] eyes are just looking forward, blocking everybody out. Let’s go hit fairways and let’s go make putts.”
The Internet Invitational was a perfect mix of the two as Bowker showed his serious golf chops while also playing to the camera. The results don’t lie as his Instagram following has more than doubled to 150,000 since the event aired. “It’s crazy,” Bowker says. “I’m
loving the ride.”
As evidenced by Bowker’s ever-growing fanbase, they’re loving it too.
