Erik Anders Lang’s first round of golf was December 12, 2011. He was almost 30, a photographer and music video director who’d worked with David LaChapelle and directed for Pharrell. He didn’t identify with what seemed to be a sport for conservative White guys. So in 2017, he and co-founder Evan Roosevelt created Random Golf Club — “The Global Community of Local Golfers” — and set out to change who golf is for.
The first meetup was Melbourne, 2018. Eleven strangers played ten holes and nobody wanted to leave. Now there are 30,000 active members across 140 worldwide chapters, a Mad Scramble Tour that sends 100 players down the same fairway in 40+ cities, Classics at bucket-list courses from Sweetens Cove to Cabot Citrus Farms, and international Majors in Japan, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand. The randomness mechanic is the secret sauce — your ball determines who you stand near and talk to. It’s a bit like dressing a salad and mixing it all up.
The media arm is as big as the community. The EAL Show podcast runs every Monday — 350+ episodes, completely unedited, focused on why people golf, not how. RGC Films has 300,000+ YouTube subscribers and produces The Breaking Series, where RGC members play major championship courses from the pros’ tees. Adventures in Golf — Lang’s flagship — has run 8+ seasons traveling from Mumbai slums to Tokyo private clubs to Compton Municipal.
The pro shop is an extension of the community, not the point of it. The ECCO BIOM H5 collab shoe was born from an Adventures in Golf episode at Nuuk Golf Club in Greenland. The Blank Canvas Carry Bags in waxed canvas are anti-establishment by design. The City Golf collection is streetwear for golfers who grab pizza after a round. HQ is in East Austin. The Austin Mad Scramble hits Onion Creek on September 5. This is community-first golf, and the community is already 30,000 deep.
