Is Tiger Woods’ apparel brand adding its first PGA Tour ambassador other than Woods?
Sun Day Red recently posted a social-media post, teasing a Tuesday announcement by posting a caption that reads, “Next on the tee,” along with a silhouette that resembles PGA Tour rookie Karl Vilips. That coincides with a landing page from Sun Day Red’s official website, titled “Karl Vilips – Brand Ambassador,” showing up on Google with a description reading, “We are proud to announce our first brand ambassador, Karl Vilips.” The link, however, is not live.
Vilips, a 23-year-old Australian who played collegiately at Stanford, is making his season debut at this week’s Mexico Open after missing the first month and a half of the season because of injury.
Vilips was a standout junior and one of the first golfers to develop a YouTube following. As an amateur, Vilips reached as high as No. 12 in the world rankings and capped his college career with a strong postseason that include a win at the 2024 Pac-12 Championship and T-8 finish at the NCAA Championship.
He earned conditional Korn Ferry Tour status last summer via PGA Tour University and after playing twice on PGA Tour Americas, he earned a sponsor exemption (via a local qualifying event) for his KFT debut, at The Ascendant, where his T-13 earned him another start. He then went T-15, runner-up, win en route to finishing No. 19 on the KFT points list and graduate to the PGA Tour.
Vilips wore adidas apparel for much of last year, though at the KFT Championship in October he had on TaylorMade attire for the first few days (he has an equipment deal with TaylorMade) before donning a Sun Day Red polo for Sunday’s final round.
