How Hally Leadbetter is Innovating Golf Content with Humor and Creativity

She has one of the most famous last names in golf, but Hally Leadbetter is committed to making a big name for herself with 2025 underway – and a new production company she’s co-founded now launched.

Leadbetter, who is the daughter of iconic and world-renowned swing coach David Leadbetter, has been in the content space (and broadcasting and event hosting and podcasting and emceeing and brand ambassadorship and social media influencing and, well, you get the idea) for more than a half-decade now. She launched Better Content Co. alongside veteran Hollywood producer and director Andrew Wantuck earlier in February with the objective of trying to help brands break through the noise on social media by using comedy. 

Leadbetter already had a hefty handful of sketches posted on her social media account – garnering hundreds of thousands of views – and the launch of Better Content Co. formalized the business side of her laugh-out-loud efforts. 

“I love making things,” Leadbetter says. “For me, I love being on camera so when it makes sense I’ll do it. But I realized there were a lot of brands I was working with and things I was doing, where I had good ideas for, but it didn’t require me to be in front of the camera. 

“I had moved to L.A., and I met so many people in the entertainment space who loved golf and would jump at the opportunity to work at something golf related. We had people willing to do the work. If I’m on camera, great, but just to be around golf and using my brain is something I’m equally passionate about. The stars lined up and we saw this opportunity.” 

Leadbetter has taken influence from the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli, as a bit of a north star to her business planning. The brothers appear on programming, but they also have Omaha Productions. The Mannings are a perfect analogy for what she hopes Better Content Co. can become.

“You know, ‘Hally can emcee, she can be on camera, she can be a broadcaster, but you can also hire her brain and use her connections and we can help your brand succeed when it comes to content,’” Leadbetter explains. 

Leadbetter has been open about having severe OCD throughout her life and liking things to be black and white. Going on this business-startup journey has meant she’s had to be more comfortable in not having it all figured out all the time. Better Content Co. has officially been more than a year in the making, while she and Wantuck have known each other for three years.

Building a business, she explains, is like moving. You buy a new house and you’re excited – but the moving process is stressful and “kind of sucks,” she says with a smile.

“But you know once you get settled it’s going to be worth it. For 2024, for me, it was the moving into the house and being clear on what I wanted to do and what ‘Hally Leadbetter in the golf space’ was going to be,” she explains. “In terms of overall (business) lessons, it’s OK to figure things out as you go and just be patient. It’ll be worth it on the other side.”

While Leadbetter’s 2025 is off to a fast start, work wise, she teed it up at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions as part of the ‘celebrity’ division at the LPGA Tour’s season opener. She also has grand ambitions of making the field of the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur, this year taking place at Monterey Peninsula Country Club in Pebble Beach. Leadbetter finished a very respectable 12th at the Tournament of Champions but shot 80 in the third round and called her golf-coach father to “whine” about it, she says. David Leadbetter was the 2017 PGA Teacher of the Year – he could probably help. Her putting was terrible. Her speed control was off.

“And he’s like, ‘Hally, when was the last time you practiced?’ Leadbetter says with a laugh. “And I didn’t have an answer.”

Leadbetter says she loves to play competitive golf, with it being a meditative experience for her to just keep trying to get the ball in the hole. She will, she admits, make some time to practice as she aims to get into the Mid-Amateur field. She played college golf originally at the University of Arkansas before transferring to Rollins College, where she was part of the women’s golf team that won the 2016 Division II national championship.

Her husband, Billy Candler (the CEO of a music merchandise company in California) is also a huge golfer which helps fuel her competitive fire. Funny enough, when Candler asked David Leadbetter for his blessing to propose to Hally, Leadbetter said yes but only if he fixed his takeaway.

“I came downstairs during Christmas and they’re in the kitchen working on the top of his backswing,” Leadbetter says, smiling. “They’re the perfect combo of father-in-law, son-in-law – because they are both golf sickos.”

While Leadbetter continues to act as an ambassador for Nike Golf, LA Golf, and TopGolf (if you head to a venue and hear someone say, “Stay behind the red line!” that is Leadbetter) and appear on a variety of other broadcast platforms, she is not alone as a powerful woman in the golf space these days. Leadbetter is friends with Kira Dixon of NBC/Golf Channel, Amanda Balionis of CBS, Gabby Herzig of The Athletic, Nicole Rae at Skratch, and many others. She says it’s been incredible to see them arrive at positions of influence.

“The onslaught of women who are passionate about golf – it’s just really cool to see more of them at the top of the golf industry and that’s why we’re seeing a shift in perspective,” Leadbetter says. “There are women in these positions that are visible. And we can start twisting the knobs of the industry.” 

Leadbetter herself is doing just that. 

With a few big laughs along the way.