DALLAS — Luke Kwon's livelihood is on YouTube: His journey as a pro golfer, his instructional videos, his matches with other pros, like Bryson DeChambeau.
But when Kwon settled in front of the camera last week, the subject wasn't golf. Instead, Kwon was talking about his life, and how he almost lost it.
"I almost died," the video title said. "(NOT CLICKBAIT)."
Kwon, who is from Carrollton, was playing an alumni golf tournament last month at the University of Oklahoma when he hit his head in a golf cart accident.
The injury wasn't an emergency, at least not at first.
Kwon had accidentally hit his head on a bridge railing as he rode across in a cart. It left him rattled and a little confused. But he managed to play seven more holes of golf, finishing his round, and then he drove back to his hotel, about 40 minutes away.
While his girlfriend texted him to go to the hospital, Kwon kept thinking about the cost. His girlfriend arrived at his hotel later that day, and Kwon gave in: He'd go to the emergency room.
His decision was just in time.
A CT scan found nearly one-fourth of Kwon's brain was bleeding, he said. Kwon later learned he was suffering from epidural hematoma, a deadly brain injury. Doctors told him he was likely 30-45 minutes from dying.
Kwon underwent emergency brain surgery, as doctors removed a portion of his skull to reduce the bleeding. He woke up four days later in a fog.
"I was like, 'Why am I in this room?'" Kwon told WFAA. "'Why am I so swollen? What happened?' I was trying to just piece together everything at that point."
Doing that meant trying to remember how the accident even happened, a memory that's proven to be a challenge for Kwon.
As Kwon explained in his YouTube video, he had hit a tee shot and then was riding as a passenger in a cart as they went across a narrow bridge to the fairway. For some reason, as Kwon tried to remember, his head was sticking just far enough out of the cart to where he hit his head on the bridge's metal beam railing.
His playing partner asked him what happened, and Kwon wasn't sure. They went on to play the hole, and then played six more. Kwon had a headache but never lost consciousness.
In hindsight, he said, he couldn't remember a single shot he hit after injuring his head.
Kwon survived the ordeal without any major long-term effects; he's had lingering swelling for the last month, but he didn't lose any mental or motor functions. And this past week, he was cleared to return to golf.
And that's a good thing for more reasons than one.
After college at OU, Kwon turned professional, playing on PGA Tour circuits in China and Latin America. He also earned status on the Korn Ferry Tour, where golfers can earn their PGA Tour card.
At the same time, Kwon began creating content for YouTube, posting instructional videos and updates from his golf journey.
He gradually built a following, in between pursuing pro golf across the world.
Over the last year, he ramped up efforts into his page, and his audience kept growing, now up to nearly 90,000 subscribers.
He went head-to-head with DeChambeau, the Dallas pro who won the 2020 U.S. Open. He launched bombs with Martin Borgmeier, who recently won the Pro Long Drive world championship.
And over the last two months he began to appear in videos with the wildly popular Good Good, a group of Frisco-based twenty-somethings who film golf content across the country.
Good Good recently eclipsed 1 million subscribers on YouTube, the second-largest golf page on the platform. While not officially a member of the group, Kwon filmed numerous videos with Good Good on a recent trip to Branson, Mo.
Good Good began releasing videos from the Branson trip in early September. Kwon's accident was on Sept. 23. When Good Good posted about Kwon's accident, more than 1,000 people left well-wishes in the comments.
Kwon saw a similar reaction on his personal pages, waking up to a mass of new followers.
"It's a bit overwhelming, because I used to be able to respond to almost every comment," Kwon said. "But I I read through everyone's messages and comments, and I appreciate everyone's kind words."
The support from his followers wasn't just in the comments. This week Kwon, who is uninsured, started a GoFundMe to help raise money for his medical bills from the brain injury. He had figured the bill would be around $5,000. Instead, it was around $19,000. In less than three days, Kwon's supporters raised $20,148 across 679 donations.
"None of them really needed to do it," Kwon said. "It's really cool seeing the support coming from my community, for sure. It helped me out when I needed it."
