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Tiger Woods plays his second shot on the first hole during the second round of the 2022 PGA Championship

Tiger Woods plays his second shot on the first hole during the second round of the 2022 PGA Championship

Ross Kinnaird / Getty Images

It’s advice plenty of us have received (or maybe should have received) over the years: Stop staring at your phone and live in the moment. For one beer-drinking golf fan, it landed him a deal with Michelob Ultra.

Mark Radetic, a Missouri man who was attending the PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, went viral over the weekend just for holding a can: In an image showing fans watching Tiger Woods on Friday, Radetic was pretty much the only person not holding their phone to take a video or snapshot of the famed golfer. Instead, Radetic had his hands firmly attached to something else.

“[The photo] really took off because everybody was on their cam except me, and I was holding a Michelob Ultra,” he told St. Louis’s KMOV. Not only did people find the image funny, Michelob saw it as a great promotional opportunity. “They said they want to do an ad campaign around it.”

By Tuesday, Michelob Ultra had tracked Radetic down. “We found #TheMichelobGuy. As you can imagine, Mark was hard to reach,” the brand tweeted, along with a 15 second ad highlighting the moment. “He proved it’s only worth it if you enjoy it, so we immortalized him with some merch.”

Indeed, on Anheuser-Busch’s ShopBeerGear.com right now, you can order a Michelob Ultra Guy Tee or preorder a Michelob Ultra Guy Hat, both for $25.

And days later, Michelob Ultra was still milking the guy’s image. Earlier today, the beer brand tweeted a mockup of a potential Michelob Guy beer can. “We should make @TheMichUltraGuy his own can, right?” they wrote.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think standing there watching Tiger Woods hit a shot and me holding a beer that it would turn into this,” Radetic told The 73rd Hole podcast. Later, he explained the moment: “I took some pictures as [Tiger] came up, but then, I’ll be honest with you, I’m not very good with my phone. And as they say, live in the moment. And I wanted to watch him hit the ball because it was a tough second shot. Also, they had signs up, ‘Do not take pictures of anybody or any player within 100 yards.’ Well, as you see, nobody paid attention to that. I put my phone down and just held on to my beer.”

But what did Radetic get for his efforts? He told The 73rd Hole, “They were promising me — as they said — a copious amount of beer and merchandise and the potential to go to other PGA events. So I am waiting, so we’ll see what happens.”

Sure, for most people, a bit of free beer may seem like a raw deal on $25 t-shirts, but for Mark Radetic, being content with just having a beer is kind of his whole thing.

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