17 NIALL HORAN

Popstar and self-confessed golf fanatic who set up a management company, Modest! Golf, in 2016.

The 29-year-old has gone from being part of One Direction to revolutionising how golf is perceived by minority groups. Besides managing a wealth of stars, including Tyrrell Hatton, Leona Maguire and disability golfer Brendan Lawlor, Horan has set out to change the face of golf by making it more diverse and inclusive. He was instrumental in the birth of the ISPS HANDA World Invitational, presented by Modest! Golf, which sees men and women compete side by side for equal money. The event broke ground as the first event of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere and is now tri-sanctioned by the DP World, LPGA and Ladies European Tours. His stock is so great that his agency have been appointed by the R&A to help develop a series of grassroots programmes aimed at getting young people into golf. It probably helps that he has 41.1 million followers on Twitter and 30.7 million on Instagram as well.

When I started Modest! Golf, my intention was always to do my bit to get more young people into the game and to support the younger generation of professional golfer. Hopefully the work we are doing in the event space and in addition to our work with the R&A, we like to think we are doing our bit.

I always say that if I can get a couple of percent of the 41 million of my Twitter followers interested in golf, it’s a game changer because a couple of percent of a lot of people is a lot of people! So we’re going to try to move the needle as much as we can.