 | |
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Location | Ridgedale, Missouri, United States |
| Established | 2025 |
| Course | Big Cedar Lodge |
| Organized by | Barstool Sports and Bob Does Sports |
| Current champion | |
| Brad Dalke, Francis Ellis, Cody "Beef" Franke | |
The Internet Invitational is a golf tournament conducted by Barstool Sports and YouTuber Bob Does Sports. It features various social media golf personalities such as Paige Spiranac, Grant Horvat, and Wesley Bryan.
The inaugural Internet Invitational took place in August 2025 at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri. [1] It contained six episodes which aired over a three-week span in October and November 2025. [2]
The winning team consisted of Brad Dalke, Francis Ellis, and Cody "Beef" Franke, who won over a team consisting of Paige Spiranac, Frankie Borrelli, and Malosi Togisala. [3] The day before the series was set to air, one of the winners, Cody Franke, died while away in Jamaica. [4] [5] Barstool Sports and the Foreplay podcast helped to set up a scholarship fund in his name for golf management at his alma mater, Ferris State University. [6] The three winners split an equal share of one million dollars for winning the event.
The tournament featured 48 content creators, predominantly consisting of YouTube golfers. [7] The tournament took place over three days in August 2025. The first night consisted of an initial draft in which the 48 competitors were drafted into two separate teams of 24 people with Robby "Bob" Berger and Sam "Riggs" Bozoian captaining the two teams. [8]
The first day consisted of two sessions (morning and afternoon) of 9 holes each for the 12 pairs of competitors on each team. [9] The morning session was a scramble format and the afternoon session was in an alternate shot format. Team Riggs won the first day and Team Bob was eliminated from the tournament.
The second day had the same format for the remaining 24 players. The new captains were Frankie Borelli and Riggs. Team Frankie won the second day and his team of 12 players went onto the semi-finals on day 3, which consisted of an 18-hole round in the morning and an 18-hole round in the afternoon for the remaining 12 competitors who were split into 4 teams of 3. The teams captained by Paige Spiranac and Brad Dalke respectfully went onto the finals.
In addition to originally airing on YouTube, the event later aired on Fox Sports 1 and streamed on the Fox One app. [10]
On the first day of the event, there was a controversy involving golfer, Luke Kwon, a professional golfer on the PGA Tour China. [11] Kwon overslept and missed his tee time. [12] As a result, he was penalized four holes by Dave Portnoy, the host and rules commissioner for the event. When he arrived, he was considered disrespectful to the competition and rude to his partner, PFT Commenter. [13] It was later discovered that Kwon was almost kicked off of his college golf team for similar incidents of oversleeping. [14]
There were two separate cheating allegations in the finals of the event. [15] The first cheating allegations involved Paige Spiranac. [16] [17] Paige tamped down on some fescue to give her partner, Malosi, a better lie on hole 9, which was later communicated by Peter Finch. [18] Paige started crying and claimed that she did not know that she could not improve her lie by tamping down the fescue. [19] [20] Her team lost the hole regardless, and no further action against her team was taken. [21]
On hole 10, a further controversy arose when it was alleged that Paige's teammate Malosi was using his slope function on his rangefinder, which was strictly prohibited for the event. [22] Ryan Whitney, a former NHL hockey player and host of Barstool's Spittin' Chiclets podcast, asked Malosi if he was using his slope function on his range finder and Malosi quickly scurried to his golf cart and grabbed his range finder. [23] It could not be determined if he was using the slope function, despite video review, and Malosi denied using slope, so his team was allowed to continue. [24] [25]
The second edition of the Internet Invitational took place August 10–17, 2026 at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri for the second year in a row. [26]
The tournament would be released in six episodes with episode one on October 26, episode two on October 29, episode three on November 2, episode four on November 5, episode five on November 9 and the finale on November 12. [27]
The field in 2026 expanded to 64 players, again featured content creators, predominantly consisting of YouTube golfers but also included former professional athletes. Golfers were then placed into groups of four based on skill level and golf indexes, then the field of 64 voted on one group of four golfers to be the captains each of the four different teams. The captains would then go on to select their team of 16 golfers (including themselves) and play a 100-yard hole designed by Big Cedar Lodge, with the four captains playing a closest to the pin with the winner being allowed to select one of the other three remaining teams to play on day one, plus each member of the winning team receiving $5,000.
The group of Captains selected were: Wesley Bryan (Team Green), Brad Dalke (Team Red), Peter Finch (Team Blue) and Ryan Ruffels (Team White). It was also announced before the team selections that The Hershey Company was sponosoring a hole-in-one hole, that would alternate each day, a $500,000 cash prize to the first contestant to hit a hole-in-one. The snake draft order was determined by Dave Portnoy flipping a sharpie, with Team Dalke receiving the first pick, Team Bryan going second, Team Finch going third, Team Ruffels selecting fourth and the order then reversing each round until each team was selected.
The rules officials for the tournament would be: Dave Portnoy, Big Cat & Kevin Kisner.
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The day one format was a 9-hole scramble in the morning and 9-hole alternate shot in the afternoon. Each team would then divide into eight two-person teams, with eight total matches per session with each match not using the handicap system and must play from the same teams, each match being worth 1 point. The two winning teams of 32 golfers after the first day would advance and the two losing teams of 32 golfers would be sent home. Team Ruffels won the closest to the hole competition and selected to play against Team Finch on day one, with Team Bryan and Team Dalke being left over.
Following the morning scramble, the rules committee determined if a team was putting out a group with the intention of not trying to win that match, they had the ability to veto and force the teams to repick.
Day one was played on Ozarks National, day two and three have yet to be annnounced. The format for the remaining days have yet to be announced. [28]
| Team Finch | Results | Team Ruffels |
|---|---|---|
| Borrelli/Ellis | halved | Broders/Wenzler |
| Steele/Short Game King | 4 & 2 | Spiranac/Ray |
| Finch/The Jet | 4 & 3 | Horvat/Riggs |
| Jersey Jerry/Ryan | 5 & 3 | Morris/Whitney |
| Borgmeier/Kelley | 2 & 1 | Ruffels/Gaethje |
| Kwon/Williams | 1 up | Big John/Fat Perez |
| Shiels/Joey Cold Cuts | 2 & 1 | Adams/Salim |
| Meyer/Togisala | 4 & 3 | Gruden/The Duke |
| 41⁄2 | Session | 31⁄2 |
| 41⁄2 | Overall | 31⁄2 |
| Team Dalke | Results | Team Bryan |
|---|---|---|
| Dalke/Toney | halved | G. Bryan/Bowker |
| Taco Golf/Daltoosh | halved | Boucher/Andolpho |
| Manziel/Priscilla | 4 & 2 | Alyn/Thompson |
| Nutt/Ostrom | 3 & 2 | Heung Min/Hogle |
| Bissonnette/Yandle | 3 & 2 | Cheddy/Forgeard |
| Clark/Winter | 4 & 3 | Lantz/Carmichael-Brown |
| DOD King/Santino | 2 & 1 | W. Bryan/Berger |
| Tooms/Richards | 3 & 2 | PFT Commenter/Callux |
| 2 | Session | 6 |
| 2 | Overall | 6 |
| Team Finch | Results | Team Ruffels |
|---|---|---|
| Jerry/Trent | 1 up | Salim/The Duke |
| Finch/Kelley | 1 up | Marissa/Bubbie |
| Kwon/Malosi | 2 & 1 | Big John/Fat Perez |
| Steele/Short Game King | 1 up | Horvat/Gaethje |
| Rick/Martin | 4 & 3 | Ruffles/Riggs |
| Borrelli/Ellis | halved | Ray/Gruden |
| Cass/JWill | 3 & 2 | Micah/Whitney |
| Cold Cuts/The Jet | 5 & 4 | Spiranic/Adams |
| 31⁄2 | Session | 41⁄2 |
| 8 | Overall | 8 |
| Team Dalke | Results | Team Bryan |
|---|---|---|
| Nutt/Richards | 3 & 2 | Cheddy/Foregard |
| Manziel/Toney | 3 & 2 | G. Bryan/Chaz |
| Yandle/Daltoosh | 5 & 4 | PFT/Callux |
| Dalke/Priscilla | halved | Alyn/Thompson |
| Ostrom/Tooms | halved | Boucher/Sabrina |
| Clark/Winter | 3 & 1 | Lantz/Carmichael-Brown |
| Santino/DOD King | halved | Hueng Min/Hogle |
| Taco/Biz | 4 & 3 | W. Bryan/Berger |
| 31⁄2 | Session | 41⁄2 |
| 51⁄2 | Overall | 101⁄2 |
| Team Finch | Results | Team Ruffels |
|---|---|---|
| Finch/Kwon | halved | Ruffels/Morris |
| Steele/Shiels | 1 up | Horvat/Big John |
Team Ruffels wins on second playoff hole
Team Bryan (green) defeated Team Dalke (red) 10.5 to 5.5, which eliminated 16 players (Dalke, Bissonnette, Clark, Daltoosh, DOD King, Manziel, McNutt, Ostrom, Priscilla, Richards, Santino, Taco Golf, Toney, Tooms, Winter & Yandle).
Team Finch (blue) and Team Ruffels (white) ended day one tied 8 to 8, after Borrelli and Ellis halved their match with Ray and Gruden. A sudden death playoff was used to decide which team would advane. Each team picked their top two players to compete in a one hole alternate shot playoff, if that match was still tied, the teams would select two golfers again to compete re-play the hole, with players ineligible to compete in back to back holes. This would continue until a winner was determined.
Team Finch selected Peter Finch and Luke Kwon against Team Ruffels who selected Ryan Ruffels and Micah Morris. After both drives went into a fairway bunker, Ruffels hit his approach shot onto the green, and Team Ruffels proceeded to 2 putt from there. Kwon hit his bunker shot to just in front of the green, and after a chip by Finch, sank the par putt to half the hole. Teams then had to select two new golfers to re-play the 18th hole, with Team Finch selecting Rick Shiels and Roger Steele & Team Ruffels selecting Grant Horvat and Big John. Steele's drive landed in the fairway, while John's landed in the fairway bunker. After Shiels hit his approach shot onto the green, and Horvat cleanly got onto the green out of the bunker, both teams were left with birdie putts. Steele went first, and missed his short. Big John then holed his birdie putt for Team Ruffels to advance to day two and eliminate Team Finch (Finch, Borgmeier, Borrelli, Ellis, Jersey Jerry, The Jet, Joey Cold Cuts, Kelley, Kwon, Meyer, Ryan, Short Game King, Shiels, Steele, Togisala & Williams).
The following 32 golfers advanced to day two, with teams being reselected but yet to be revealed due to the release schedule: Jake Adams, Tisha Alyn, Sabrina Andolpho, Robby Berger, Big John, Mac Boucher, Chaz Bowker, Bubbie Broders, George Bryan, Wesley Bryan, Callux, Seb Carmichael-Brown, Cheddy, The Duke, Fat Perez, Kyle Forgeard, Justin Gaethje, Jon Gruden, Claire Hogle, Grant Horvat, Cole Lantz, PFT Commenter, Sam Heung Min, Micah Morris, Bobby Ray, Riggs, Salim, Ryan Ruffels, Paige Spiranac, Evan Thompson, Marissa Wenzler and Ryan Whitney.
| Golfer | Money Won |
|---|---|
| Ryan Ruffels | $5,000 |
| Jake Adams | $5,000 |
| Big John | $5,000 |
| Bubbie Broders | $5,000 |
| The Duke | $5,000 |
| Fat Perez | $5,000 |
| Justin Gaethje | $5,000 |
| Jon Gruden | $5,000 |
| Grant Horvat | $5,000 |
| Micah Morris | $5,000 |
| Bobby Ray | $5,000 |
| Riggs | $5,000 |
| Salim | $5,000 |
| Paige Spiranac | $5,000 |
| Marissa Wenzler | $5,000 |
| Ryan Whitney | $5,000 |
| Year | Winners |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Brad Dalke, Francis Ellis, Cody "Beef" Franke |
| 2026 | TBD |
Dave Portnoy, the owner of Barstool Sports and the host/rules commissioner for the event, confirmed that the Internet Invitational will be an annual event. This years event will have a prize pool of over $4 million. [29] He has invited two golfers, Caitlin Clark and Kai Trump, to the 2026 event, and they have each tentatively accepted the invite. [30] [31] Portnoy stated that the prize for 2026 could potentially be ten million dollars. [32]
Production was led by Fore Play Executive Producer, Brendan Jones, and his team at Barstool Sports. Notable editors include Jake Lasofsky, Kevin Zuppe, Trent Christiansen, Mike DelloStritto, Jared De Libero, and Fore Play Senior Editor Kyle Tims. [33] The team worked through over 24TB of raw footage. They were nominated and a finalist for Best Video Series of 2025 by the Shorty Awards. [34]
The same team produced and edited the 2026 Internet Invitational II set to be released this fall. [35]