Internet Invitational

The inaugural Internet Invitational took place in August 2025 at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri. It contained six episodes which aired over a three-week span in October and November 2025.

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. The day before the series was set to air, one of the winners, Cody Franke, died while away in Jamaica. 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. 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. 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.

The first day consisted of two sessions (morning and afternoon) of 9 holes each for the 12 pairs of competitors on each team. 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.

Controversies at 2025 event

On the first day of the event, there was a controversy involving golfer, Luke Kwon, a professional golfer on the PGA Tour China. Kwon overslept and missed his tee time. 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. It was later discovered that Kwon was almost kicked off of his college golf team for similar incidents of oversleeping.

There were two separate cheating allegations in the finals of the event. The first cheating allegations involved Paige Spiranac. Paige tamped down on some fescue to give her partner, Malosi, a better lie on hole 9, which was later communicated by Peter Finch. Paige started crying and claimed that she did not know that she could not improve her lie by tamping down the fescue. Her team lost the hole regardless, and no further action against her team was taken.

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. 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. 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.

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. He has invited two golfers, Caitlin Clark and Kai Trump, to the 2026 event, and they have each tentatively accepted the invite. Portnoy stated that the prize for 2026 could potentially be ten million dollars.

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. 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.

The same team produced and edited the 2026 Internet Invitational II set to be released this fall.