Internet Invitational 2025

The inaugural Internet Invitational opened at Big Cedar Lodge with 48 of the internet's biggest golf and entertainment creators chasing a $1 million prize. Captains Riggs and Bobby Fairways drafted two 24-player rosters with one of those teams being sent home once Day 1 was complete.

The episode opened on a somber note, with a tribute to Cody "Beef" Franke, the Barstool colleague and friend who passed away before the series aired. The event honored his memory and his love of the game before play began.

Once underway, the morning ran as a series of 2v2 nine-hole scrambles, and the drama started early: Luke Kwon was hit with a four-hole penalty for missing his tee time, putting him and partner PFT Commenter in an immediate hole, a deficit they couldn't claw back as Frankie Borrelli and Bubbie Broders closed them out 4&3. Elsewhere the matches delivered the chip-ins and clutch putts you'd hope for from a field this stacked, with the Riggs side seizing momentum across the board.

When the morning wrapped, Team Riggs had taken eight of the twelve matches to lead Team Bob 8–4, a commanding start that put Bobby Fairways' squad on the back foot heading into the afternoon alternate-shot session.

After spotting Team Riggs a four-match cushion in the morning, Bobby Fairways' side returned for the Day 1 afternoon session needing a response. With the captains now free to reshuffle partnerships, the alternate-shot format raised the degree of difficulty considerably. Players didn't hide it, describing the alternate-shot demands as "a different bear" compared to standard YouTube golf, with one bad swing instantly putting a partner in trouble.

The session's storyline belonged to Luke Kwon. After the morning tee-time penalty that buried his team, Kwon was paired with Jon Gruden and the two delivered the redemption arc, edging DOD King and Sara Winter 1UP. The matches swung hard in both directions, with players from Fore Play and Bob Does Sports trading clutch putts and plenty of needle, and Wesley Bryan and Bobby Fairways grinding out a halve against Micah Morris and Francis Ellis.

Team Bob actually edged the afternoon on points, mounting the comeback the captain had hoped for, but the morning deficit proved too deep to climb out of. When the dust settled, Team Riggs held a 13.5–10.5 cumulative lead, enough to survive the cut and send all of Team Bob home as the field narrowed to 24.

With Team Bob eliminated, the Internet Invitational reset for Day 2 down to its final 24. Riggs and Frankie Borrelli were voted as the two captains for Day 2 and had to redraft fresh rosters from the surviving field. The morning returned to the 2v2 nine-hole scramble that opened the tournament, but with one major new wrinkle: every hole now carried a $4,000 skin, turning each putt into real money on top of the match result.

That money pressure defined the session. Skins stacked up on halved holes and then swung in huge chunks. Micah Morris and Francis Ellis banked a $28,000 haul in their 2&1 win over Riggs and Cole Lantz, and Sara Winter and Chaz Bowker matched that figure with a tense 2UP result over Frankie Borrelli and Bubbie Broders. The day even paused for a moment of levity, with the group celebrating Frankie Borrelli's birthday with a cake before getting back to the grind.

When the morning closed, Team Riggs again came out ahead, taking the session 4–2 over Team Frankie. The skins ledger told the same story - Riggs' side pulled in $104,000 to Frankie's $64,000, a financial edge that set the tone heading into the afternoon's alternate-shot skins battle, where the losing team would be going home.

The afternoon brought Day 2's elimination session: Riggs and Frankie Borrelli's teams squaring off again, this time in the harder alternate-shot format, with the $4,000-per-hole skins still live and a place in Day 3 on the line. The scoreboard stayed so tight that players took to calling it "blood orange" — never green, never comfortable — as every pairing checked it between holes.

Team Frankie flipped the morning's result. Borrelli paired with Francis Ellis to dispatch Riggs and Andrew Austen 4&3 for a $24,000 skins haul, while DOD King and Micah Morris turned in the session's biggest payday, banking $28,000 in a 4&2 win over The Duke and Chandler Hallow. The matches had their share of rules theater - debate over moving debris in a hazard, and a camera operator accidentally nudging a ball, but the golf decided it, with up-and-down saves and water-hazard escapes swinging holes both ways.

When it was over, Team Frankie took the session 7–5 and dominated the skins ledger $116,000 to $44,000, a near-complete reversal of the morning. Riggs' side was sent home, and the field narrowed to the 12 players who would head to Day 3 and the semifinals.

Day 3 moved to Cliffhangers, the par-3 course, where the final 12 were split into four teams of three for an 18-hole alternate-shot stroke-play semifinal. The top two teams advance to the finale and a shot at the $1 million, bottom two go home.

The par-3 setup put a premium on nerve over distance, and the leaderboard reflected it. Two teams separated themselves at +4 - Malosi Togisala, Frankie Borrelli, and Paige Spiranic edging in front on the tiebreak, with Cody "Beef" Franke, Francis Ellis, and Brad Dalke right alongside them. Clutch iron play from both Ellis and Franke kept their side in the mix through a tense back nine. Behind them, Josh Richards, Peter Finch, and DOD King couldn't keep pace at +8, and Bubbie Broders, Lacey Snell, and Micah Morris struggled to a +13 and both teams were eliminated.

The most interesting moment came after the round. With the two finalists set, Dave Portnoy dangled a final gamble: a sudden-death 19th-hole playoff that would bump the finale pot to $1.2 million — $666K per player — but with immediate elimination on the line for whoever lost. After grinding through 18 holes of pressure golf, both qualifying teams declined, unwilling to risk everything on a single swing. The finale was set: Togisala/Borrelli/Spiranic versus Franke/Ellis/Dalke for the million.

It came down to two teams over 18 holes of alternate-shot match play, with $1 million waiting on the other side: Francis Ellis, Cody "Beef" Franke, and Brad Dalke against Paige Spiranic, Malosi Togisala, and Frankie Borrelli.

The match was a grind. The teams traded holes and sat all square for long stretches, the tension spilling into rules disputes along the way — allegations over rangefinder slope settings and questions about improving lies in the rough. Neither side could pull clear, and the championship stayed alive all the way to the 18th, where it came down to the final shots between Frankie Borrelli and Brad Dalke.

Frankie Borrelli succumbed to the pressure, skulling the final chip over the green and into the water. That left Ellis, Franke, and Dalke taking the match 1UP to win the inaugural Internet Invitational and split the $1 million prize. The players lingered afterward to take in what they'd just been part of, widely regarded as one of the most intense and unique events YouTube golf has ever produced.