It\u2019s hard to believe, but we\u2019re officially halfway through the 2026 Internet Invitational. The battle lines have been drawn, the heroes (and heels) have emerged and golf influencers everywhere continue to have no idea who Jon Gruden is. Let\u2019s get into it.<\/p>\n
Biggest Backfire <\/p>\n
Last week, a few of us at the office we\u2019re talking about the 2025 Internet Invitational\u2019s decision to redraft teams for each day of the tournament. In the end, II 2K25 delivered a nerve-wracking finish and plenty of inter-personal drama, so no harm no foul, but we wondered what would have happened if the teams had been left to evolve over the entire tournament, gelling together or chaffing against each other as the million-dollar grand prize drew closer.<\/p>\n
Well, the early returns in 2026 suggest the redraft was in fact vital to maintaining the competitive integrity of the Internet Invitational. After episode two\u2019s dramatic finish, in which Big John buried the match-winning putt for Team White on the second hole of a playoff, Robby Berger\u2014a member of Team Green\u2014petitioned Dave Portnoy to keep the teams the same for day two. Portnoy eventually agreed, but it was noted that Team White, at least on paper, looked vastly superior to Team Green. Unfortunately, that played out on the course as well, where Team White steamrolled Team Green 6-1 in the morning four-ball. Team Green failed to win a single match, and while we love Bobby Fairways\u2014one of the straight-up best dudes on the Internet\u2014his campaign for camaraderie may have cost himself and his team a shot at four million big ones.<\/p>\n
Most likely not to know who Jon Gruden is <\/p>\n
At last year\u2019s Internet Invitational, Grant Horvat was caught red-handed not knowing who Jon Gruden was. This year that honor went to Calum McGinley, better known as Callux, who seemed all-caps SHOCKED to learn that the 50-something guy with the gravelly drawl he was playing against was in fact a Super Bowl-winning NFL head coach. Callux is English, so he gets more slack than Horvat, who lives a short drive up I-4 from the home of Gruden\u2019s Super Bowl champion Buccaneers, but still, someone has to give these kids a proper lesson in football history before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Internet Invitational superlatives, Ep. 1: Luke Kwon\u2019s redemption, Bobby Ray\u2019s threat and Claire Hogel\u2019s bizarre conversation starter<\/p>\n
The Fasoli Memorial Award for Cart Path Un-Excellence <\/p>\n
Barstool cameraman Nick Fasoli was the sneaky MVP of the 2025 Internet Invitational. Not only was he working tirelessly behind the scenes, capturing all the footage for our greedy little eyeballs, he also became a viral star thanks to a couple of gaffes, including picking up a player\u2019s ball and memorably veering off the cart path and plowing through a section of Big Cedar Lodge\u2019s wooden fencing.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Internet Invitational superlatives, Ep. 2: Big John\u2019s Big Putt, SGK\u2019s death wish and the actual worst hole ever played<\/p>\n
Thus, it\u2019s with great excitement and honor that we announce \u201cSecurity Mike\u201d as the winner of the first-annual Fasoli Memorial Award for Cart-Path Un-Excellence. Taking a page out of Fasoli\u2019s glove box in 2026, Mike high-sided his cart on a hill, before overcorrecting, blasting through another fence and fleeing the scene. Congratulations, Mike \u2026 but maybe next time it\u2019s better if you to walk.<\/p>\n
Grit Horvat <\/p>\n
Through three episodes, the Internet Invitational MVP has to be Grant Horvat. The mild-mannered YouTube superstar tried to duck spotlight during the day-one playoff, but was talked into and ended up hitting a pressure-packed bunker shot to set up Big John\u2019s viral birdie putt to win the match. As he said to David Portnoy after sticking his approach to 10 feet and draining a slippery right-to-left breaker on the final hole to halve his match against Cole Lantz and Seb on Golf, \u201cI tried to stay away from it, but it just keeps finding me, man.\u201d That may be true, but we\u2019d also say Grit Horvat\u2014 as he will henceforth be known\u2014has found it when it mattered most.<\/p>\n
Kiz-on-Kiz Crime <\/p>\n
A new wrinkle unveiled on day two was the Kevin Kisner Celebrity Shot. Each team was entitled to one shot from the slightly hungover four-time PGA Tour winner \u2026 both of which ended up coming on the same hole in the same match between Jon Gruden\/Salim and PFT\/Callux. Essentially, Salim revealed that they planned to use Kisner for the tee shot on the par-3 8th hole while one up in their match. That prompted PFT and Callux to fight fire with fire, also calling in Kiz for their shot.<\/p>\n
That set up Kisner to essentially play against himself, with the advantage going to Team White as an ice-cold Kisner tee\u2019d it up for Team Green first. Kisner misjudged the wind and came up short of the green with a 9-iron, so he clubbed up for his Team White shot and knocked it to 12 feet. White then two-putted for par to win the hole and put themselves two up with two to play. That\u2019s chess not checkers, folks.<\/p>\n
The Duke Moment of the Match <\/p>\n
Jamming home a birdie putt on the $50,000 9th hole to take home 25 grand for himself and another 25 for his partner Bobby Ray. Safe to say, The Duke is living like a king right now.<\/p>\n
The Duke Moment of the Match \u2013 Honorable Mention <\/p>\n
Finding out Kevin Kisner\u2019s first name is \u201cKevin\u201d after calling him \u201cKenny\u201d for the entirety of day one.<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to believe, but we\u2019re officially halfway through the 2026 Internet Invitational. The battle lines have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":951510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,44,85],"class_list":["post-951509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/951510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}