Cheating Scandal, Choke Job, Cody "Beef" Franke, The Internet Invitational Final Round Had Everything
INTERNET INVITATIONAL SPOILERS ALERT
That was some pretty good YouTube golf. I've been golfing my whole life, but I've never really gotten into watching golf content on the internet before. But the Internet Invitational might have got me hooked. That was an awesome tournament. The production was fantastic. Even if you didn't know the first thing about anybody in that tournament, it was a phenomenal watch. Because it was competitive golf. Not always the highest quality golf. But it was good drama, and close matches from start to finish. I can't imagine being a golf fan (who doesn't have a stick up their all about "golf etiquette" or whatever) and not being thoroughly entertained by that entire series.
It was damn good finale too. Lived up to the hype. In the penultimate episode, when it was down to four teams of three on the par 3 course, I was starting to wonder if Dave was full of shit when he said the Luke Kwon saga wasn't going to be the talk of the tournament.
But that final round had it all. We had controversy. It came down to the 18th hole. I laughed. I gasped. I cried. You can't possibly ask for more than that in a golf tournament.
Personal Opinion: That Masoli guy definitely had the slope turned on his range finder.
If he didn't… I'm sorry Masoli. I don't know you. It's probably shitty of me to judge sitting here on my couch. But I gotta call a spade a spade. If I'm going off the information I have at my disposal, I don't know I could come to any other conclusion.
Maybe this is partially just me (or any person who's followed Barstool long enough to know how Dave works) but I feel like this would apply across the board to ANY person in ANY situation where they're being accused of cheating. If that were me, and I was being accused of having the slope turned on my range finder, but I was truly innocent… once all that drama started… I would have been SO ADAMANT about making sure Dave (or literally anyone other than myself) was the next person to touch my range finder. There's not a chance in hell I'm laying hands on that thing to give people any reason to think I might have quickly turned off the slope. In that situation, you just can't let yourself me the next person to touch it. Not if you know you aren't guilty.
And honestly, illegally using the slope on your range finder should be the easiest thing in the world to get away with. If you really want to cheat that way, all you have to do is turn off the slope after each use. It's so easy. To just leave your range finder in your cart with the slope turned on in so fucking reckless. So reckless it almost makes me think he's innocent. How could anyone be that dumb to leave evidence of cheating sitting in their golf cart in a tournament for a million dollars. That's crazy.
Lost in that controversy was that #SlopeGate wasn't even their team's first cheating allegation of the round. Before that, we had Paige Spiranac stamping down the ground behind their ball to improve the lie.
When I watched that in real time, I wasn't entirely sure what the rule was there even is anymore. I was 99% sure it was 100% illegal. But golf has gone soft on so many of their rules lately. There was also that time where the PGA Tour just let Tiger Woods call over 20 fans to move a boulder for him. So I never fucking know with golf. But I'm pretty sure Paige does. She's played competitive golf before.
My #1 takeaway from that whole pre-slopegate controversy – Paige Spiranac is kinda diabolical. She immediately went to tears. That's how you do it folks. If you're an attractive women who gets caught cheating in a golf tournament full of dudes, you gotta turn on the waterworks. It worked like a charm too. Not that it ended up mattering. Her team lost the hole regardless. But once Paige started crying, all anybody on that course wanted to do was put that controversy to bed as soon as possible.
Thankfully, in the end, the Internet Invitational ended exactly like it should have. To have any sort of cheating allegation hanging over the winning team in a $1M golf match that came down to the 18th hole would have been brutal. But the ending could not have been better. With Frankie "Butter Knives" Borelli living up to his name.
With Brad Dalke being the best golfer in the tournament. With Francis playing out of his mind for most of the tournament. With Beef hitting clutch putts for the winning team, and being the man to hit both the first and last shot of the event. That is the only way that match should have ended. Whoever at Barstool was tasked with editing that Beef montage at the end of the video… hats off to them. It was beautifully done. That could not have been easy to do. In hindsight, I suppose I should have seen it coming, but I was not at all prepared to be weeping on my couch at the conclusion of a YouTube golf tournament.
RIP Cody "Beef" Franke. Gone too soon. He lived a hell of a life. I'm honestly not sure if this is an appropriate thing to say in a situation like this, but I really do believe it to be true. The way Beef went out on top like that… I mean… almost nobody gets to go out that way. Beef lived a life where he got to do what he loved for a career. He got to play in, and win, the Internet Invitational. Millions of people watched him triumph. Most people who live to 100 years old don't get to experience something like that in life. Nothing can ever make up for losing him so young. But in 31 years of life, that man touched more people, and did more things with his life than most. In the grand scheme of things, our time on this earth, no matter how long we live, is so fucking short. In Beef's time here, he made the absolute most of it. And I think that's really admirable.