The Internet Invitational, Episode 4: When the 'Twist' Forced Golf's Rules to Its Knees

There is a ballroom in my memory where a Ferrari idles, and nobody asks why.

It is the same ballroom where, in 2026, I watched a twenty-year-old click a mouse and learned by the next morning's paper that the definition of sport had shifted under my feet. Twenty-five years later, on a November 2026 morning, I sat in a Brooklyn apartment watching Episode 4 of The Internet Invitational — seventeen-plus hours of creator golf, which the original writer compared to watching the Godfather trilogy twice. Seventeen hours. In my entire print-desk career I never gave a tournament that many hours.

On screen, at the 18th hole of Buffalo Ridge Golf Course in Missouri, Evan Thompson sent his second shot into the air. Par-5. The ball struck the flagstick and dropped. Eagle. Match over. Thompson had beaten Grant Horvat — the biggest creator-golfer in the field. Behind them, Dave Portnoy's face filled the frame: owner, commissioner, matchmaker, and on-camera antagonist of the entire production, all four at once.

I rewound the eagle three times. The first time because the shot was beautiful. The second because I could not believe this event contained an actual golf shot. The third because I wanted to see whether any data was on screen. Answer: none. No shot tracking. No strokes gained. No official scorecard. Just cameras, commentary, and crowd noise on a separate audio track.

Between the mouse-click and the headline, a whole life happened, and I was late.

So this column is not about that eagle. It is about the four rules situations that occurred in this episode, three of which, under the Rules of Golf, were not penalties at all. And it is about the man who ruled on all four — Kevin Kisner, a PGA Tour professional brought in as an adviser.

Context: This Is Not a Tournament, It Is Television

To understand the Internet Invitational you must first accept that it sits entirely outside the OWGR system. No ranking points. No tour cards. No major-championship pathway. What exists is Team White versus Team Green, match-play format, progressive elimination, and a 'twist' that gave this episode its name — 'The Twist of a Lifetime.'

What was the twist? When Team White began celebrating survival, Portnoy announced that four additional golfers would be eliminated from the winning team. Four. From the winning team. I wrote in my notes: 'In any sanctioned event this would be invalid.' But this is not a sanctioned event. It is a Barstool production, and Barstool's business is entertainment, not sport.

That does not mean golf was not played. It means what was played is better described as golf-shaped reality television. The writer himself invoked Coppola and called the playoff 'the most devious ever conceived.' When you compare your product to a film director, you are selling story, not sport.

Thirty-five years ago, when I sat on a Delhi sports desk, a tournament meant 72 holes, a cut line, a trophy, and a column the next morning. Today it means seventeen hours, four episodes, a cliffhanger, and a 'Monday episode' that will reveal the playoff result a week later.

Here is my first hard verdict: when an event's outcome is deliberately withheld for days, it is not sport — it is content. And content is measured by drama, not fairness.

Core: Four Incidents, Three Wrong Rulings, and One Real Hole

Here is the real story of this episode, and it is the story the original article did not tell.

At least four rules situations arose. I will open them one by one, because when 'millions of dollars' are at stake, correct rules understanding is not a luxury — it is a requirement.

Incident one: Sam versus Big John, ball moved on the fairway. The video showed nothing wrong. Big John denied it. A penalty was applied anyway. The writer called it 'hardo.' I call it a straightforward breach of Rule 9.4b. After the 2026 revision, a one-stroke penalty applies only when it is known or virtually certain the player caused the ball to move; the old address presumption was removed. Ambiguous video is not virtual certainty. This penalty should not have been applied. [High confidence]

Incident two: Sam calling a penalty on himself (chip shot). Correct. The player self-reported. Self-reporting is the spine of the sport. [High confidence]

Incident three: Big John declining to accept Sam's penalty. Here is the real story, and the writer missed it. Rule 1.3b states that players must not agree to waive a Rule or a penalty; doing so in a sanctioned event risks disqualification. What the writer presents as sportsmanship is technically impermissible. [High confidence]

Incident four: Cheddy marking his ball on the green. Kisner ruled correctly — no penalty. Rule 14.1 and the exceptions to 9.4b are clear: a ball moved during a proper marking procedure is replaced without penalty. [High confidence]

Now the two complaints that were never penalties. Riggs protested that an opponent did not replace the flagstick — not an offence under Rule 13.5a; since 2026 the flagstick may be left in or removed at the player's option. Riggs also complained that two-foot putts were not conceded — under Rule 3.2b a concession is the opponent's discretion; there is no obligation. [High confidence]

But the real hole is elsewhere, and it becomes dangerous with 'millions' on the line.

Incident five: ball identification. Cheddy admitted he put a TaylorMade in play 'without marking it or knowing its number.' This became a 'major lost-ball controversy' on the final hole of the match. Riggs subsequently squared the match.

I want to state a verdict clearly, then complicate it: under Rule 7, a player must be able to identify their ball. If you do not know which ball you are playing, you are exposed in any dispute. The writer dismissed this as silliness. I call it an exploitable loophole, especially when the prize is in the millions. [High confidence]

And here is what nobody is saying: this event has no equipment-compliance framework. No conforming-list check, no driving-distance verification, no ball-conformance requirement. In a non-elite field this is likely benign. But it means the event cannot claim 'tournament' status in any technical sense. [Medium-high confidence]

Contrarian: The Problem Is Not the Rules, It Is the Power Structure

Now the part where I must fight my own enthusiasm. Because it is easy to laugh at this episode — a ball thrown into a pond, profanity, twists, drama. But behind the laughter is a structure that must be seen.

For a resort course like Buffalo Ridge, this event is a gift: seventeen hours of branded content at a fraction of tour-hosting cost, with no green-fee sacrifice and no tournament-setup burden. This is a real and asymmetric advantage, and it explains why courses will keep hosting creator events. [Medium-high confidence]

But this is where my objection begins.

First objection: role conflation. Portnoy sets the format, makes the matchups, announces the eliminations, takes sides in disputes, and designates the villain on camera. In any sanctioned sport, owner + matchmaker + commentator + disciplinary authority in one person is a textbook integrity failure. Here it is the product. [High confidence]

Second objection: the outcome is partly a production decision. When the organiser changes the format, assigns the matchups and announces eliminations, the competitive outcome becomes at minimum partially a production decision. This is the central question of the episode that the writer never asked. [Medium-high confidence]

Third objection: welfare. This is where I cannot stay silent. Last year Frankie Borrelli collapsed on the final hole under Portnoy's needle. This year Ryan Whitney said the experience was both hated and liked, and called Portnoy 'a true prick.' It was packaged as entertainment. But I have spent forty years in press tents; I notice tears, coughs and silence before I notice the score. This is not entertainment, it is pressure — and the event contains a documented precedent inside itself. [Medium-high confidence]

Fourth objection: no independent rules committee. Rulings were delivered informally by a fellow participant (Kisner). A ball-identification dispute was resolved by on-camera debate, not by an appointed committee. Outcomes are therefore socially negotiated rather than rule-determined. [High confidence]

Now the most under-examined point of all: betting adjacency. The article contains no reference to wagering. But a large purse (millions), a marquee cast, and a multi-day delayed outcome are exactly the profile that attracts markets. The current structure — participant-delivered rulings, no committee, delayed result — is not fit for a wagered event. This is a forward-looking structural flag, not a current fact; no betting content appears in the source. [High confidence on the structural point]

And one moment the writer missed entirely: Big John declining Sam's self-imposed penalty is the one action that could have produced a disqualification in a sanctioned event. The irony is that what was called sportsmanship was technically a breach. [High confidence]

I have watched boys become assets and assets become statues, and I have written the plaque for both.

Takeaway: What Happens the Next Morning?

I will not say the Internet Invitational is the future of golf. Four episodes, one season, one property — not enough sample to make that claim. But I will say it is a genuine intervention in golf's attention economy, and its real contribution is not competition but distribution.

If the organisers appoint an independent rules committee, publish conditions of competition, and mandate ball marking before the next edition, they can convert their biggest weakness into a credibility asset. If not, the event remains perpetually almost-sport: entertaining, addictive, and ineligible for serious analysis.

Seventeen years ago, when I first pitched a creator-golf feature, no editor replied. This time a reply came — with a question: 'Is this real golf?' I said: 'It is real attention.' And perhaps that is the most honest answer available today.

I keep a list of things that happened only once; the good ones hurt to reread. Evan Thompson's eagle is now on that list — a shot that struck the flagstick, and an episode that ended with three wrong penalties and one real hole.

The question is not whether creator golf will change the tour. The question is: will it ever be worthy of its own rules?