{"id":394807,"date":"2025-11-21T14:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394807\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T14:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T14:19:14","slug":"internet-invitational-leaves-paige-spiranac-in-tears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/394807\/","title":{"rendered":"Internet Invitational Leaves Paige Spiranac in Tears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"780\" height=\"520\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Paige-Spiranac.jpg\" class=\"attachment-featured-image size-featured-image wp-post-image\" alt=\"Paige Spiranac\"   decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Paige Spiranac watches a putt on the 10th hole during the 2024 Creator Classic prior to the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on August 28, 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Barstool Sports hosted the <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/internet-invitational-winner-brad-dalke-youtube\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Internet Invitational<\/a> weeks ago, but it has been making headlines ever since. The <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">heavily successful tournament<\/a>, produced and hosted by Barstool Sports, brought 48 of the most popular golf content creators together. They battled it out Ryder-Cup style in pursuit of the $1 million prize. In teams of 3, it came down to some of the top performers. All with hopes of securing the win, no matter the cost.<\/p>\n<p>Fans have heavily dissected the Internet Invitational since its release. Including a pivotal moment in which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.golfdigest.com\/story\/stupid-golf-problems-rules-internet-invitational-paige-spiranac\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Paige Spiranac appears to be cheating<\/a>. Although she later denies it, fans are left torn over the incident. Spiranac has since gone silent on social media in response to the backlash.<\/p>\n<p>Spiranac Caught Cheating<\/p>\n<p>After her teammate \u201cBig Mo\u201d Malosi Togisala hit his shot into the fescue, Spiranac is seen adjusting the tall grass in front of his lie. A direct rule violation in professional golf. Alongside Spiranac and Toglisala was teammate Frankie Borelli, who co-hosts the podcast \u201cFore-Play.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/golf-influencer-paige-spiranac-gone-210003684.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Borelli later defended Spiranac<\/a>, stating,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI totally don\u2019t think that she was trying to do anything specifically to help us win. There\u2019s so many cameras out there. She\u2019s been at this for so long,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you think that something that she had done crosses some sort of rule infraction, then like, I don\u2019t know, people are allowed to have their own opinion. Do I think that she was trying to improve the lie? No. I also think that the footage probably doesn\u2019t look the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When confronted during the Internet Invitational, Spiranac began by stating, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d She then began to cry over the accusation.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the release of the final episode, Spiranic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/athlete-lifestyle\/news\/paige-spiranac-cheating-accusations-crying-meltdown-rocks-golf-world-to-its-core\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">stated<\/a>, \u201cThere\u2019s more important things than wanting to be liked, but I do want to be liked. And I want to fit in, and I\u2019ve tried for a lot of my life to find places where I can fit in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spiranac later took to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/athlete-lifestyle\/news\/paige-spiranac-gives-update-emotional-breakdown-in-tears-from-awful-post\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">social media<\/a>, writing: \u201csorry for being emo last night but thank you again for all the super kind messages\u2026 I\u2019ll save my deep[,] dark insecurities for therapy next time lol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To make matters worse, prior to this shot, Spiranac chirped her competitor. While competing against the threesome of Brad Dalke, the late <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/barstool-internet-invitational-winner-beef\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Cody \u201cBeef\u201d Franke, <\/a>and comedian Francis Ellis, Spiranac made a comment on their style of play. After being denied a short putt, Spiranac commented on the decision. She stated, \u201cthat\u2019s crazy,\u201d later adding something along the lines of \u201cthat just shows you\u2019ve never played competitive golf.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Internet Invitational<\/p>\n<p>Following the footage release of the controversial shot, Spiranac has since gone silent on an otherwise active social media account.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, at the end of the day, the shot didn\u2019t matter. Brad Dalke, the late <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/barstool-internet-invitational-winner-beef\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Cody \u201cBeef\u201d Franke<\/a> and comedian and fellow of Barstool, Francis Ellis won the cool $1 million prize.<\/p>\n<p>In light of the popularity of the Internet Invitational, Dave Portnoy already has big plans for the future. Following the <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/internet-invitational-caitlin-clark-kai-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Caitlin Clark appearance<\/a> at the Annika alongside the <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/kai-trump-to-make-controversial-lpga-debut\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">Kai Trump controversy<\/a>, Portnoy and company has already secured yeses to next years event. Although he isn\u2019t sure of the validity of those statements, Portnoy is looking forward to the 2026 Internet Invitational, hoping to increase the purse from $1 million to potentially <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/golf\/internet-invitational-winner-brad-dalke-youtube\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external nofollow\">$10 million.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/sydneylee8622\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Sydney Jones<\/strong><\/a> Sydney Jones is a sports writer covering all things Golf, Mariners, and Seahawks for Heavy.com. She has experience covering the intersection of sports and human interest stories for multiple publications. Originally from Montana, she recently relocated to Seattle and is enjoying the new experience of being surrounding by live professional sports and rooting for a common team while writing about them.  <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/sydneylee8622\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">More about Sydney Jones<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Golf\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Paige Spiranac watches a putt on the 10th hole during the 2024 Creator Classic prior to the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-394807","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115588128654158774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}