Andrew Santino, Bryan Bros get chippy over a gimme

It started where every good golf grudge starts: a putt that one guy thought was good and the other guy wanted to see go in.

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Andrew Santino doesn't want any pros in next year's Internet Invitational

Here's the setup, according to Heavy's recap of the first episode. It was a 2-v-2 scramble. Santino, playing for Team Dalke, was paired with DOD King against Wesley Bryan and Robby Berger. Bryan made Santino and DOD King finish a short putt that would normally be conceded as a gimme. Santino did not let it go. He later made Berger putt out a short one of his own, then tossed his ball into the rough.

Then Dave Portnoy came by. Portnoy created the Internet Invitational, and Santino used him as a complaint desk. He called the gimme thing a low-class move, said the Bryan Bros should be thrown out, and pushed for the bigger demand he'd been building toward all episode: no pros next year.

Is he serious? Probably not all the way. Heavy read it as a comedy bit, and that fits. Santino is a professional comedian who showed up to a YouTube golf show and found a villain in the first round. Still, the gripe isn't totally made up. Wesley and George Bryan are guys who can really play, and when they're in a match bracket with comedians and influencers, everyone else notices the gap.

The stakes are also bigger this year. Season 2 grew from 48 players to 64 and plays for a $4 million purse in a match-play bracket where half the field goes home early. With that much money on the line, not giving someone a 2-footer stops looking petty and starts looking like strategy. That's probably exactly why it got under Santino's skin.

The Bryan Bros also pull huge numbers on YouTube, and the Internet Invitational lives on views. That means Santino's no-pros campaign is pretty much dead on arrival. As content, though, it's perfect. A feud between a comedian and the brothers in Round 1 gives the series a storyline it can keep coming back to.

Season 2 debuted October 26, drops new episodes twice a week and wraps with a November 12 finale on the Fore Play Golf, Bob Does Sports and Internet Invitational YouTube channels. If Santino and the Bryans meet again in the bracket, nobody is getting a gimme.