Big Cat, PFT roast Wesley Bryan's Internet Invitational take
TLDR: Wesley Bryan asked if the Internet Invitational would be better if its 8 highest handicaps were swapped for the 8 best players in the world, and Pardon My Take ruled it the most "doesn't get it" tweet ever.
Bryan posted the question on November 4. By Thursday morning's Pardon My Take it had become a segment, and the verdict from the couch was not close.
Bryan isn't some random guy yelling from the cheap seats either. He's a PGA Tour winner who turned into a YouTube golf star, and this year he's 1 of the 4 team captains in the Internet Invitational, alongside Brad Dalke, Peter Finch and Ryan Ruffels. So the take came from inside the building, and that's exactly why it got roasted. Yahoo Sports read it as a shot at the bottom of the field, the Barstool guys like Trent Ryan and PFT who are there for the chaos and not for a low handicap.
“Is this the most ‘doesn’t gut it’ tweet of all time?” -Big Cat “Yes I think so” -PFT Commenter
Here's what the tweet misses. The event works because it isn't a tour event. Season 2 has 64 players playing for a $4 million purse, with everyone from scratch-level creators down to people who took up the game during COVID, and GOLF.com reports it pulled 10 million views in its first week. If you want the 8 best players in the world, they're on TV every Sunday. Nobody tunes in to the Internet Invitational to watch a guy who never makes a bogey.
The people running the show seem to get that. Kevin Kisner, the former Tour pro brought in this year as the rules guy and color voice, said on Fore Play this week that he didn't know half the field well enough to help Dave and Big Cat size anyone up.
“I've never seen this guy hit a golf ball in my life, so I can't really help you.” – Kevin Kisner
That's the product. Even the Tour guy calling the action is finding out about these players in real time along with the audience, and a field of world-top-10 names would kill that on day 1.
PMT naturally went the other direction from Bryan's idea and joked about making the field worse by putting Hank in it. Nobody is actually adding him to a roster, but the bit landed.
We gotta get Hank in the Internet Invitational… “Hank is already so bad on camera. I can’t imagine how bad you would be” -Max
To be fair to Bryan, he asked "better or worse," so maybe he was fishing for exactly this reaction, and he got it. With episodes still dropping and the Fore Play guys already talking about next year, expect him to hear about this tweet every time his team shows up on screen.
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