Last week, Paige Spiranac finally addressed the cheating allegations that had hounded her in the wake of the Internet Invitational. The OG golf influencer was at the center of the controversy during the YouTube event’s finale, bursting into tears when Francis Ellis raised concerns she had improved a lie midway through the round.
In the end, the ball didn’t lie, and the trio of Ellis, Brad Dalke and Cody ‘Beef’ Franke—who suddenly passed away earlier this fall—took home the $1 million grand prize. This week, however, the Barstool personality flipped the script on his podcast, coming to Spiranac’s defense with this awesome revelation.
According to Ellis, Spiranac quietly donated all of her day-two skins winnings—“about $15,000 or $16,000 each”—directly to Franke’s family. When pressed by his co-hosts about this being a potential PR move by Spiranac, Ellis replied, “She didn’t ask anyone to tell, she didn’t do that, she didn’t expect that to come out. You had to tell the Barstool payroll person how to give their money, and she just told that person ‘send it to Beef’s family.’”
“That’s a significant amount of money, and I’m impressed that she did that” Ellis continued. “Especially impressed that it would never have gotten out and if I had not found out and told it on her behalf.”
Coming from Ellis, who is a pro hater by trade and clashed with Spiranac on several occasions during the invitational’s final match, this speaks volumes. As Ellis says, Spiranac received a lot of online hate throughout the Internet Invitational, and hopefully this helps to quiet some of that. At the very least, it shows that an iffy moment in a high-pressure situation with cameras rolling does not necessarily define a person.
Additionally, fellow Internet Invitational competitor Roger Steele is also said to have donated his skins winnings to Franke’s foundation. Needless to say, despite the overslept tee times, slope scandals and occasional chippiness, the soul of the Internet Invitational and its competitors seems to be in the right place. So go easy on the human beings involved—none of us are perfect, on or off the course, but as long as we continue to try, and make amends when we fail, that’s enough.