Who the Hell is the Duke?

The Internet Invitational brought together an eclectic cast of characters, but without doubt the most enigmatic among them was a man known as the Duke. The Duke captivated and annoyed the audience with his endless shit talk, bizarre fashion sense and even more bizarre swing, leaving viewers with a litany of questions about a man most had never heard of prior to the event. What was he doing there? Does he have a real name? Has he ever played golf before? A lot remains unknown about the Duke even months after his cameo appearance, but here’s what we do know.  

The Duke’s inaugural online appearance took place a couple of years ago when a less-than-complimentary video of his swing filmed by Dave Finks went viral. But his true rise to fame began six months later courtesy of a chance encounter with none other than Bobby Berger, with whom he was paired up with at Balboa Municipal Golf Course. No one wants to have a stranger join their group and many would likely have found the Duke and the second-hand smoke perennially emanating from his motor mouth far from an ideal playing partner. Not so Bob. With an eye for talent that doesn’t lie, he saw nothing but the potential for good content, and a few months later the Duke was teeing it up at Big Cedar Lodge in the biggest YouTube Golf event in history.

It's safe to say the Duke didn’t set the course on fire at the Internet Invitational, and it’s lucky that he didn’t literally set the course on fire with the number of cigarettes he was probably illegally discarding around the facility. But if the Duke is to be believed, he’s a better golfer than he might look on first glance. According to the man himself, he is a 16-20 handicapper who shoots mid-high 80s when he’s playing at his best. If true, he might have the worst swing for a sub-20 handicapper in history.

Making an appearance on Barstool Sports’ Fore Play podcast in January, Duke did admit to not playing to that level in recent times, though the reason for that was doused with more irony than an Alanis Morissette song. It’s hard to imagine this guy having any qualms with a camera being thrust in his face, but apparently that, and the subsequent conversing with fellow players required between shots, has proven a distraction to his golf game. It’s an interesting claim given that none of his playing partners seemed to have the chance to get a word in during the entire event. Maybe he got a bad edit, but the Duke quite literally didn’t appear to stop talking, and the topics of conversation varied at an alarming rate – and rarely had much to do with golf. It’s hard to imagine him being the distracted one.

And based on the aforementioned podcast, it wasn’t only the edit that made the Duke appear so loquacious, or erratic in the topics of conversation he chooses to broach. It’s hard to quite put your finger on whether it’s really annoying or quite endearing. Alongside the boys on Fore Play, the Duke was at various points talking about doing podcasts in a robe surrounded by dancing girls to donating to animal shelters to dudes putting their cocks in hot dogs on trays, and that was all within the space of a minute or two without any input from the others. 

But in between the random thoughts from a mind that at times seems to resemble that of a teenager after a couple too many Red Bulls, the Duke did actually provide a few insights about his life. Well, sort of. He covered off his upbringing by saying that he was born and raised in NYC, and that was about it, leaving us with minimal knowledge about the young Duke - though some photos on his website (more on that later) provide a snapshot, showing him as a man about town in his younger days, always smiling and often shirtless.

On that same podcast, when asked what he does for work, the Duke said ‘he can’t get into specifics’, before proceeding to get pretty specific. Those specifics included working in sales for a few years before studying film and TV, working as a PA, then a videographer, then a production sound mixer for 30-odd years. He spent 15 years working in New York, did reality shows, news networks, and sporting events. The latter of those included him covering Jets games as a sound engineer, which according to Duke entailed him sitting on the sidelines watching the Jets up close and pretending to do something. All in all, a pretty specific rundown. What exactly the specifics he didn’t get into were is anyone’s guess. Fashion design maybe. 

So what next for the Duke? After 30 years in production, is he set to take the world of YouTube golf by storm, buy himself a Harley Davidson and ride off into the sunset with a bevy of beautiful women in tow? Maybe not quite yet. He does have his own brand, of sorts, called ‘Planet Duketown’ – sounds about right. Included on that planet are a website which sells Duke-based paraphernalia (well, a hat, a jumper and a t-shirt), as well as a YouTube channel, the latter of which mostly involves videos of him giving out NFL tips while dressed as a referee smoking cigarettes in his kitchen, although he has also made a couple of cameos of better-known content creators.

But for the time being at least, the biggest moment of the Duke’s illustrious career in the spotlight remains the Internet Invitational. It remains to be seen whether he will be invited back for the second incarnation of the event – he’s not exactly going to be any captain’s first pick and his presence will certainly divide both viewers and his fellow competitors, but it’s safe to say that he got tongues wagging in the first. But regardless, whether his appearance was a one-off or the start of a meteoric rise to internet stardom, the Duke and his baggy shorts have already well and truly etched themselves into YouTube golf folklore.