The inaugural Netflix Cup went down Tuesday night in Las Vegas, with four PGA Tour pros teaming up with four Formula 1 drivers in a pitched golf competition at Wynn Golf Club. Unfortunately, it ended with a minor disaster.
The event featured an eight-hole match in a team scramble format, with the top two teams advancing to a final hole to determine the Cup winner.
In the end, Justin Thomas and Formula 1’s Carlos Sainz faced off against Tony Finau and Pierre Gasly in the finale, which consisted of a closest-to-the-pin contest and a dice roll to determine who went first.
Netflix’s first live golf event was fast-paced, frenetic and flawed
Thomas stuck it close to ultimately win the title with Sainz.
“I didn’t honestly think I could get it there, cause I thought [Tony Finau’s shot] was gonna be nice, so I just hit a little sling hook in there,” Thomas said in an interview after the match. “I was glad to finally help my partner out.”
“We are the first-ever Netflix Cup winners so it deserves … yeah, we’ll go out [tonight],” Sainz added.
But the winning pair won’t have to roll any dice to decide who takes the trophy home. That’s because during a mishap at the trophy presentation, the Netflix Cup trophy was destroyed, and the winners only have themselves to blame.
In a video recorded at the event, Thomas and Sainz can be seen celebrating their win on a small podium, decked out in checkered-flag blazers. When the video begins, Sainz is holding a bottle of champagne in his right hand, while grasping the Netflix Cup trophy in his left. But when he goes to raise the trophy to his head while photographers snap away, the trophy slips from his fingers and crashes to the ground next to the podium.
Both players raise their hands to their heads in disbelief, and then Thomas saunters over to Sainz’s side of the podium to find the trophy broken into four pieces. Check it out below.
It’s not an ideal way to cap off their victory, but for team Thomas/Sainz, a win’s a win. The next stop for the competitors is Formula 1’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, which goes down this Sunday, November 19.