At TPC Southwind, on the par-four 18th hole of the seventh All Sports Golf Battle, Connor the starting pitcher for the Savannah Bananas stood over a putt with a championship on the line and the kind of pressure that finds people out. What he did next is the reason people watch Dude Perfect in the first place: not for perfect shots, but for the ones that arrive exactly when nobody expects them. This installment brought something genuinely new to the format, folding the Savannah Bananas into the alternate-shot structure for the first time, and the result was bananas thrown as approach shots, an arrow stuck inside a tent, a confirmed turtle spotted mid-hole, and eight different shades of pink on one competitor’s outfit.
How a banana becomes a legit approach shot
The rules stayed simple: once you use a sporting implement, you lose it. Six teams paired off across four holes, each choosing from a bag that included vortex footballs, frisbees, bows and arrows, baseball bats, soccer balls, pickleballs, and actual bananas. Connor, the Savannah Bananas starting pitcher, launched a banana throw that drew a full crowd reaction, and his teammate Cody Jones backed it up with a bow shot that traveled so far it lodged itself in a tent on the course. The two of them then concocted a solution that was half rugby scrum, half physics problem: Cody hoisted Connor onto his shoulders so Connor could touch the arrow and shoot it from that position, which the group ruled legal on the spot. They reached the green in three.
Hole one delivered the first elimination in chaotic fashion. Team purple, which included Cory and a partner relying heavily on a boot kick from a hired specialist they called ‘boot guy’, came undone in the water. Purple’s JT topped his must-make putt and was sent home. Cory’s pink team survived by holing the decisive putt under what the commentary described plainly as ‘the weight of the world.’
Three teams became two, then one final hole settled it
Hole two swung hard against team green when a soccer shot and several missed putts stacked up beyond recovery. Team pink advanced. By hole three, blue and red separated from pink after a run of miscues that included a whiff alert, a bow arrow lost in a tree, and a soccer kick that traveled exactly nowhere useful. Pink was eliminated at the water’s edge.
The finale on 18 came down to Connor and Cody for red against Kobe and Rack for blue. Baseball bat off the tee, vortex throws down the fairway, and a frisbee approach that found the green set up a putting duel that see-sawed back and forth. Rack, whose full name Robert Anthony Cruz got a rare full announcing call, needed to make a critical putt to keep blue alive. He missed. Kobe converted from a foot to extend the match. Then Connor, the same pitcher who had thrown bananas and carried his teammate on a golf course, rolled in the walk-off putt to win.
As Connor reflected on the pressure of the moment, he kept it short: ‘Pressure is a privilege.’
The arrow that nobody knew what to do with
Somewhere on hole two, Cody’s bow shot carried so far that the arrow buried itself inside a tent erected near the green. The group stood around it, genuinely unsure. One reading of the rules held that the arrow was at Connor’s finger, and that Connor could sit on Cody’s shoulders and touch it. They went with that interpretation.
Connor and Cody, the tall boys from the Savannah Bananas, were crowned All Sports Golf Battle Seven champions on the par-four 18th at TPC Southwind, making Connor one for one in his inaugural appearance.
