Von Gittin Jr.’s Bronco Invitational mixes golf, off-road driving and social-media spectacle in the Johnson Valley Desert.
Most golf events begin with a tee time, a scorecard and someone quietly judging another person’s backswing. The Bronco Invitational begins with sand, off-road racing and Ford Broncos serving as the official golf carts. That alone tells you this is not a traditional tournament.
Created by professional drifter and off-road personality Von Gittin Jr., the Bronco Invitational takes the basic idea of golf and drops it into the Johnson Valley Desert in California. In most versions of the sport, sand is a hazard. In this version, it is the landscape. Fairways are replaced by desert terrain, golf carts become Broncos and the usual country-club polish gives way to dust, horsepower and a crowd that probably does not whisper after impact.
The idea reportedly started with a simple question from Jarod DeDanda, a close friend of Gittin’s: What if off-roading met golf? It is the kind of question that sounds unserious until someone with enough vehicles, friends and imagination decides to actually do it.
The answer became the Bronco Invitational, an event that has now completed its second edition. What started as a wild concept among friends has grown into a larger gathering of golf professionals, motorsport athletes and social media personalities, all playing a version of the game that feels designed for people who like golf but also think the cart path is optional.
For the 2026 edition, organizers expanded the field to 20 participants. Teams included a pro golfer, a racer and an influencer, which is either a brilliant modern sports format or the setup for a reality show nobody has announced yet. The competition used a best-ball format, giving each team a chance to lean on its strongest golfer while still allowing the racers and content creators to add their own brand of controlled chaos.
The real twist came before each of the three holes on the final day. Teams had to compete in an off-road racing challenge before playing the hole. The winner of the driving segment had one stroke removed from the team’s score. Second place stayed even. Third place had a stroke added. In other words, driving skill could help or hurt the golf score before anyone even pulled a club.
That format changes everything. Golf is usually about patience, precision and the ability to recover after making one bad decision with a 7-iron. At the Bronco Invitational, recovery may also involve proving you can handle a desert racing challenge before lining up a shot. It is not subtle, but it is memorable.
The Ford Bronco was the natural centerpiece. It is already built around an outdoors image, and the desert setting lets the vehicle act less like a display piece and more like part of the course. Fans followed the action in a fleet of Broncos, turning the spectator experience into its own off-road parade.
For the golf car industry, the event is worth watching because it reflects a larger shift in how people think about recreational mobility. The traditional golf cart is still essential on the course, but younger players and lifestyle-driven consumers are pushing the boundaries of what a golf vehicle can look like and where it can go. Lifted carts, custom builds, LSVs and off-road-capable personal vehicles are all part of that larger trend.
The Bronco Invitational also understands something the golf world has been learning quickly: The next generation of players does not always want the game presented like a museum exhibit. They want personality. They want music, video, friends, good gear and a reason to post about it. They still care about the game, but they want to play it in ways that feel less stiff.
That does not mean traditional golf is going anywhere. There will always be room for manicured greens, quiet tee boxes and carefully maintained etiquette. But events like this show there is also room for a different kind of golf culture, one that swaps the cart fleet for Broncos and turns the desert into a playground.
It may not be for every golfer. Some players prefer their sand contained in bunkers and their carts governed at a polite speed. But for the growing crowd that sees golf as social, experimental and open to reinvention, the Bronco Invitational makes a pretty convincing argument.
