When it comes to golf tournaments, “The Match,” which pits celebrities and/or golf stars against each other in a televised contest, doesn’t exactly have the status of a major event. Previous matches, which have featured everyone from Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, have been rich in stars but few in real life. golf drama.
Let’s say this for The Match, though: at least someone attempts to reunite golf’s divided stars.
The latest edition of the event, which kicks off in December in Las Vegas, will pit PGA Tour stars Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy against LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. In other words, The Match has achieved what the PGA Tour and LIV Golf failed to do: bring golf’s stars together again.
Men’s professional golf has split into two distinct camps since LIV Golf began play in 2022. While the PGA Tour has the legacy and the biggest names—Woods and McIlroy—LIV Golf has managed to attract most of the most interesting characters in golf. Players like DeChambeau, Koepka, Mickelson and Jon Rahm now play on the LIV Tour, and the only time they cross paths with their former PGA Tour comrades is at majors and the occasional non-PGA Tour event like the Olympics.
What makes this so galling is that the LIV’s top players clearly still have the competitive muscle to match their Tour counterparts. This year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst was one of the best tournaments—not just majors, but tournaments of any kind—in recent golf history, and DeChambeau’s victory over McIlroy came down to the final shots of the final hole. Olympic golf at Le Golf National in Paris looked like The Rahm Show until Rahm imploded and Scheffler stole the gold he was wearing around his neck.
There appears to be no visible urgency behind the scenes for any reunification. The Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund, LIV Golf’s financial backer, announced a surprise end to hostilities in June 2023, and since then there has been virtually no concrete progress.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan doesn’t often speak to the media (and, by association, fans), but he did so last week ahead of the Tour Championship in Atlanta. Although he was asked five times about the status of negotiations between the PIF and LIV Golf, he declined to elaborate.
“These discussions are complex. They’re going to take time. They have taken time and they’re going to continue to take time,” Monahan said, before repeating a variation of the same phrase that so many involved in the deal have said over and over again: “I’m not going to negotiate the details in public or disclose any details or specifics…