Even before the PGA Tour schedule restarts, it has just been announced that Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning will tee it up in The Match: Champions for Charity, with all donations and fundraising to benefit COVID-19 relief.
The specifics surrounding the event remain largely unknown apart from the announcement that the four-golfer match will be aired live on TNT.
This is a follow-up to the $9 million match Mickelson and Woods played over Thanksgiving 2018 in Las Vegas (which Mickelson won after four playoff holes), although this one will be for a much more important cause.
The event is likely to take place in mid-to-late May, somewhere in Florida. While the teams have not been decided, the early report looks like Tiger-Brady vs. Mickelson-Manning, which is how it should be.
Regardless of when, where, and how this whole thing is played, the attention on it is going to be immense and it could highlight how golf could be played while implementing safe social distancing measures.
Although it’s not affiliated with a major tour or league, this will more or less be the first live sports (at this level) we will have had in over two months, with two of the 15 best golfers ever (not to mention two of the 10 best NFL Quart Backs ever) will be prominently involved.
The other matter requiring attention is Woods’ health. He said recently that he would have been good to go for the Masters if it had been played in April, but he hasn’t played competitively since the end of February at the Genesis Invitational.
Expect him to be fit, but it was never envisaged that after that event at Riviera that the next time we would see him is in an exhibition with two football players. If ‘The Match’ does go ahead, it poses to be a great encounter among the World’s sporting elite.
