Woods-Mickelson Match Will Be Unique Experience For Viewers
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- Category: Inside Golf
- Published: 2018-11-22
By JOE REEDY, Associated Press
Golf used to have a prominent place on the Thanksgiving weekend calendar with The Skins Game. That made-for-TV event ended in 2008 but Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will have their own high-stakes showdown Friday.
After years of discussion, the two will compete in “The Match” at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, a $9 million winner-take-all event that will air on pay-per-view.
Many wondered if a Woods vs. Mickelson match was a thing of the past.
The two have combined for 123 PGA Tour victories and 19 majors but had struggled in recent years. Talk of a match was revived earlier this year when Mickelson won in Mexico and Woods started to be competitive again before winning at The Tour Championship in September.
Mickelson said the original premise was both partnering up with some of the sport’s younger stars, but television executives and fans have always wanted to see the two go head to head.
“To have the opportunity to go head to head and to win is just. . it’s great to win the 9 million. I just don’t want to lose to him and give him the satisfaction, because the bragging rights are what’s going to be even worse than the money,” Mickelson said during a press conference Tuesday.
Both were part of the U.S. team at the Ryder Cup but have not competed since then.
“After the Ryder Cup I shut it down for about 3-4 weeks and started to basically work on my body and try to get it stronger again,” Woods said. “I was really looking forward to the break, but I’m really looking forward to getting back to playing again. I missed competing, and to be able to go against Phil like this gets my juices flowing for sure.”
Mickelson said he has been working on his game the past four weeks and that this is a good way during the offseason to prepare for next year.
Many golf fans are used to made-for-TV events that have been genteel affairs. This will be the complete opposite.
For starters, this is believed to be golf’s first pay-per-view match. This is the first major event with Warner Media, which was formed after the recent merger between Time Warner and AT&T. Turner Sports and BR Live are producing the event and it is being shown online as well as on DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse and other cable and satellite outlets for $19.95.
Ernie Johnson Jr., who has done the PGA Championship for Turner, will be the main announcer but it will feature others including Natalie Gulbis, Charles Barkley and Samuel L. Jackson
The broadcast will feature both golfers mic’d up as well as the caddies (Joe LaCava for Woods and Tim Mickelson for his older brother). With it being on pay-per-view, there will be no commercial breaks and plenty of opportunities to hear both golfers try to one up each other with verbal jabs.
“It’s like a Tuesday practice round for a significant stake that makes us uncomfortable, but with the same type of banter that we’re used to that most fans aren’t privy to,” Mickelson said.
Woods and Mickelson used to be bitter rivals, but the relationship has improved in recent years as both got to know each other during Ryder Cups. But Darren Clarke, who has competed against both, expects the rivalry to intensify during the match.
“Different people think this is going to be a fun match but both are natural-born winners. At some stage you are going to see it get a bit uncomfortable as both will call out each other,” he said.
The most intriguing thing is the gambling aspect. The players will set their own odds on shots during different times and fans will be able to bet along with them. Clarke said gambling has been a part of the European Tour for years and it will be interesting to see how it does Friday.
Craig Barry, who is Turner’s executive vice president and chief content officer, is also interested to see how the side bets work out, especially since more states are approving sports gambling.
“It makes you follow along more and engage. It definitely does create a deeper and richer narrative,” Barry said.
Don’t expect gambling to become a part of Turner’s NBA and Champions League coverage, though, since that appears to be a long way off.
“This is very different than anything golf has ever done in the past. That’s one of the unique things about it. We’re able to showcase our sport in such a different light and all the different technologies we’re going to be bringing to this event, and doing it differently than any other golfing event has ever been done. That’s the exciting thing for not only myself and Phil, but I think for all the viewers that are going to watch,” Woods said.
Woods and Mickelson already have high stakes on the first hole. Mickelson said he would wager $100,000 that he would birdie the first hole and Woods doubled it.
(Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)
The Real Measure Of Tiger vs. Phil Is How Many Watch
By DOUG FERGUSON, Associated Press
The winner between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson might be the least relevant aspect of their Friday night match in Las Vegas.
Far more compelling was the outcome of a 72-hole exhibition played over two courses for an obscene amount of money — Harry Vardon received nearly seven times more than what he had won from his one-shot victory over Willie Park Jr. in the 1898 British Open.
That next summer, Vardon and Park played an exhibition billed by the British press as the greatest golf competition ever. Vardon won 100 British pounds with his 2-up advantage at North Berwick before 10,000 spectators, and another 100 pounds for completing the 11-and-10 rout at his home course of Ganton.
So Woods vs. Mickelson is nothing new, except the public is not allowed at Shadow Creek.
What’s unique about this exhibition, with $9 million supposedly going to the winner, is the delivery. This is golf’s first venture into pay-per-view, and organizers were smart to keep the price at $19.99, which is about 25 percent of what a compelling heavyweight fight would command.
How many people care enough to sign up on Black Friday?
“Um, no,” Rory McIlroy said when he was asked last week in Dubai if he would pay to watch. “I contemplated it. I was having lunch with Phil at one of the FedEx Cup events and I said, ‘I might watch it.’ He took $25 out of his pocket and said, ‘No, here’s $25, I’ll pay for it for you.’ Thank you.”
McIlroy says it might have been worth it 15 years ago, but that now it has “missed the mark a little bit.”
Woods and Mickelson remain the two biggest names in golf even in this tidal wave of youth, but their one-sided rivalry — Woods was the only rival Mickelson had, not the other way around — has been dormant for five years. This feels old, and the relentless promotion at times has made it feel contrived.
Is it a bad idea? Not at all.
There is no downside to Woods and Mickelson squaring off in a pay-per-view event on a beautiful golf course at Shadow Creek that everyone seems to know but hardly anyone has seen. But when the biggest upside is that there’s no downside, selling it becomes an uphill battle.
There will be plenty of talking, and Mickelson is rarely without words. There will be side action. That’s part of what makes this different from the “Showdown at Sherwood,” a Monday night exhibition between Woods and David Duval in 1999 when they were in their prime and battling for No. 1 in the world.
The question is whether it has a future.
That’s about the only thing that piques the interest of Alastair Johnston, vice chairman of IMG who knows a little about these golf exhibitions.
Johnston was deeply involved with the Skins Game when it began in 1983 until it had run its course in 2008. In the midst of that run were the Monday night matches that featured Woods against Duval, Sergio Garcia and then a team format that ended — thankfully — when it had Woods, Mickelson, John Daly and Retief Goosen.
“It’s very tough for me to criticize it, but it’s very tough to praise it,” Johnston said.
That covers a lot of territory for a lot of golf fans. Those who live to criticize will be reaching for low-hanging fruit. Those who want to watch Woods and Mickelson go head-to-head will have no trouble finding entertainment.
“I’ll be interested, from a professional standpoint, in how many viewers it gets, how many pay,” Johnston said. “How many people actually care to spend money on that, and does it lead to other opportunities and different delivery systems? Golf hasn’t been tested like that. That’s what intrigues me.”
The PGA Tour has approved only one of these matches, even as there is talk of a franchise.
History suggests this won’t have much staying power. The Skins Game was ideal for Thanksgiving weekend, and there was plenty of star power among Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Fred Couples and others.
Golf has that now with a strong core of young major champions, and perhaps that’s in the future.
But more episodes of Woods and Mickelson will get old, and history suggests that Woods and any collection of players might not be enough. In the old Monday night exhibitions, Woods went from a 7.6 national rating with Sergio Garcia to a 3.0 in the last of the team events.
So the only outcome on Black Friday is how many care, even when it involves the one player everyone loves to watch.
Johnston recalls not so fondly the time he put together a unique concept in 1997, the year Woods set 20 records at the Masters and won by 12. He was to play against Michael Jordan, Ken Griffey Jr. and Kevin Costner. For every hole Woods won, they could choose which club to take out of his bag. They had walk-up music. It was taped to be shown on Christmas Day. It was called “Tiger & Friends.”
But then Jordan and Costner had to pull out, replaced by NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon and actor Chris O’Donnell. And then it rained.
The forecast is for sunshine and mild weather in Las Vegas on Friday.
That’s a start.
Nicklaus-Palmer Still The Standard In Golf Rivalries
By DOUG FERGUSON, Associated Press
Jack Nicklaus says if he were in a high-stakes match in Las Vegas in his prime, the most compelling opponent would be Arnold Palmer. Never mind that he considers his toughest rival to be Tom Watson. Or that he finished runner-up to Lee Trevino in majors four times in seven years.
With apologies to the super-hyped exhibition between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson on pay-per-view, any talk of rivalries in golf starts with Nicklaus and Palmer.
“I rarely lost to Arnold,” Nicklaus said last week before an American Cancer Society benefit. “We never ended up coming down the stretch every much.”
Nicklaus was a runner-up to him six times, including the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills as a 20-year-old amateur.
But unlike Woods-Mickelson, who never really squared off in a major until Woods’ fifth year on the tour, Nicklaus famously beat Palmer in a playoff to win the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont in Palmer’s backyard.
“Arnold and my rivalry became more from the two us,” Nicklaus said. “We would play together a lot. We were paired a lot. And usually we beat each other up and we ended up giving the tournament away. That’s why they talk about the rivalry. Everyone was interested in who won that day, not who won the tournament.”
Nicklaus was reminded of the 1970 U.S. Open at Hazeltine, where the tournament scoreboard had the names Palmer, Nicklaus and Gary Player at the bottom the entire week. None of them finished in the top 40.
“I’ve never seen a tournament ever do anything like that,” Nicklaus said.
Nicklaus also finished runner-up in the majors four times to Watson, all coming down to the final few holes, none more dramatic than Turnberry in 1977.
“Watson was the toughest,” Nicklaus said. “He was a kid with blinders on. I love the way Tom played.”
Trevino won by four shots at Oak Hill in the 1968 U.S. Open, then beat Nicklaus in a playoff at Merion in 1971 and denied Nicklaus the third leg of the Grand Slam a year later by beating him at Muirfield. And in 1974, Trevino got him by one shot at Tanglewood in the PGA Championship.
“He thrived on competitive moments,” Nicklaus said.
But Palmer? That was different.
He said the rivalry started in 1958 when Nicklaus, an 18-year-old amateur, was invited to take part in a day honoring Dow Finsterwald.
“On the first tee we had a driving contest,” Nicklaus said. “Arnold drove it on the green. I drove it 30 yards over the green. I never let Arnold forget that. I’d say, ‘Hey AP, we had one driving contest, I hit it 30 yards by you.’ He’d say, ‘Yeah, but I shot 63 that day and you shot 67.’ To me, that was the start of our rivalry. Ever since we played, we always had fun with that.
“I’d say, if I hadn’t shot 39 on the last nine holes at Cherry Hills, no one would have ever heard of you.′ And he’d say to me, ‘If I hadn’t three-putted nine times in ’62, nobody would have ever heard of you.’ That was our banter.”
There was no social media back then. Or pay-per-view.