Feature
Over Thanksgiving
weekend, following a
whole heap of hype, US
President Trump may
have excused - as is
tradition - one fortunate
turkey from a fate worse
than death, but down in
the gambler’s paradise
of Las Vegas, another
‘Turkey,’ namely the
shoot-out between two
hitherto great golfers,
‘The Match,’ proved
about as appetising
as the traditional fare
reheated and served up
towards the 12th day of
Christmas.
HOW ‘THE MATCH’ FAILED TO IGNITE THE IMAGINATION
ay back in August last
year, when the so-
called, ‘The Match,’ was
announced, the US$9m
winner-takes-all head-to-
head clash between two of
the all-time greats of golf,
a supposedly resurgent
Tiger Woods, and his arch
(some might say, ‘bitter,’)
rival, Phil Mickelson, your Bunker Mentality
correspondent, admittedly something of a
cynic, billed this as a pre-Christmas turkey,
a match to be missed at all costs, a contest
redolent of arti¿ ce, a contrivance and an
irrelevant one at that. Let’s not forget,
¿ rstly, that mano-y-mano, head-to-head,
winner-takes-all golf matches are nothing
new; throughout time, from the 19th century
match-ups between gnarled bare-knuckle
professionals, be-suited stalwarts eking-out
a living from the royal and ancient game, the
likes of Willie Park, Junior and Senior, Old
and Young Tom Morris, have gone head-to-
head, often over 10 – 12 rounds of golf, for
a reported GBP100.00 (approx. US$130.00),
a King’s ransom back then, the inÀ ation-
adjusted equivalent of GBP12,500 (approx. US$16,000) today.
And older readers may recall the Shell
Wonderful World of Golf challenge series,
back in the 1960s, when golf and TV were
¿ rst indulging in some serious foreplay,
Ben Hogan versus Sam Snead the highlight,
US$5,000 on the line, Gene Littler against
Byron Nelson another epic contest, like Woods
and Mickelson, aging stars but set against a
different televisual backdrop. And, out Asia
way, there has been no shortage of ¿ lthy-rich
tycoons willing to shell-out tens-of-millions
of greenbacks on vanity golf shoot-outs such
as the bizarre, one-off, multi-million-dollar
Shui On Land China Golf Challenge behind
the Great Wall of China in 2011. True, Woods
and Mickelson were, without question, icons
of their own era, especially Woods, considered
by many to be the best of all time, his rival
Mickelson widely judged to be right-up-there
with the best, their rivalry used by the PGA
TOUR as a hook on which to hang its product
for a generation and more, the relationship
between the two said to be lukewarm at best,
loathsome at worst.
With 122 PGA Tour titles and 19 ‘Majors’
between them and combined on-course
earnings in excess of US$200m, Woods and
38 G o l f P l u s 2019
FEBRUARY
Mickelson - both long inducted into golf’s
World Hall of Fame - are entitled to great
credit for their individual and collective
contribution to to the game of golf.
For they assisted not only in keeping the
game aÀ oat throughout choppy economic
waters but also contributed to help grow
the game exponentially over a period of
participatory decline, Woods the central
character, Mickelson the supporting act, their
hostility - real or imagined - a driving force in
increasing prize funds, especially on the PGA
TOUR. But that was then and this is now.
Woods, plagued by a career-threatening
back injury in recent years, has not won on
Tour since 2013, Mickelson, for his part
rolling back the years with a surprise victory
in the 2018 WGC Mexico tournament, his
¿ rst visit to the winner’s enclosure since
2012, ‘The Match’ taking place in the shadow
of the USA’s humiliation in the Ryder Cup
in which both men failed to ¿ re. Social and
conventional media ramped-up, ‘The Match,’
in much the same way as legendary boxing
impresario Don King might have done a
world heavyweight title ¿ ght, but boxing is
gauche and glitzy, whereas golf is altogether
a more subtle, understated commodity, totally