The Tiger vs. Phil match is now official, as both Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson announced the details of their winner-take-all confrontation Wednesday on Twitter.
The match will be played Friday, Nov. 23 at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, and will be aired as a pay-per-view event. The winner will earn $9 million.
Match Play Format Could Include Side Bets
According to Mickelson, the event will use a match play format, meaning the winner will be determined by who wins the most holes, not who completes the course in the fewest strokes. Mickelson also said that the players and organizers are working on including challenges during the match that could allow for side bets, like longest drive and closest to the pin contests.
“It’s an opportunity for us to bring golf to the masses in prime time during a period where we don’t have much going on in the world of golf,” Mickelson told reporters after playing a pro-am round ahead of the Northern Trust Open, which began Thursday. “It’s a way to show a side you don’t normally see by having us miked up to hear some of the interaction between us.”
With Mickelson at 48 years old, and Tiger at 42, both players are past their prime. But that doesn’t mean the two best players of their generation won’t still be able to put on a show.
Woods has clearly had the more storied career, having won 14 major tournaments to Mickelson’s five. Tiger has also been hot lately, having been in contention on the final day of both the Open Championship and the PGA Championship.
But Mickelson has a win on tour this year, having won the WGC-Mexico Championship in March by outlasting Justin Thomas in a playoff. Woods has not won on tour since a seven-stroke victory at the 2013 Bridgestone Invitational.
The pay-per-view event – officially known as “The Match” – will be distributed through Turner’s B/R Live streaming service, along with some on-demand broadcast platforms.
Winner Take All
Initially, it was expected that the winner of the match would make an even $10 million. However, Mickelson said that the PGA Tour was part of the decision to make the prize $9 million instead, with an ESPN report speculating that the idea may have been to make the payout smaller than the $10 million which goes to the winner of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Regardless, Mickelson said that the critical thing is that the prize is large even for the two legendary – and very wealthy – golfers, and that the match truly is winner-take-all.
“I think if you [don’t] do that, it undermines it,” Mickelson told reporters. “The whole point is the winner-take-all thing. That’s the exciting part about it.”
The early odds on the match have Woods as a small but clear favorite, with the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook posting Tiger at -180 while Phil can be backed at +150. And while Mickelson says the trash talk will be muted until after the Ryder Cup, when the two might be teammates, he couldn’t help but take a jab at Woods over his status as the favorite.
“I bet you think this is the easiest $9M you will ever make,” Mickelson tweeted at Woods.