Tiger vs. Phil was a mess, but here's how golf can do it better
There was a moment in Friday’s The Match Presented By Capital One And Brought To You Free By Turner And Bleacher Report, You’re Welcome, America where we had an opportunity to witness what truly would have been remarkable. Phil Mickelson was standing over a four-foot putt to win The Match Presented By Etc. Etc., and behind him, Tiger Woods – the most fearsome golfer in half a dozen generations – lurked, watching.
This was it. This was Tiger’s chance to finally drop the hammer on Phil once and for all, to add a guest house onto the mansion he’s built inside Phil’s head. All he had to do was say something like, “Hey, Phil. A million bucks says you miss.”
But Tiger stayed silent. Phil drained the putt. And we all left The Match feeling about like you feel after you drop off your cleaning: well, that’s done.
It could have been so much more – more fun, more interesting, more compelling, more strange, anything. It was a missed opportunity. But here’s the good news, if golf has any sense at all: The Match That Fizzled ought to serve as object lesson, road map and starting gun all at once. (Don’t try to untangle the metaphor. Just roll with us here.)
I watched The Match (well, a decent chunk of it) with family, including a bunch of young kids, and they were all hooked into golf – for a couple holes, at least – the way they’ve never been for the Masters, the U.S. Open, the Open Championship or even – I know this may be hard to believe – the FedEx Cup. Even golf novices could grasp the basics here, and could gravitate to one player or the other. Of course, Phil huffing up hills, Tiger muttering G-rated complaints, and the match commentators slathering praise over every second of the broadcast tended to drain the life out of the event, but there’s this: the bones of something very good are right there.
Black Friday afternoon is a perfect time for a one-on-one or two-on-two golf broadcast, a low-stakes, high-entertainment-value event – an event, guess what, not unlike the old Skins Games your father or grandfather will happily tell you about. Back then, the world’s greatest golfers faced off in casual-but-highly-competitive matches that played very well on TV. Yes, they rode dinosaurs to the course, but still: just because it’s old doesn’t make it bad.
But name value alone doesn’t guarantee entertainment. With all due respect to Tiger Woods, who is at worst ranked 1A on the list of all-time great golfers, a miked-up event doesn’t play to his strengths. The way Woods usually plays golf, silently grinding down opponents like the relentless march of time, isn’t exactly great TV.
So, adios, Tiger. And Phil? We hear all these legendary stories about him getting in younger players’ heads, working them over for lunch money in Tuesday rounds. Let’s see it happen live. Let’s see Phil posting up against the next generation. Let’s hear Justin Thomas, trash-talker extraordinaire, spiraling out one-liners. Let’s hear Jordan Spieth break down opponents the way he dissects golf courses. Let’s watch Patrick Reed try to keep his competitive composure together under the glare of a national audience that’s dodging Black Friday sales. Get Shane Bacon out there doing a little “guess what he said about you?” back-and-forth, and friend, you’ve got yourself some good afternoon couch viewing.
Yes, this requires the buy-in of the players. And yes, that buy-in apparently comes with a $9 million price tag, to start. And yes, the me-vs.-the-world mentality of most top American players is a huge hurdle. But hey – the marketing geniuses behind TMPBCO… managed to wrangle the top two names in golf this time around. Why not take a run at the next generation?
If you’ve followed golf at all in the last 10 years, you know that there are some truly entertaining personalities on the leaderboard. Yes, there’s little advantage to being an outspoken personality in golf, the most lower-case-c conservative sport on the planet. Fans may loathe bland, cliché-spouting country-club automatons, but brands salivate over them.
But if you’ve played golf at all, ever, you know that you’ve heard some of the best stories in your life out on the golf course. You’ve laughed, you’ve bonded, you’ve cheered, and you’ve talked landfills’ worth of trash. Pro golfers do all that too. After all the portentous talk of tradition and history, golf is, at its heart, a fun freaking sport. Why not have an event that celebrates what happens between the tee and the green?
The opportunity’s there. The first shot off the tee drifted a bit wide. Now it’s up to golf to take another, better swing.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
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