Rory McIlroy’s blockbuster clash with Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka has been pencilled in for a Tuesday December 17 date.
‘The Showdown’, as it has been billed, will see McIlroy and Scheffler team up to take on DeChambeau and Koepka in a match play event that will combine both the better ball (fourball) and alternate shot (foursome) formats utilised.
While it is not officially a PGA Tour vs LIV Golf match, it is widely being seen as such in what is the first direct contest between two golfers from each of the warring tours.
Golfers from both circuits have competed against each other in the past, most notably when DeChambeau edged out McIlroy to win the US Open at Pinehurst in May, while LIV’s Tyrrell Hatton won last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, a DP World Tour event.
But this will be the first instance where two golfers from the PGA Tour have competed in a match play event against two golfers from LIV, which no doubt will get plenty of tongues wagging even though it is just an exhibition.
The match will take place at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas and will be broadcast on TNT in the United States. No broadcaster has been revealed for European audiences but Sky Sports has shown such matches in the past.
Before last month’s Irish Open at Royal County Down, McIlroy was asked whether the match was meant to send a message to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and the Saudi Public Investment Fund to expedite talks bringing the two factions together.
“I wouldn’t say it’s meant to send a message. It’s more we wanted to do something that, I guess, all golf fans could get excited about,” was McIlroy’s response.
“It’s a way to show golf fans in the world that this is what could happen or these are the possibilities going forward. I’ve been saying this for a long time. I think golf and golf fans get to see us together more than four times a year. I think that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
Whether it is meant to send a message or not, hopes are increasing that a deal could be soon struck after Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan played alongside each other at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship as part of the pro-am section of the event.
Last year it was revealed that the two sides had shaken hands on a deal to bridge the gap between the two, however the finalised details have been long in coming and no pen has been put to paper yet, although this match will only further belief that that is soon in coming.