Bromance will be strong in the seventh edition of The Match. Featuring 15-time major champion Tiger Woods alongside his business partner and good friend Rory McIlroy squaring off with the all-American duo of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, the charity golf exhibition welcomes four major champions to Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, on Saturday. 

Woods and McIlroy possess 19 major championships between the two, while Spieth and Thomas lag behind with a measly five. While both pairs are experienced, only Woods has previously participated in The Match. Playing in the inaugural competition, Woods fell to Phil Mickelson in extra holes before exacting revenge over Mickelson and Tom Brady alongside Peyton Manning in the second edition of the event.

The 46-year-old may know what to expect from the competition, but perhaps not from his own game. Not seen in competition since The 150th Open, Woods was expected to play in the 2022 Hero World Challenge before being forced to withdraw due to plantar fasciitis in his right foot. 

“I like playing, I like competing, but unfortunately, I can hit the golf ball and hit whatever shot you want, I just can’t walk,” said Woods at the onset of his event in The Bahamas.

Fortunately for Woods, all competitors will use golf carts, and he happens to be paired with the best player in the game in world No. 1 McIlroy. The Northern Irishman is fresh off winning the DP World Tour Championship, capturing the European crown in conjunction with his FedEx Cup title from this past summer. McIlroy may be in the best form of the four players, but doubting Spieth and Thomas in a team competition has proven to be unwise in the past.

Garnering a 4-0-0 record with each other at the 2022 Presidents Cup, Spieth and Thomas were unstoppable at Quail Hollow Club in September. They are 16-7-1 when paired together between the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and should give Woods and McIlroy all they can handle over the course of a 12-hole best ball match.

LIVE updates: Follow along with all the action from The Match at this link here. 

The Match 7

Viewing information

Date: Saturday, Dec 10 | Time 7 p.m. ET 
Location: Pelican Golf Club — Belleair, Florida
Broadcast: TNT | Simulcast: TBS, truTV, HLN

Format

The Match will be contested under 12 holes of match play and best-ball format. Each player will play his own ball, and the best individual score from each team will count for the hole. 

Teams

Tiger Woods & Rory McIlroy: They played in an exhibition at Big Cedar Lodge following the 2020 U.S. Open, but outside of that and practice rounds, the two do not have any experience alongside each other in the team setting. Woods is the major question mark among the four players, but any concerns may be squashed given his playing partner. McIlroy is playing some of the best golf of his career, and Woods has alway been known as someone to underdeliver to the media and overdeliver on the golf course. Perhaps this will be one of those instances as well.

Jordan Spieth & Justin Thomas: Thomas finished the Hero World Challenge on a high note to grab a solo fifth-place result, while Spieth nearly brought up the rear for the second straight year. These two can ham-and-egg it with the best of them and know each other’s game maybe better than their own. With a history of performing at their peak alongside each other, it is no surprise they are listed as the favorites in this one. However, if Tiger and Rory are smart (which they are), they won’t be giving these two too many gimmes — much to the dismay of Thomas — as short putts have been a thorn in both of their sides.

Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter and Patrick McDonald preview The Match featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy vs Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.  Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Picks, odds

Odds via Caesars Sportsbook

Spieth/Thomas: -125 | Woods/McIlroy: +105

There has been significant movement in this line since opening. Woods and McIlroy were actually -120 favorites at one point, but have since drifted to plus money as the underdogs. Spieth and Thomas should hypothetically roll, however, these charity events have seen some surprises with the best putters tending to win. That isn’t the strength of Thomas, and surely not Spieth, which makes me believe the current form of McIlroy combined with a sprinkle of Woods magic will be enough to see them come out on top. Pick: Woods/McIlroy +105

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Saturday’s seventh edition of The Match — this one featuring Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas — should be as entertaining as golf gets at this time of the year. That quartet hasn’t been playing a ton, but these exhibition events are more about the interaction than the golf anyway, and the interaction should be phenomenal.

Woods and McIlroy will take on Spieth and Thomas at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday at Pelican Golf Club (more details here). The latter pair is favored, which led Thomas to joke Wednesday in a conference call that the sharps totally know what they’re doing when it comes to setting the lines.

There is plenty to be excited about when it comes to this particular event — perhaps Woods’ return to golf for the first time since July’s Open Championship most of all — and even though this best-ball match will only last 12 holes, it should be terrifically entertaining. Here are four things I’ll be looking for when the festivities get underway on Saturday.

1. Tiger’s health: There are a lot of very not serious items to tick off on Saturday night at Pelican, but Tiger’s health is not one of them. He withdrew from last week’s Hero World Challenge with plantar fasciitis and casually mentioned that he’d had other procedures earlier this year. He has insisted that he’ll be fine as long as he has a golf cart (he will Saturday), but I’m mildly dubious about his overall mobility.

There should not be (although there undoubtedly will be) any extrapolations made about next year’s major championships based on the 50 or so shots Woods hits at this event, but it’s been five months since we’ve seen him swing a golf club competitively. That’s not nothing, and the best swing of all time — whether it is affected by the myriad ailments Tiger feels in the rest of his body — will be under a microscope over the next 10 days (here and at the PNC Championship where he will tee it up with his son, Charlie).

2. Who is the best trash talker? Back to the more insouciant topics. There was debate on Wednesday about this. Tiger said he was limited in terms of the vocabulary he could use. Rory said he knows J.T. thinks he’s the best talker. J.T. and Spieth said they were so outclassed when it comes to wins and majors that they might have to take the nice guy route instead of going right at two guys with a combined 19 major championships. (Spieth and J.T. have five.) Banter at events like these is normally neutered, but hopefully the fellas get a little loose, and we get some top-notch one-liners.

3. Night golf: Spieth spoke about how he’s never played night golf before and how much he was looking forward to doing so. I am equally excited about some primetime East Coast golf in the winter. Normally, when golf is televised at these times, it’s on the West Coast, but this event should feel a little bigger than normal because it’s under the lights. I don’t know that this will affect the outcome (unless the lights on the carts malfunction for some reason), but it does add to the festivities a bit.

4. Best match ever: Up to this point, the most collective majors at a match like this one was 21 (Tiger and Phil Mickelson, multiple times). This group has 24 combined, and it represents the most collective talent at any of the seven official matches to date. Granted, 15 of those came from the guy who hasn’t played in five months, but three of the other players are among the 15 best in the world right now. If this thing is close late — and it likely will be — the battle for a meaningless victory certainly won’t feel like just another exhibition.

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Bromance will be strong in the seventh edition of The Match. Featuring 15-time major champion Tiger Woods alongside his business partner and good friend Rory McIlroy squaring off with the all-American duo of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, the charity golf exhibition welcomes four major champions to Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida, on Saturday. 

Woods and McIlroy possess 19 major championships between the two, while Spieth and Thomas lag behind with a measly five. While both pairs are experienced, only Woods has previously participated in The Match. Playing in the inaugural competition, Woods fell to Phil Mickelson in extra holes before exacting revenge over Mickelson and Tom Brady alongside Peyton Manning in the second edition of the event.

The 46-year-old may know what to expect from the competition, but perhaps not from his own game. Not seen in competition since The 150th Open, Woods was expected to play in the 2022 Hero World Challenge before being forced to withdraw due to plantar fasciitis in his right foot. 

“I like playing, I like competing, but unfortunately, I can hit the golf ball and hit whatever shot you want, I just can’t walk,” said Woods at the onset of his event in The Bahamas.

Fortunately for Woods, all competitors will use golf carts, and he happens to be paired with the best player in the game in world No. 1 McIlroy. The Northern Irishman is fresh off winning the DP World Tour Championship, capturing the European crown in conjunction with his FedEx Cup title from this past summer. McIlroy may be in the best form of the four players, but doubting Spieth and Thomas in a team competition has proven to be unwise in the past.

Garnering a 4-0-0 record with each other at the 2022 Presidents Cup, Spieth and Thomas were unstoppable at Quail Hollow Club in September. They are 16-7-1 when paired together between the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and should give Woods and McIlroy all they can handle over the course of a 12-hole best ball match.

The Match 7

Viewing information

Date: Saturday, Dec 10 | Time 7 p.m. ET 
Location: Pelican Golf Club — Belleair, Florida
Broadcast: TNT | Simulcast: TBS, truTV, HLN

Format

The Match will be contested under 12 holes of match play and best-ball format. Each player will play his own ball, and the best individual score from each team will count for the hole. 

Teams

Tiger Woods & Rory McIlroy: They played in an exhibition at Big Cedar Lodge following the 2020 U.S. Open, but outside of that and practice rounds, the two do not have any experience alongside each other in the team setting. Woods is the major question mark among the four players, but any concerns may be squashed given his playing partner. McIlroy is playing some of the best golf of his career, and Woods has alway been known as someone to underdeliver to the media and overdeliver on the golf course. Perhaps this will be one of those instances as well.

Jordan Spieth & Justin Thomas: Thomas finished the Hero World Challenge on a high note to grab a solo fifth-place result, while Spieth nearly brought up the rear for the second straight year. These two can ham-and-egg it with the best of them and know each other’s game maybe better than their own. With a history of performing at their peak alongside each other, it is no surprise they are listed as the favorites in this one. However, if Tiger and Rory are smart (which they are), they won’t be giving these two too many gimmes — much to the dismay of Thomas — as short putts have been a thorn in both of their sides.

Rick Gehman, Kyle Porter and Patrick McDonald preview The Match featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy vs Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.  Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Picks, odds

Odds via Caesars Sportsbook

Spieth/Thomas: -125 | Woods/McIlroy: +105

There has been significant movement in this line since opening. Woods and McIlroy were actually -120 favorites at one point, but have since drifted to plus money as the underdogs. Spieth and Thomas should hypothetically roll, however, these charity events have seen some surprises with the best putters tending to win. That isn’t the strength of Thomas, and surely not Spieth, which makes me believe the current form of McIlroy combined with a sprinkle of Woods magic will be enough to see them come out on top. Pick: Woods/McIlroy +105

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While this time of year is not necessarily known for stars and superstars showing out on the PGA Tour, often interesting stories still emerge, and it seems like that’s going to be the case this weekend at the RSM Classic. Former Texas star Cole Hammer leads and former USC star Justin Suh is not far behind  after Round 1 at Sea Island, Georgia, in the last PGA Tour event of the fall.

Hammer went out and shot an 8-under 64 on the Plantation Course by making birdie on half of his holes. At 8 under, he leads by one over Ben Griffin with Suh one back of Griffin. Hammer hit 15 of 18 greens in regulation, which helps, but even the former No. 1 amateur in the world was a bit surprised by how many putts fell on a cold day near the Atlantic.

“I was almost blacked out there for a little bit,” Hammer said. “It went by in a heartbeat, but at the same time was a long day. It was cold and, like I said a little bit ago, I had very low expectations. And I’m glad I did because it was a tough day out there, there’s no question. I figured … par was a good score today and I found myself making putts for birdie early on and then just kind of kept going from there, but what a day.”

Hammer, who has conditional status on the Korn Ferry Tour but had never made a cut on the PGA Tour until last week at the Houston Open, clearly carried some mental and perhaps physical momentum into the RSM from his T27 finish in Houston.

“This summer was tough on the PGA Tour,” said Hammer, who is playing just his 15th career event on the Tour. “I had some good finishes on the Korn Ferry, but I was batting zero on the PGA Tour. I needed to get that monkey off my back. To do that in my hometown event in Houston was huge for me. I was telling my parents, but the first tee in Houston was like the most nervous I’ve ever been, just with the hometown crowd.

“It’s kind of crazy since I’ve played in Walker Cups and stuff. But anyways, I basically told myself I’ll never be that nervous again. I just got comfortable after that and saw myself shoot a good round on Tour and now I believe that I can do it.”

Hammer talked about how he thought this summer you had to play perfect golf on the PGA Tour to have any success, but it’s been nice to see that’s not actually the case. You can make some bogeys, you can have a few bad holes and still contend on the PGA Tour. This is a common theme for players as they mature. In particular, Max Homa has discussed this idea quite a bit throughout his career. Hammer is a good player and has had a fascinating career. He played in the 2015 U.S. Open as a 14-year-old before becoming a star in Austin, Texas. At 45-1 to win the tournament after Round 1, he can easily play the “nobody believes in me” card, but the pedigree is strong, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he stayed in the mix until Sunday.

Suh, another former No. 1 amateur in the world is coming off a tremendously successful 2022. After putting together 10 top 10s on the Korn Ferry Tour this year, Suh was named that league’s Player of the Year this week, and celebrated by dropping a 6-under 66 on the field at the Plantation Course.

“I think just being in the groove of this, being I think the third week on the road definitely helps,” Suh said. “I think confidence-wise, maybe subconsciously [winning the KFT Player of the Year] does [help]. Yeah, I mean, it still feels great, but I think for performance, I think just being on the road for three weeks, it’s kind of getting in the groove of the golf game.”

Suh has star written all over him. Though he’s taken longer to develop than some of his counterparts, he was part of a group including Viktor Hovland, Matthew Wolff and Collin Morikawa that turned pro just after the 2019 U.S. Open. He’s made three consecutive cuts on the PGA Tour and will be a tough out over the next 54 holes.

A win this weekend would quietly make him one of the more intriguing young players to watch going into 2023. Here’s a look at the top 10 after Round 1 at the RSM Classic.

Round 1 leaderboard

• 1. Cole Hammer: -8
• 2. Ben Griffin: -7
• T3. Beau Hossler: -6
• T3. Callum Tarren: -6
• T3. Justin Suh: -6
• T6. Stephan Jaeger: -5
• T6. Brian Harman: -5
• T6. David Lingmerth: -5
• T6. Webb Simpson: -5
• T6. Chris Gotterup: -5
• T6. Henrik Norlander: -5
• T6. Alex Smalley: -5
• T6. Keith Mitchell: -5
• T6. Russell Knox: -5
• T6. Harry Higgs: -5
• T6. Andrew Putnam: -5

Putnam is actually the new favorite at 10-1, followed closely by Seamus Power (-4) at 12-1 and Brian Harman and Beau Hossler at 14-1. Hammer is 45-1, and Suh is 30-1 after their solid starts on Thursday.

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NAPA, Calif. (AP) — Justin Lower weathered the wind and birdied the 18th hole Saturday to take a one-shot lead into the final round of the season-opening Fortinet Championship.

Lower shot a 3-under 69 to get to 13 under at Silverado Resort & Spa, with his fifth birdie of the round giving him his first career 54-hole lead in his 29th start on the PGA Tour. He’s looking for his first tour victory.

Defending champion Max Homa and Danny Willett were a shot back after even-par 72s. Byeong Hun An had a 71 to get to 11 under.

While several players who went out early in the day posted low scores in good playing conditions, the course got much harder late in the day when the wind picked up to wreak havoc on the players.

Willett took several minutes on the eighth green clearing off blowing leaves just before making a birdie putt that put him briefly in the lead at 13 under.

Workers with leaf blowers came out on the next hole to keep the green clean but Willett made a double-bogey 7 after his approach shot flew past the green.

There were few birdie chances available with players happy with pars late in the day. That led to a very condensed leaderboard with eight players within three shots of the lead headed into Sunday.

An moved into a one-shot lead when he hit a solid tee shot on the par-3 15th came and then made a birdie from about 6 feet to get to 13 under. But he gave it back and more with a double bogey in the par-5 16th when his second shot got caught near the root of a tree.

That opened the door for Lower, who put his second shot on the par-5 18th just off the green and then made the short birdie putt.

It’s been quite a few weeks for Lower, who appeared to lose his tour card after three-putting the final home of the Wyndham Championship for a bogey when he only needed a par to remain in he top 125. But after more defections to the LIV Tour, Lower moved back into the top 125 and is taking advantage of it in the first tournament of the new season.

Conditions aren’t expected to be much better in the final round, which has already been altered by an ominous forecast with rain and wind. The leaders will tee off several hours earlier than scheduled with the final round featuring threesomes off split tees.

Davis Thompson and Harrison Endycott shot the low rounds of the day with 65s that left Harrison in a four-way tie for fifth place with Paul Haley II, Matt Kuchar and Adam Svensson. Endycott was a stroke behind in a four-way tie for ninth.

Endycott the first player out on the course and played as a single in his first career tournament make the cut with a birdie on the the final hole of the second round. He overcame a broken driver early in that round and was happy to have all of his clubs available Saturday.

“Definitely helps when you’ve got a driver in the bag after yesterday’s shenanigans with the cracked driver face,” he said. “This golf course is tough hitting 3-wood everywhere. So it was nice to get freed up, played some good golf today.”

Haley, who had gone 3,315 days between appearances on the tour from the 2013 Wyndham Championship and the start of this tournament, was tied with Thompson in the group at 10 under after a 66.

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A dramatic final day’s play at the PGA Championship at Southern Hills resulted in Justin Thomas winning his second Wanamaker Trophy after a play-off with fellow American Will Zalatoris

As a past winner of the PGA Championship, you know how hard it is to win these things, but starting out on Sunday, seven shots back, and with six players in front of you, how much of a chance did think you had of lifting the trophy?
When I looked at the leaderboard on Saturday night I could see that there were a lot of good players ahead of me, but I also knew that none of them had won a major before, and some hadn’t won a PGA Tour event, so I knew there would be some nerves out there, just as I felt them back in 2017.
I hadn’t won in a while, and it had been five years since my PGA win, so I while I wasn’t feeling out of it, I knew that it would take a pretty good round from me and for others to fall back for me to have any kind of chance. To be honest, I only really thought I had a chance to win once I found out I was in a play-off. Up until that point my fate was kind of in the hands of others. I posted a score, but I didn’t think it would be a winning one. I thought six or seven under was doable, so when I missed that birdie putt on 18 in regulation I felt like it could have been an important one.

So what was your gameplan going out there on Sunday? Were you trying to be aggressive or avoid making mistakes?
I was trying not to play the field or think about what others were doing. I just went about my business, trying to execute each shot as well as I could, and then wherever it ended up, I just gave my club to Bones [his caddie, Jim McKay] and then moved on to the next shot and so on. Bones did an unbelievable job of keeping me in the moment and keeping me patient. Southern Hills is a very hard golf course, so you had to be patient, and I just hung in there, tried to stay positive and got the job done.

Did you feel that chasing from behind gave you the opportunity to play with a bit more freedom than the leaders?
I didn’t look at the leaderboards on Sunday, so I didn’t know where I necessarily was. When I made the birdie on 12, it felt like there was a different energy from the crowd and I got a sense that I might have been in the mix, but I didn’t know where I was at, but I’m in striking distance.

You were the only player in the last seven groups who broke par. How much of that would you attribute to the difficulty of the conditions and pins and frankly, to the nerves, given so much lack of major experience out there?
I would say the golf course and the wind probably 80 per cent, and I would say the difficulty of winning a golf tournament and a major, 20 per cent, if I had to put a number on it. I mean, it was tough. The wind kept switching and it was easy to second guess yourself. A lot of potential birdie holes could turn into bogey holes and worse if you got things slightly wrong, and that’s kind of what we saw happen out there. Southern Hills is a great major championship venue, and it tests all facets of your game.

When do you think your experience of having ‘been there and got the t-shirt’ came into play during the final round?
It definitely came into play during those last three or four holes. I played the back nine beautifully. The holes I didn’t make birdie or had birdie putts I had really good looks, and I hit great putts that just didn’t go in. And the holes I missed the green I was able to salvage a par, which is what you have to do to win a major. I kept telling myself I’ve been here before. Although it’s been five years, it was somewhere down in there, and that really helped.

Is it possible to feel a bit of sympathy for Mito Pereira, with the wheels coming off like that on 18?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in ideal circumstances you want to win a golf tournament, you don’t want someone to lose it, but that’s golf. There have been many times in my career when I feel like I’ve let a tournament get away. It’s brutal. It’s not fun. But at the same time, I’m sure Mito will be able to look back at it later and reflect, he’ll be able to learn from it and be better from it. There’s no reason for him to hang his head – he played unbelievable golf this week.

The weather changed so much over the course of the four rounds. How differently did it play from day-to-day and what factor did the weather play in the result?
I don’t think I’ve ever played in a major – outside of the Open Championship, of course – where we’ve had such a severe change in conditions during the course of the tournament. When I played on Friday morning, the wind was howling out of the south, and then on Saturday it was cold and blowing out of the north. That doesn’t happen often, let alone in a major championship and at a place like this. It just brought out another side of everybody. It challenged us, but I was also excited, because although I would have loved to have seen this place in a north wind, I hadn’t before. But at the same time, I’m sure a lot of guys hadn’t either. It probably helped that I hadn’t been here that often because it was a lot easier to throw the past two rounds of memory out and just almost take each hole from scratch for what it was. It was very tough, but everybody had to deal with the same kind of stuff.

Given that your father and your grandfather were both PGA Professionals, can talk about how special it is to win the PGA of America’s Major Championship?
Yeah, it’s very, very special. I’m pleased. At this point any of them is great; I don’t care which one it is. As Tom Brady always says, your favourite Super Bowl is your next one, and that’s what my favourite major is. And at this moment, it’s definitely the PGA. I know somewhere up there, grandpa was watching and pulling for me. It’s very, very cool to be able to share this victory with my family.

In what ways are you a better golfer now than when you won the PGA back in 2017?
Five years is a long time, especially at this stage of my life, so I’ve definitely matured quite a bit a player and as a person. I would like to think that everything has just gotten a little better, although I couldn’t put my finger on anything specific element of my game, but it those 1% increments that can make the difference. There is nothing that is monumentally better than it was five years ago, but it’s all improved just a little bit and it all came together this week. It feels like it’s a lot harder to win on tour than it did five years ago, as the strength in depth feels much deeper than it did when i first started out. My world ranking had fallen without me thinking that I was playing any worse, and that just shows how quickly you can drop when you’re not winning.

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