The Match (golf)

The Match is a series of exhibition match play golf challenge matches that began in 2018. The event features major professional golfers or other notable athletes facing each other in a head-to-head competition. The format has varied throughout the run of the event; in all of the events, sports entertainment elements were included, particularly with the inclusion of sports betting elements in that the contestants wager portions of their prize on side bets during the contest. Most years since 2020, two iterations of The Match have been held each year, alternating between contests involving professional golfers (usually in November or December, outside the PGA Tour season) and contests involving celebrity athletes from other sports, with or without golf professionals; one of the two contests is traditionally held on the weekend before or after Thanksgiving. TNT Sports (formerly Turner Sports) has televised all iterations of the event through 2024, with the offseason contests airing as part of TNT's holiday seasonal programming. In 2025, the producers opted to produce a different competition, the Golf Channel Games, for Golf Channel.

Jack Whigham, a Hollywood agent, and Bryan Zuriff, a film and TV producer, conceived the event. Zuriff was a fan of the Skins Game—a former PGA Tour unofficial event that was held around Thanksgiving weekend and would eventually be revived in 2025—and envisioned a concept for a golf event that would, as explained by Whigham, be "played the way a lot of us play with our buddies on the weekends? You know, where you bet on everything and talk smack and basically have this continually running dialogue of giving each other (grief.)"

Mark Steinberg, an agent who represented Tiger Woods (who competed in the first two events), contrasted the event with Monday Night Golf—a series of primetime, network television events largely intended to be a vehicle for Woods at the height of his popularity—stating that it would feature both sports and entertainment elements and not be focused purely on competitive aspects. The event would be jointly owned by Woods and Phil Mickelson (an associate of Zuriff's and a competitor in the first four entries), but the entity still had to pay a rights fee to the PGA Tour—which would impose some restrictions and conditions on the presentation and format of the event.

The first edition, titled The Match: Tiger vs. Phil, was played on November 23, 2018, between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, at the Shadow Creek Golf Course in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The purse for the event was $9 million, with the winner taking the entire amount. Mickelson won the match after 22 holes, including four playoff holes. The event was marketed as a pay per view by Turner Sports via Bleacher Report Live, but technical issues with the over-the-top distribution of the PPV forced the event to instead be streamed for free; Turner and other providers subsequently offered refunds.

A rematch, The Match: Champions for Charity, was played on May 24, 2020, at Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida. It featured a pro-am four-ball format with each golfer having a National Football League quarterback as his partner: Woods was paired with two-time Super Bowl champion Peyton Manning, and Mickelson with then six-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. Woods and Manning held off a late comeback from Mickelson and Brady to win by a single hole.

The match was broadcast live on TNT, TBS, HLN and truTV, drawing an average 2.8 million viewers, due in part to the fact that it was one of the first nationally televised live sports events to take place after sports worldwide were shut down in March. Brian Anderson was the host of the event, Trevor Immelman and Charles Barkley served as analysts, and Justin Thomas and Amanda Balionis were on-course reporters.

A third edition, titled The Match: Champions For Change, took place on November 27, 2020, at Stone Canyon Golf Club in Oro Valley, Arizona. The match, benefitting historically black colleges and universities, was played using an American foursomes format. Mickelson partnered NBA hall-of-famer Charles Barkley, who played from a forward set of tees, to defeat Manning and NBA star Stephen Curry, 4 and 3.

The event was broadcast live on TNT, earning an average 1.0 million viewers. Anderson and Immelman returned as host and analyst, respectively, alongside NBA star Andre Iguodala, who was also an analyst. Gary McCord and Cheyenne Woods served as on-course reporters. Additionally, a "Cart Cam" stream was made available for the event exclusively through Bleacher Report with host Taylor Rooks and on-course correspondent Eli Manning.