What Really Will Overshadow ‘The Showdown’ At Shadow Creek?

11 months ago by Comments Off on What Really Will Overshadow ‘The Showdown’ At Shadow Creek?

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler reckons that Tuesday’s ‘The Showdown’ taking place under lights at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas is about the bigger picture still sadly hurting men’s professional golf.

“Ideally, I think the end goal here is to get the game of golf back together,” said Scheffler.

We’ve had endless ‘made for TV’ showdowns in the game of golf but there’s never been nothing like the ‘unpublished’ reasons for ‘The Showdown’ because ever since 2022 there’s never been a glaring division in the ancient club-and-ball game the magnitude as we are seeing.

Whether or not ‘The Showdown’ can mend those broken bridges who knows but no direct bandaging will take place because of 18 holes tomorrow night on a golf course opened to the public for a green fee of some $500.

Promoters are billing the event as a new high stakes premier golf competition with elements of traditional international team golf will be blended into a single 18-hole match-play event with the winner walking away with the first-ever multi-million-dollar professional sports prize purse in CRO Cryptocurrency.

True followers of golf will see it as the two of the best competing on the PGA Tour versus two of the best at LIV Golf.

In one corner the PGA Tour duo of World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy and in the opposite corner the top LIV Golf pair of Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka competing under floodlights in a made-for-TV encounter.

Between the four of them they boast 13 major championship victories but as McIlroy stated: “This isn’t just a contest between some of golf’s major champions, it’s an event designed to energise the fans”.

Yes, McIlroy’s somewhat right but you can bet you last cryptocurrency dollar that the PGA Tour pair desperately want to win over their LIV Golf rivals just as much as the LIV Golf pair want to record what would be a morale-boosting high in lowering the PGA Tour colours of Scheffler and McIlroy.

Also, the question has to be asked would Scheffler or McIlroy be playing in Las Vegas had the PGA Tour not sanctioned their presence, and one could argue also a reason why LIV Golf was formed to allow their members to compete without the strictness of the PGA Tour rules.

As well, they’ll be no mention of the state of a promised ‘agreement’ between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, an agreement we were assured would have been unveiled all of 11 months and two weeks ago on 31st December, 2023.

What we have seen and it was a few months ago that the door to any agreement seemingly remains open or PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan would not have been cheerfully walking the fairways of Carnoustie side-by-side with PIF Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan during a sunny first round of last October’s DP World Tour’s Dunhill Links Championship.

‘The Showdown’ will be played over 18 holes, divided into three six-hole match-play contests, and for the most part, replicating the Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup format of competition.

The first six holes will be played as four-balls, with a switch to foursomes for holes seven to 12 and with the final six holes to be contested as two singles matches.

In the match-play format of ‘The Showdown’, the winner of each hole claims a point and it’s the pair with the most points at the end who will be crowned champions and win a share of $10m in cryptocurrency, and this a first in the history of golf.

So, when the winning team is crowned, the prize-money has been divided, the crowds have all left and the floodlights are turned off will the men’s pro game be better for it?

Now, that’s the genuine $10m question.

 

 



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