For the first time in the Match’s history, the made-for-TV event will feature two female golfers.
TNT Sports announced Tuesday that Rose Zhang and Lexi Thompson will play alongside Rory McIlroy and Max Homa in the latest iteration of the event, which will be held on Monday, Feb. 26 in West Palm Beach, Fla. The two stars of the women’s game represent the latest in a series of mixed-gender pro events, including last month’s inaugural Grant Thornton Invitational, aimed at bringing together the best players from the men’s and women’s game.
The event will be contested not at a big-ticket Vegas venue but at The Park, a dazzling new muni from famed architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner that has attracted the attention of the golf world in the few months since it opened; Tiger Woods attended the course’s grand opening last year and hit the first-ever tee shot. The Match will provide The Park with a nationally televised spotlight in a Monday evening slot, which should help to fill out the course’s (already jam-packed) tee sheet.
The foursome of McIlroy, Homa, Thompson and Zhang will play a 12-hole skins game utilizing rotating tees and yardages, with the golfer raising the most funds being declared the winner. Proceeds from the event will go to benefit the First Tee. A broadcast crew featuring Ernie Johnson, Trevor Immelman, Charles Barkley, Kathryn Tappen and Christina Kim will bring the action to viewers across the TNT suite of networks, including TNT, TruTV, HLN and B/R Sports. NHL on TNT’s Paul Bissonnette and DJ Khaled are also expected to join the coverage as “special contributors.”
The broadcast will fill a window — and host city — vacated by the TGL, a techy golf league backed by McIlroy and Woods that was supposed to be broadcasting on winter Monday nights from a custom-built stadium in West Palm. The league’s bubble burst (literally) in late November when the stadium’s roof deflated, causing enough damage to force the league to postpone its inaugural season until 2025.
It will be interesting to see if the addition of a pair of women’s golf stars will help to reinvigorate the event, which has seen sagging interest since a blistering start in 2019/2020. There are reasons for optimism: a recent similar event, the Netflix Cup, seemed to reinvigorate public interest in the forum — and the schedule slot landing in the weeks following the end of the NFL season improves the event’s timeliness, as does its alignment with the PGA Tour’s schedule. The Match will air the Monday open following the Mexico Open, or three days before the PGA Tour is already headed to West Palm for the newly renamed Cognizant (nee Honda) Classic at PGA National.
The broadcast for the event will begin at 6:30 p.m., with TNT providing lighting so that it can be contested in the evening hours.