Next Week's "The Match" Needs a Shakeup

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Author

Sean Melia
December 13, 2024

Hey Everyone,

This week, Beehiiv released a “Beehiiv Rewind” that recapped the newsletter over the past year.

Here are some highlights:

  • 113k words

  • 87 posts

  • 70% open rate

  • Number of subscribers doubled

Judging by that top three most popular posts, it’s pretty clear we have a nice group of sickos who are interested in various aspects of the game.

I am a one-man shop at this point. Everything I write, create, and post is all generated by me. Every new subscriber adds a little gas to the tank.

If you’d like to join a growing community of Supporters and Founders who help fund my work, you can upgrade your subscription for access to bonus content, early access to my course reviews, four exclusive videos throughout the year, and more.

You can even gift a subscription to someone this holiday season.

News and Notes:

Final Stage of Q-School: Davis Chatfield and Richy Werenski are playing this week in hopes of earning a PGA Tour card. Chatfield shot 71 (+1) and sits is T42. Werenski carded five birdies en route to a 66 (-4). He’s in second place, four shots behind Corey Shaun who went nuclear with a nine-birdie 61.

Megan Khang teams up with Matt Kuchar in Grant Thornton: The three-day event kicks off on Friday, so no scores to report. This video of Khang and Kuchar (aka Team M.K aka Team MMMkay) made Kuchar look like a pretty awful hang. I can’t tell if he’s trying to be funny or if this is just who he is…

The Match Needs a Massive Shakeup

In 1983, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus played in the first Skins Game.

The Purse? $1 million.

To put the purse for the Skins Game into context, the 1983 Players Championship had a purse of $700k. That's not the winner’s share; that's the entire enchilada. Hal Sutton took home $126,000 for his victory, which catapulted him to the top of the money list in 1983. He collected $426,000 over the course of the season.

In the time it took to read those two paragraphs, Scottie Scheffler earned $426K sitting on his couch.

The Skins Game harkens back to the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Golfers like Harry Vardon and Ted Ray would come over from the U.K. for events like the U.S. Open; to make their trip worthwhile, they would travel throughout the United States and play matches for money against local pros or amateurs.

Next week, Rory McIlroy will team up with Scottie Scheffler to play against Bryson Dechambeau and Brooks Koepka in the 11th edition of The Match, which is also being dubbed The Showdown. They are not playing for cash but instead cryptocurrency will be awarded to the players.

The PGA Tour vs. LIV dynamic might move the needle, but I think what would really move the needle is making the players put their own money on the table instead of playing for millions of dollars or crypto.

That would make things a lot more tense.

Gary Player won that inaugural Skins Game with a total share of $170,000 dollars over the 18 holes, including a $150,000 birdie on the 17th hole. The contest was an exhibition, but it was testy. Tom Watson even accused Gary Player of cheating on the 16th hole when he allegedly (let’s be honest, he probably did it) flattened out a “rooted leaf” that sat behind his ball.

Watson only won $10,000 that day at Desert Highlands in Scottsdale, Arizona.

It was testy because the money on the line mattered. It was the biggest purse in golf in 1983.

The Skins Game ran from 1983-2008. The $1 million purse remained the same, and in 2001 Greg Norman walked away with the entire purse when they required a player to “validate” their skins. They had to tie or win the next hole to cash in the skin. It didn’t go well, and Norman cleaned up in a playoff after all 18 skins carried over.

They got rid of that dumb rule the next year.

Back to the olden days…

Walter Hagen, the first professional golfer to strike out on his own without a country club backing his travel and fees, played hundreds of matches in the U.S. and Europe to make a living.

October 1923

These events were very popular. They filled time for players and helped them prepare for the next tournament.

Varden used a Spaulding sponsorship to help him play in various matches.

The deal included a yearlong promotion trip through the United States, with a break in the middle to permit Vardon to attempt to defend his British Open title. Vardon sailed over and began his schedule of exhibition matches in mid-February 1900, at the now-gone Laurence Harbor CC in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

At most of these events, each drawing from a few hundred to a few thousand spectators, Vardon played a match against the better ball of two competitors—usually the club pro and a local amateur champion, but sometimes two pros.

For each event, Vardon earned a reported $250, plus expenses.

In today’s dollars, that translates to about $6,200 per match, not counting Spalding’s costs to put Vardon in a Pullman rail car and send him to Florida, New England, or Colorado. By the time Vardon finished the year, he’d played nearly 80 such matches, which made him a very rich man, especially at a time when there was no income tax.

In Mark Frost’s The Grand Slam, he wrote that in 1920, Vardon and Ray played “wall-to-wall exhibitions throughout the East and Midwest for six straight weeks, with the men sleeping on overnight trains as they hurdled on to the next stop.” They would each earn 10,000 for their effort.

That was all leading up to the U.S. Open at Inverness CC in Ohio.

Maybe Rory McIlroy should try this as a way to prepare for The Masters: six weeks on a train playing all-comers?

Would watch.

Let’s be honest, if anyone is hopping on a train to play golf all over the country, it’s Bryson. Maybe YouTube golf is actually the evolution of that form of competition.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson played in the first Match (also coined The Showdown) in 2018 for $9 million at the same venue - Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. Shadow Creek costs $1,250 for 18 holes (that’s 70 bucks a hole). What would Vardon and Ray think?

These matches have fallen flat over the years because the money doesn’t matter anymore.

Scottie Scheffler won $63 million this year between his on-course winnings, his $25 million FedEx Cup bonus, his $8 million Comcast Bonus, and the $1 million he won at the Hero World Challenge.

In 1983, the purse of The Skins game was nearly double the biggest purse on the PGA Tour. The biggest purse in 2024 was $25 million at The Players Championship. I don’t think The Match has $50 million (or crypto…) up for grabs next week.

So how could these exhibition matches be more fun?

Make the players stake their own money.

I’d rather watch next week’s Showdown knowing that each guy put $1 million of their own money on the line. Heck, the money can go to charity in the end, but these guys need something to lose. It’s all that matters in sports.

The golf world just watched Bryson hit golf shots over his mansion of glass. There was no money on the line and people were riveted to Bryson’s daily attempt to make a hole-in-one. His pride was on the line in some respects. How embarrassing would it have been if it took him months to make that ace?

It was the same with those matches back in the early 1900s. Vardon and Ray needed their payouts to live and provide for their families. However, losing to local golfers with thousands of people watching would hurt their pride, too.

They needed the money and the competitive reps.

I’m not sure what McIlroy, Scheffler, DeChambeau, and Koepka need at this point.

Watching Koepka try to save par with his own money on the line would be interesting because it’s relatable for any weekend warrior who hates losing a $5 Nassau to their buddies.

Instead we have rich golfers playing for cryptocurrency on a golf course that costs $1,250 to play.

Desk Calendar

There is still a little bit of time to order a desk calendar for the golf sicko in your life. It has 12 original images from my rounds this year. You can order it here for $35.

When I’m not golfing…

I’m reading…

🤯 “How Being an Influencer Became the New American Dream” - This NYTimes article and stunning 13 min. documentary is one of the best things I’ve come across the year. Read and watch here.

I’m listening to…

🎵 I’ve had my 2024 Wrapped playlist on Spotify playing this week.

🌍️ Jon Batiste’s World Music Radio is so so good.

I’m eating…

🥣 Made this Butternut Squash Soup from the NYTimes this week.

🍽️ This Brown-Butter Orzo With Butternut Squash was also very good.

I’m watching…

😢 This Coldplay music video featuring a 99-year-old Dick Van Dyke was very good.

🏌️‍♂️ At the end of the most recent No Laying Up film room, Neil said that as a 35-year-old, he doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to feel embarrassed and that’s why he likes competitive golf. This was a good video on a very cool-looking course. There are plenty of embarrassing moments.

New here? Reached the bottom?

Hell Yeah.

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