Woods-Manning, Mickelson-Brady Champions For Charity Details Announced
(CBSMiami) -- The return of the PGA Tour is still over a month away. But yesterday more details on the The Match: Champions For Charity were released. The featured players -- Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady -- also engaged in a fair bit of pre-event trash talk.
The charity match will take place Sunday, May 24 starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. The Woods-Manning and Mickelson-Brady teams will tee off from Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida. The host network and the players will make a $10 million donation to aid COVID-19 relief. Organizations include Direct Relief, the American Red Cross, Save Small Business and the All In Challenge, among others.
The competition will start with nine holes of four-ball (best ball) play and then move into nine holes of modified alternate-shot play. On the back nine, each player will tee off and then play alternate shot from the selected drive. On-course challenges sprinkled throughout the even will raise additional donations. Social distancing guidelines will be adhered to throughout.
In another additional twist, all four players will compete wearing open mics, allowing them to talk with other players and commentators. That should allow for plenty of trash talk. None of the players wasted any time, tossing volleys back and forth on a livestream of the champions yesterday.
"I actually thought I was going to be Tiger's partner, but Peyton's dad called and switched the teams," Brady said, in jest.
Manning joked that "the course had to be in Florida after Tom's B&E arrest, with the ankle monitor, he couldn't leave the state," referring to an incident earlier in May that saw Brady mistakenly entering the wrong home in Florida.
Woods and Mickelson competed in the original Match in November of 2018. That competition, played for a far less worthy cause at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, saw Mickelson take down Tiger on the fourth playoff hole after the two tied in the initial 18 holes.
During the livestream, Mickelson displayed the championship belt from that event in the background. Referencing that at one point, he said "this win, I'll hold onto that. I know that it bothered him. You know why I know it bothered him? Because he insisted that we come back and compete the next one at his home course so that he had the home course advantage. I completely understand that line of thinking. I probably would have done the same thing if I had lost and was pissed off, too."
Tiger, at one point, used a green jacket won at the Masters as a blanket. This sort of joking, should it carry over to the Champions for Charity, can only help lighten mood at a time when everyone can use a little distraction.
