The high-stakes matchup between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson just got a little more real. The two all-time greats with square off over Thanksgiving weekend in Las Vegas. Even at this stage in their careers, this is a must-see showdown.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson’s careers have been intertwined for decades. However, when the stakes were the highest, they never quite got together for the type of match that can only be made on Sunday at a major championship.
While they’re both pressing on and competing in their 40s, don’t think that competitive fire is out just yet. After some start-and-stop negotiations were revealed in July, we appear to have both a date and location of the potential $10 million round.
Sources told ESPN’s Mike Greenberg that the match will take place on either November 23rd or 24th, the Friday and Saturday immediately after Thanksgiving. The host course will be Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.
When news broke that this event was even in discussion last month, it instantly became one of the must-see sporting events of the year. Tiger Woods is 42, and Phil Mickelson is 48, but they’re inarguably the two biggest golf stars of the 21st century so far.
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While the sheer volume of victories (and majors) the two have amassed is naturally slowing down, they may easily one day be looked at as this generation’s Arnie and Jack. The story is like something out of a movie: a rivalry created as much by the viewing public as each other, mellowing into the friendship of two stars who were never really that different, after all.
Oh, yeah, and the money. The two have traded plenty of friendly barbs over the sum of money that will be put up, but they’re also well aware that hey, $10 million bucks is still a big number, even for two men who barely blink at anything smaller.
“It’s a ridiculous amount of money,” Mickelson told Golf.com’s Alan Shipnuck last month. “No matter how much money you have, this amount will take both of us out of our comfort zone.”
Meanwhile, both players have plenty left on their plates between now and the holiday season. Both are ranked inside the top 50 in the FedEx Cup race, with eyes on the playoffs this fall. This week they’ll battle it out at Firestone in the final edition of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, before moving on to Bellerive and the PGA Championship.
If these plans stay in place, golf will return to prime time in a weekend normally reserved for football games and holiday movies. And I, for one, can’t wait.