Five of the biggest disappointments and Five positives from “The Match”

4. There were not enough side challenges paid out

Heading into the match the most exciting twist to it was arguably the side challenges. Phil and Tiger would be betting their own money towards charity on various golf skill competitions around the course. Apparently the PGA tour limited the amount of side challenges that Tiger and Phil could do so there were not as many that was expected or that they wanted.

They started off the match with a $200,000 bet that Phil would not birdie hole number one and Tiger ended up winning that bet after Phil missed his birdie putt. After that, the betting kind of settled down a bit and they only had 5 side bets the entire round. There were a bunch of bets that could’ve made it more interesting, some of which we went over before the match.

They had two on the par three holes that Phil won, and on their one long drive contest on 14, in which they both failed to even make the fairway and they ended up in the same fairway bunker. Even though they are both well over 40 they can both still hit the ball with the best of them. It would have been cool to see them participate in another long drive challenge because they were both cranking drives over 340 throughout the day.

The most disappointing one that was not completed was the $1 million side challenge that would have been paid out if they made an eagle two from the fairway. Not only would it be amazing to have seen one of them dunk it with that much cash on the line. It would have been even better to see the other one’s face when they realized they lost seven figures on one golf shot. More side challenges would have also set up more prop bets for people looking to make money off this match as well.