Getty
Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are reportedly set to headline the latest pro golf made-for-TV tournament in December.
The PGA Tour is back in the made-for-TV golf event business with a report that Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy will headline a team event in December.
The Sports Business Journal reported that Scheffler and McIlroy will be the two captains for pro golf’s most recent TV match, a team showdown set for mid-December.
Scheffler, McIlroy Headline Team Event in December
According to SBJ’s Josh Carpenter, the event is largely a showcase for Versant, the SpinCo stemming from the spinoff of Comcast networks. McIlroy actually had the company’s logo on his bag at the 2024 Open Championship.
“McIlroy and Scheffler will serve as captains of two four-man teams, likely in a U.S. versus international, all-star skills-type format,” Carpenter wrote for SportsBusinessJournal.com.
There’s one other significant wrinkle to the event, per Carpenter’s reporting: LIV players will not be allowed to play, a decision that allowed PGA Tour to sign off on the event. There was some controversy after Scheffler and McIlroy essentially went off on their own to play a team competition late in 2024 alongside Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in Las Vegas.
The report also indicated the event is likely to be played at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla. The club is just a 30-minute drive up I-95 from Mar-a-Lago. That does lead one to believe President Donald Trump could make an appearance at the event, especially considering how cozy he and the Tour have gotten in recent weeks and months.
The PGA Tour announced a return to Trump’s Doral club for the 2026 season. Trump, who announced he’d be at the 2025 Ryder Cup, has become far more prevalent in Tour business in his first year back in office, notably hosting a summit between the Tour and the Saudi Arabian PIF in February 2025 with hopes of reunifying men’s professional golf.
Can Scheffler, McIlroy Rejuvenate Stagnant TV Product?
The team event match in Florida is the latest in a growing line of these TV productions. The first, “Tiger vs. Phil,” pitting Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson in 2018 set the mold. While that featured myriad technical issues, it did set the wheels in motion.
Since then, there have been 10 iterations of “The Match” or the “Showdown,” featuring a whole host of golfers from both the Tour and LIV as well as celebrities from outside the golf world. None was more successful than “The Match: Champions for Charity,” featuring Woods, Mickelson, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning in 2020. That drew a massive average American viewership of 5.8 million, thanks to the combination of both the starpower and the fact that it took place in the height of the COVID pandemic when there wasn’t much if any live sports on TV.
The aforementioned “Showdown” in December of 2024 featuring Scheffler, McIlroy, Koepka and DeChambeau got just 625,000 average viewers, the second-fewest of any of the matches featuring professional golfers. All of the previous iterations were broadcast on TNT Sports/Turner Sports.
The challenge will be finding a new way to present a product that has, quite frankly, become a little stale. That’s reflected not only in the TV ratings but also in the on-screen product. The “Showdown” was awkward at best, and it was the latest example that these events aren’t really made for fans, despite the organizers’ efforts to say otherwise.
“Instead of fans being allowed to fill their bellies with a full plate of the best cuisine imaginable at a time when it can be prepared more expertly than ever before, we are left with players and businessmen — under the guise of meeting fans’ needs — filling their pockets while driving overconsumption of a meal that tastes all too familiar,” Patrick McDonald wrote for CBSSports.com in 2024.
Given how much attention is being paid to the Versant element of this latest iteration, it’s hard to imagine that sentiment changing in December.
Mike Cole Mike Cole covers golf as well as the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans for Heavy.com. He previously worked at NESN where he covered Boston sports (and much more) for 15 years. More about Mike Cole
More Heavy on Golf
Loading more stories
