It’s around that time of year, isn’t it? Where a new, made-for-TV golf event gets announced for the slowest months on the golf calendar? These events run in either November or December, usually, with a handful of competitors from golf’s familiar cast of characters coming together for Something You Haven’t Seen Before.
We’re in something of a steady rhythm of these new-format showdowns. In 2023, it was the Netflix Cup, where F1 drivers paired with Tour players in a scramble format. In 2022, it was Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, under the lights at Pelican Bay. That was good fun. In 2021, if you’ll recall, we got Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau facing off to end their longstanding duel. In 2020, Phil Mickelson competed alongside Peyton Manning against Charles Barkley and Steph Curry. (I’d watch it again!)
This time around, we’ve got the Golf Channel Games, held at Trump National in Jupiter, Fla. on December 17.
Technically this, too, will be unlike anything you’ve seen before. In totality, that is — because we have seen the pieces before. They’ve been fun, too. And all together they answer a question golf fans have been asking for years.
The Golf Channel Games will feature a handful of timed or strategy-based challenges pitting Team McIlroy against Team Scheffler — with the captains arguably the most notable participants.
The games will start with a timed Drive, Chip and Putt game, in which players are timed on how long it takes them to do each of those disciplines in a certain way. (I.e. the time it takes to hit 2,000 yards of tee shots.) That is the most original competition of the bunch.
Next is the 14-club Challenge, where players from Team McIlroy will take on an opponent from Team Scheffler, selecting clubs form the same bag, and once a club is used, it is no longer available to their opponent. Closest to the pin wins. If that format sounds familiar to you, it is incredibly similar to a content game made popular by the DP World Tour.
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The third challenge is another one we’ve also seen from the DP World Tour. This is the “Timed shootout,” where teammates will split up on different parts of the hole — one on the tee, one in the fairway, others near the green — in a race to see how quickly (and efficiently) one team can make a score. And if you’re curious about this format, just know that the DP World Tour also popularized this chase in pursuit of a Guinness World Record.
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Lastly, there’s the “Captain’s Challenge,” which will have McIlroy and Scheffler play six shots from six different positions on a hole, adding up the total distance from the hole of those shots. The player with the smallest aggregate distance will win. It is akin to any Closest to the Pin challenge found on golf video games, like Golden Tee.
And in that sense, the Golf Channel Games should be plenty fun: a video-game idea come to life. Some of the best parts of these made-for-TV matches have been the informal gamification of golf. Like when Woods was asked to sling a 5-wood around and over some trees with 100 yards of hook, forced into creativity because he’d agreed to a one-club challenge. These are the best golfers in the world, and the Golf Channel Games promise to at least make them prove it in a way we never usually see. Every now and then there’s a groundswell from players and media as they campaign for a golfy All-star competition, some sort of skills challenge on the PGA Tour. Well, this is the closest golf has ever gotten to making that happen.
It seems it’ll be happening in the middle of December, when there are no competing PGA Tour events and thus freedom to roam without requiring much Tour involvement or approval. This is offseason stuff. “Silly Season” stuff. The goal will be something different and something fun.
Also worth noting is how the Golf Channel Games will be absent LIV golfers. That may not come as a surprise, but it will be another reminder at the end of 2025 that all golf things tend to come with an asterisk these days. Last year’s “The Showdown,” which pitted Scheffler and McIlroy against LIV’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, was billed as the first of what could be a series of matches that involved both sides of the game’s fractured ecosystem. But the planning and orchestration of the event didn’t exactly go smoothly for both sides. No additional “Showdown” events have come to fruition.
Additional information about the Golf Channel Games, including the other players expected to be involved, will be announced in the coming weeks.
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