On Monday, Golf Channel announced the full rosters for its upcoming “Optum Golf Channel Games,” a new rapid-fire golf competition set to take place in primetime on Dec. 17. Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler will each captain a team, and both of their rosters are filled out with some interesting characters.
McIlroy’s squad features his good buddy Shane Lowry, who holed the winning putt for the European team in the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in September. Luke Donald, who captained that team to victory for a second straight time, will also join McIlroy’s roster. Rounding out the foursome is China’s Haotong Li, who returned to prominence with his impressive T-4 finish in the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in July.
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Scheffler’s roster has a similar vibe, as it includes the American Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley and fellow Ryder Cupper and close pal Sam Burns. The final spot belongs to Luke Clanton, the former No. 1-ranked amateur in the world who turned professional in June.
The competition will air under the lights on Golf Channel and USA Network eight days before Christmas at Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., and it will feature a number of head-to-head challenges that are both time-based and strategy-focused. McIlroy and Scheffler will also face off 1-on-1 in the “Captains Challenge,” where they’ll each hit from predetermined locations, including iron shots from a variety of distances as well as wedge, pitch, bunker shot, greenside shot, 30-foot putt and 10-foot putt.
There will be three timed-based competitions, one a driving competition, one a short-game competition and one a “shootout,” which will pit all four players from both teams against each other in a four-hole alternate-shot game. One player will be staged on the tee, another in the fairway, and two players will be waiting around the green. The team with the best score on those four holes in the shortest amount of time will win.
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Perhaps the most intriguing game of all will be the 14-club challenge, which will be two teams of two players from each team squaring off. They’ll each draw a club from a single bag (including driver and putter) in a closest-to-the-pin competition from a designated distance in the fairway. All 14 clubs are in the mix, seven shots per player per side, and when one club is used, it’s out. Each team also will pick a player to hit a lefty 15th shot.
Given the up-tempo nature of all of these competitions, and the fact some of the most-skilled players in the world will be participating, it should make for a entertaining watch in primetime. If anything, it will serve as the perfect appetizer for the 2026 PGA Tour season, which will begin Jan. 15 in Hawaii.
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