About the only thing that was spectacular at “The Match” on a cool Bellaire night was the red/orange moon that lit up the sky, brighter than the artificial lights that lit the way for a very tedious and undramatic duel at the Pelican Golf Club.
This version of “The Match” turned out to be a mis-match — Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth took control on the second of this 12-hole affair and never looked back.
It was easy pickings against a really, really rusty Tiger Woods and a Rory McIlroy who has spent most of the last few weeks hanging out at home more than the practice tee.
For the curious who tuned in to TNT, wondering how Tiger Woods might look, well, Tiger’s ever-present limp was the first clue and there was nothing about his game that brought back memories of the Tiger Woods who chalked up 15 major championships and 82 victories. It was a stark reminder of Tiger’s attempts to play the Masters, PGA and Open Championship in 2022. At least he managed to walk those but his latest ailment has taken that away.
Tiger came out of the box with a birdie at the first hole, a gimme birdie hole at 310 yards. Tiger drove it close to the green, made a nice pitch and putt for his ONLY birdie over 11 holes because that’s how long it took J.T. and Jordy to dispose of the opposition.
Yes, Tiger has a long way to go and contending anywhere again just might be a pipe-dream.
As for J.T., he was the dominant star. His game is in nice shape. Jordy — off and on. Rory? There wasn’t much to ohhh and ahhh about from the world’s No. 1.
As for the match, after the teams tied with birdies at one, J.T. made a nice birdie putt at two then Jordy poured one in at three — two up for the long-time friends.
At the fourth — it was the one-club challenge. Rory used a three-iron, Spieth a four, Tiger a five and J.T. pulled the trusty five-wood. Thomas was the only one who managed a par and it was three-up just like that.
Things could have turned when Thomas hit an approach to five-feet at the sixth. He gave Rory a 10-footer for par and immediately told himself “I better make this.” He didn’t. Rory birdied seven to cut the lead back to two-up. A birdie at eight pretty much sealed the deal with just four holes left and the younger guys three-up.
That’s when Charles Barkley let loose one of his best Barkley-isms of the night. “We gotta make this thing go the whole way (12 holes) ’cause TNT has 795 commercials!”
It ended, thankfully, with a 3-and-2 win for J.T. and Jordy.
Yeah, good observation by Sir Charles. The program was one huge commercial-fest. It could have gone fast given that you had four guys speeding around in custom golf carts.
The crowd was the largest of any edition of “The Match” and if you looked closely, early-on, standing near several parked carts behind the gathered crowd was Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley, who lives across the bay in Tampa and is a member at The Pelican.
The players wore earpieces that kept them in touch with Barkley, if they wanted to be. “How’s the foot?” Barkley asked Tiger early-on. “It’s still attached,” Woods responded quickly.
The foot’s still attached but the leg is still an issue.
Maybe Tiger’s biggest revelation was that son Charlie out-drove him recently when the two were playing back home. “I spun one and he (Charlie) tomahawked one and got me,” Tiger said. Tiger also confided that Charlie has yet to be him but added: “That day is coming.”
Good news from this Saturday Evening Snoozer is that north of $2 million was raised to help with the Hurricane Ian relief effort for the Fort Meyers area, a couple of hours south of where the action took place.
What this night golf production showed was that dew on the ground can make things tough when it comes to distance control. Water fliers.
As the hour grew late, there really wasn’t much memorable stuff.
And as Barkley said, with two holes eliminated, a lot of those 795 commercials went unseen. Still, it felt like 695.
And Tiger’s still limping.
