Justin Thomas/Jordan Spieth def. Tiger Woods/Rory McIlroy, 3 and 2, under the lights at Pelican GC The seventh edition of Capital One’s The Match featured its strongest field of golfers yet and was played entirely under the lights for the first time. Those features made it one of the most memorable of these made-for-TV matches. Tiger Woods and reigning FedExCup champ Rory McIlroy took on Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in a best-ball competition Saturday from southwest Florida. Spieth and Thomas continued their success as a team, winning 3 and 2. They never trailed, but the camaraderie entertained throughout.
Here are five takeaways from The Match:
1. The Match wasn’t close but the trash talk and antics kept things entertaining. So did the players’ explanations about how they executed a variety of shots, such as Thomas talking about how he tried to “draw” a bunker shot so his ball would roll more. It’s a tip he took from Tiger. The best explanation came from Spieth on his match-winning approach shot from the pine straw, which he hit 5 feet from a pin tucked close to water. He holed the putt to give his team the victory. “I was just trying to get on top of it and play a cut. If you end up hitting pine straw first, it could go anywhere,” Spieth said. “I just almost try to hit it a little thin in a way and thin-cut it.” Woods used his cart’s reverse buzzer to distract Thomas, revenge for Spieth and Thomas waiting until McIlroy was over a putt to concede it to him. Thomas joked that announcer Charles Barkley was eyeing the full moon “like it’s an Oreo.” The Thomas-Barkley banter continued as they discussed their rival alma maters. Barkley insisted on calling Thomas’ former school “Alabama University,” leading Thomas to say, “I know you went to Auburn, you may not be the brightest, but you know it’s the University of Alabama.” Then Thomas said the next iteration of The Match would be “Chuck versus a plate of cheese fries.” When Spieth was shocked to watch his tee shot fly the green on the par-3 eighth, Thomas’ fellow competitors jokingly yelled, “Michael!” to mock Spieth’s interactions with his caddie, Michael Greller, when a shot goes astray. And when the talk turned to calves, nothing was off limits. “I’ve got a great calf,” Woods said, a reference to his one healthy leg. (Don’t worry if you didn’t get it at first. Even Spieth admitted, “I didn’t get that at first.”) And on that same hole, as Tiger eyed a 15-footer to win the hole, Spieth said he wanted to see Woods re-enact that famous scene from the 2000 PGA Championship at Valhalla, when he pointed at the hole and ran toward it after making a putt in his playoff with Bob May. Thomas, who attended that event as a 7-year-old and said it inspired him to play pro golf, retorted with, "It would take him a little longer to get to the hole this time."
2. No caddies? No problem for Spieth and Thomas, who made early birdie putts on Pelican’s slick putting surfaces to take a 2-up lead after three holes. Thomas began by holing a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 2 after hitting a “chunk flier” approach shot. Spieth followed with a 15-footer with plenty of break to make the team’s third consecutive birdie. "Bones and Mikey are so proud of us at home right now,” Thomas said as they walked off the third hole. McIlroy and Woods didn’t win a hole until the par-5 seventh, but Thomas answered by making a 12-footer on the next hole to go 3 up with four holes remaining. Spieth closed things out with his birdie from the pine straw on the 10th hole, denying Thomas, the day’s MVP, from doing the honors. Thomas had a shorter birdie putt after hitting a hooking wedge that spun within a couple feet of the hole. But Spieth had to give his partner the due respect. “You carried me all day and I got to hit the putt first,” Spieth said as they walked off the final green.
3. This was Woods’ first competitive appearance since The Open in July. He withdrew from last week’s Hero World Challenge with plantar fasciitis but said he had been playing well at home. “I can hit the golf ball and hit whatever shot you want,” Woods said last week. “I just can’t walk.” Well, it turns out that Woods hadn’t hit any of those shots in the weeks leading up to the event. Woods said Saturday in a pre-round interview that he hadn’t hit a ball in 2 ½ weeks. “This will be interesting,” he added. He later expressed hope that McIlroy would make eight birdies to carry the team to victory. His expectations obviously weren’t very high. Woods birdied the opening hole, a drivable par-4, but he looked rusty on the early holes. He was hitting high fades with his driver that left him behind his competitors. He chunked his approach on the second hole and dumped his tee shot on the short, par-3 third into a greenside bunker. Things did pick up after the fifth hole and Woods seemed to find a bit of form, which was surely encouraging for his son, Charlie, as they prepare to play next week’s PNC Championship.
4. Woods famously won at Firestone in the dark and McIlroy won a major, the 2014 PGA Championship, after sunset. But they only had to play one hole without sunlight. All 12 holes of The Match were lit only by floodlights, as the competition didn’t start until 7 p.m. Eastern. Judging distances and reading greens presented a unique challenge, as did hitting shots when the ball lay in the long shadows of the lights. Players also were without caddies, relying on each other to determine the correct line to the hole. “It’s going to be hard for me to trust Tiger’s old eyes,” McIlroy joked. The evening dew also made chipping more difficult, as balls skidded along the putting surfaces and it was harder for players to get traction on the wet grass.
5. The one-club challenge on the fourth hole produced the anticipated chaos, with Thomas winning the hole by making par with only a 5-wood. Woods played a stinger down an alternate fairway, then hit a hook shot with so much curve that its tracer line screamed across the television screen. A golf cart had to be moved so McIlroy could attempt his third shot. “Look, if you play this course enough, you understand that cart hangs there,” Thomas quipped about McIlroy’s wayward approach. “Tiger’s done that his whole career, hitting it into galleries and ending up fine.” Then Thomas got up-and-down with his fairway wood while Spieth held TV cables aloft so they wouldn’t impede his partner’s shot. After all that, Thomas’ par was enough for the team to go 3 up after 4 holes. For more video, you can check in here.
| 
