BOSTON, Mass – Sports fans be warned. The Match will return this summer, pairing Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau with two Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks on July 6 on TNT.
The made-for-TV golf event will reunite Mickelson – following his historic 2021 PGA Championship win – and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and six-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady against DeChambeau and Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers. The competition, hosted at Moonlight Basin in Big Sky, Montana, will be conducted as a modified alternate shot match play. The event will raise money for Feeding America, among additional charitable beneficiaries.
Mickelson, a two-time winner of the competition, paired with Brady last May. In November, he teamed with Charles Barkley to upset Stephen Curry and Peyton Manning. This summer’s competition will mark DeChambeau and Rodgers’ first time participating in the event.
TNT’s coverage of The Match will begin at 5 p.m. ET on July 6. Like previous editions of the event, all players will wear mics during the entire competition and be able to talk with their fellow golfers and the broadcast commentators.
What to expect from the Mickelson and Brady duo?
Mark Godich, senior golf editor: Mickelson and Brady should be a comfortable pairing. They lost 1 up to Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning last May at Medalist Golf Club in Florida. Brady got off to a shaky start but delivered one of the highlights of the day, holing a wedge from the seventh fairway for birdie.
The Reserve at Moonlight Basin should serve as a spectacular venue and features a par-5 measuring almost 800 yards. A mic’d up Mickelson was good commentary at Medalist, and playing a course at such high altitude will undoubtedly prompt him to talk about “hitting bombs.”
How good is Aaron Rodgers at golf?
“Rodgers shouldn’t be intimidated by the big stage. He’s a regular participant at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, having teamed with PGA Tour pro Max Homa to finish ninth there in 2020,” said Godich. “Rodgers shows a USGA handicap index of 4.6 while playing out of Green Bay Country Club, so, yeah, he knows how to golf his ball. Brady’s index is 8.1.”
What kind of viewership should this pull in?
“Last year’s telecast of “The Match: Champions for Charity” attracted an average of 5.8 million viewers across four of Turner’s networks, the most-watched golf telecast in cable TV history,” said media writer Richard Deitsch. “The U.S. was early in lockdown then and the decline in sports viewership had yet to hit significantly. I’d expect this year’s Match to draw fewer viewers, especially given the absence of Woods and that an attraction event such as this usually declines the more times you do it.”
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