Tiger-Phil in prime time? Great idea ... in 1999
CARNOUSTIE, SCOTLAND — As golf exhibitions go, this probably once seemed like a good idea.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in a prime-time television special playing 18 holes for — and let’s pause for a moment here — a cool $10 million. Put it under the lights in Las Vegas with some cool celebrities following inside the ropes, and it becomes must-see TV. Back in 1999 anyway. A concept past its time is heading to prime time, at least according to hints dropped by both Woods and Mickelson. The two say they are deep into negotiations to play a winner-take-all match with $10 million on the line.
The best part for both players? Neither will have to reach into his pocket to pay the other off.
“I would hope for a sponsor,” Mickelson said last week at the Scottish Open.
That takes some of the drama away from the match, mostly because $10 million isn’t life-changing money for either man. Woods has won $111,878,724 in official money in his career, while Mickelson is not far behind at $87,533,019, and both have made many times more in endorsements. Still, it’s enough for more than a few more tanks of gas. And it’s enough to get Woods to want to reprise the series of exhibitions he once did in his prime before the unusualness of the event wore off and the ratings went in the tank.
Woods may not be the player he once was, but at 42 he remains the biggest draw in golf. Mickelson gets some eyeballs, too, though at the age of 48, he’s getting more attention lately for breaking rules on the golf course than winning tournaments.
The two were never real rivals, and never real friends. Woods was almost always the dominant No. 1, and had little use for chit chat with any player in his prime. But reality TV isn’t always real. And the lure of this TV special would be Mickelson and Woods finally facing each other with microphones picking up every comment.
“We are friends so we are always trying to make each other uncomfortable and needle each other,” Woods said at Carnoustie, site of this week’s British Open. If Woods and Mickelson really want to make each other uncomfortable, of course, they would play for their own money like nearly every weekend golfer does. And if they really want to needle each other, it wouldn’t be hard to come up with some zingers.
Imagine Woods about to try to reach a par 5 over water in two as Mickelson looks on. “That shot looks tougher than trying to pass a DUI test with five different drugs in your system,” Lefty might say.
“I may have had to go to rehab, but you could have gone to prison with that insider trading scheme,” Woods might reply.
Or this, as Mickelson stands over a 20-foot downhiller to win the match on the 18th green: “Don’t hit it too hard, Phil. You know what happened when you did that at the U.S. Open and you ran and hit the ball again while it was still moving. Does the movie ‘Happy Gilmore’ come to mind?”
“Well at least he hit the ball,” Mickelson might reply. “Not like the time the 9-iron went through the windshield of your SUV.”
Yes, indeed, nothing like a little friendly banter to spice things up. If Woods and Mickelson really wanted to go at it, they could turn their exhibition into must-see TV.