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Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau will finally get the showdown with all of their chirping and antics in recent months. Koepka and DeChambeau will face off in the fifth edition of The Match at 4 p.m. ET on Friday, November 26, the day after Thanksgiving, at the Wynn Golf Club in Las Vegas. The event will again be broadcast on TNT with simultaneous broadcasts on the Turner TBS, truTV and HLN platforms.
Interestingly, this edition of The Match will only be contested over 12 holes – perhaps as a nod to the 12-round boxing matches that Las Vegas has so often hosted – and will only feature these two golfers. In four previous iterations of The Match, the only one that also featured a one-on-one clash was the very first during Thanksgiving 2018, when Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods made it to Vegas. DeChambeau participated in the last edition of the match with Aaron Rodgers against Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson.
Koepka and DeChambeau were chewing, mostly in public and possibly for notoriety reasons regarding the Player Impact Program. The PIP, as it’s otherwise known, is a $ 40 million pool distributed to golfers who are ranked based on a number of different factors, including their popularity on social media.
This feud – if we always call it that – started around the PGA Championship and quickly escalated when Koepka was caught on camera rolling his eyes during an interview as DeChambeau walked beside him with spikes. metallic. It was picked up a level later in the summer when DeChambeau reportedly started having people yapping “Brooksie!” to him thrown out of golf tournaments. Koepka has mainly tagged DeChambeau on social media and in interviews, but there has apparently been a psychological effect on DeChambeau and his game.
The pair showcased their Ryder Cup rivalry as they helped the United States secure a historic 19-9 victory over Europe at Whistling Straits a few weeks ago. The event ended with a fun and boozy American press conference, and Justin Thomas demanded that they hug in the middle of the room with the trophy at the very end. They both forced JT
DeChambeau alluded to the match – which will be broadcast by Turner and would feature Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley to some extent – during his pre-Ryder Cup press conference.
“A lot of this social media stuff has certainly been driven by a lot of external factors, not necessarily the two of us,” DeChambeau said. “We had some great conversations in Tour Championship week when we had dinner and then this week as well. I sat down and had dinner with him last night, and everything went well. I think there is. Maybe will have something fun coming here to move forward, but I won’t talk much more about that. “
Now it’s here. Should we impatiently await the actual progress of this DeChambeau-Koepka match? I suppose. In retrospect, it always seemed like the end of the game. There were times when their feud seemed completely fabricated and others when it felt very intimate and personal. In the end, however, Koepka and DeChambeau want the same.
Both golfers deeply desire to be celebrated for their accomplishments and both seek the adulation that comes with performance at the highest level. The way they pursue that praise is very different, which creates an interesting dynamic, but I doubt they’ll be entertaining as foils in an event made for TV. There seems to be genuine animosity somewhere, but a 12-hole post-Thanksgiving extravaganza is probably the least likely place for it to come out.
The pressure in sport, and golf in particular, is telling. This match is not a cauldron. Instead, it seems like these were two golfers who at times engaged half-heartedly in this hubbub, both in public and in private, capitalizing on something they may have accidentally built up. It might still be good TV, but it won’t be the showdown everyone thinks it will be.
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