While there was plenty of excitement heading into The Showdown, there was always a concern that a match between four of the best players on the planet would not live up to the hype.
A match involving Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka should have been one of the most highly-anticipated golfing events of the year, with PGA Tour and LIV Golf players rarely facing off outside of the major championships.
However, versions of The Match have fallen flat in previous years. Few will remember the exhibition between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in 2018 particularly fondly. And it seems that plenty had similar views about The Showdown this week.
Ultimately, it was Team PGA Tour who got the victory, not losing any of the three sessions at Shadow Creek. But it definitely did remind everyone just how long it has been since LIV’s most recent event, with neither Koepka or DeChambeau anywhere near their best.
What annoyed Rex Hoggard about The Showdown
It seems that the presentation of the event was underwhelming. The players were mic’d up, but that did not deliver much gold, with DeChambeau even removing his earpiece at one stage. And speaking on Golf Channel Podcast, Rex Hoggard admitted that there are lessons to be learned from the broadcast.
“Everybody on that desk is very, very good and are people I respect. But this is a great example, and as you pointed out, I am at TGL media day, so to spin it forward, it is a new dynamic that I think everyone’s going to have to sort of learn, get up to speed in real time, because what happened last night aggravated me because the only people I was interested in hearing were the players,” he said.
“And it seemed like every time someone would start talking, Brooks or Rory or Bryson or Scottie, every time one of them was trying to make a point, Charles Barkley would come barrelling in, making a joke or calling someone fat or just being maximum Charles Barkley, which we all appreciate.
“I love Charles as much as the next guy, but the art of laying out is going to be so much more important when it comes to, not just these matches, but TGL where you have announcers who are going to be on the ground. I don’t really care what the announcers say, people don’t care what you and I have to say, they want to hear what the players say, and I just didn’t get enough of that.”
What Charles Barkley said about criticism of LIV Golf players
Charles Barkley definitely appeared to use his platform on The Showdown to express his frustration at the state of the current game. Obviously, the matchup had the potential to increase the desire from the fans to see the game come back together.
Barkley did defend those on LIV, insisting that they cannot be criticised for taking the money. He was critical of the PGA Tour, and insisted that it was imperative that the game did come back together sooner rather than later.
But as Hoggard notes, golf fans would have probably been quite happy to just hear the conversations between the four players. And it certainly seemed that there was not enough of that during The Showdown.
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