What Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler were saying off air about night golf after playing in the dark at The Showdown

Add as preferred source on Google

Rory McIlroy was surely the star of the show as he and Scottie Scheffler won The Showdown up against the LIV Golf pairing of Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka at Shadow Creek.

It is hard not to feel that The Showdown was ultimately an underwhelming spectacle. What had the chance to convince fans beyond doubt that the world’s best need to be playing together again, proved to be a reasonable exhibition with Team PGA Tour running out comfortable winners.

Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler did not lose a single session. If anything, it was perhaps a reminder of how long it has been since Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka have played in a competition. Both McIlroy and Scheffler have won since the Team Championship in Dallas.

Rory McIlroy shares what was said off air about The Showdown

Scheffler noted that it was ‘really challenging’ to play under the lights in Las Vegas. And McIlroy suggested that he also found that it look a lot of adjustment to get used to the conditions later in the evening.

“It got cold pretty quickly but Scottie and I got off to a pretty good start and from there it was just about trying to keep momentum. It was a bit of a battle in the alternate shot and we were lucky to scrap a win over those six holes. We were just saying before we got back on air how difficult it is to play under the lights and how difficult it is to putt under the lights especially,” he said.

“But super happy to get the win and partner Scottie, it’s a nice way to finish the year.”

What the future of The Showdown could look like

On paper, these type of matches should be amongst the most exciting events on the golfing calendar. They are unique – with playing under the lights part of what makes the event different to the standard weeks on tour.

However, there surely has to be a question mark over where these exhibitions go from here, particularly if the game does come back together and it becomes less of a novelty to see DeChambeau facing McIlroy again.

The first edition of The Match, involving Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, was extremely underwhelming. And The Showdown has received a mixed reaction at best when it involved a lineup with 13 major titles between them.

Much like LIV Golf’s format, there is clear potential there. But something is just not clicking.