Five ideas to improve The Match: Unique format, test your skills among options to elevate the golf tournament

Saturday’s game isn’t the most exciting night of golf this year, but it to be entertainment, which is always the expected outcome with these events. 3 and 2 at Pelican Golf Club before hitting the ball, doing Griddy and then performing waddler all over two of the best things ever do it.

For the exhibition golf course, it was perfect.

There have been many iterations of this type of golf with more ideas coming to fruition in the process. In fact, it seems that every generation has a variant of The Match, and this generation is no different. What? yes has changed in the last 10, 20 and 30 years, however, is whether technology is available to bring golf to a passionate audience.

The Match has used this technology and done well with interviews between players and broadcasters, placing cameras on all relevant courses and providing microphones and cameras to players at all times (including golf cart selfie time). It’s better now than it was 20 years ago because we’re closer to action than ever before.

While I’m not sure how the tech portion of The Match will — or even can — expand, there are some standout ideas that will make this property even more valuable in the future. future. This is about combining the technology currently in use with some alternatives to this televised style of golf. After JT and Spieth took out Tiger and Rory, I put together some of those ideas for future matches and what they might look like.

1. More unique formats

Saturday’s club challenge only works because all four opponents are pros (I don’t need Josh Allen and Aaron Rodgers to play a 450-yard hole with 4 irons separately), but it’s so tempting. you can turn an entire event into a one-club challenge; I would totally enjoy it if the boys played with all 14 sticks.

There are countless variations to this game that you can do — make the losing team take one stroke off each hole, challenge three strokes, hit only one stroke on a hole, etc. how talented they are at the game. hole with a better club than the rest of us can play with all of them.

2. Seat belt

This wasn’t an original idea for me, and in fact, it wasn’t even the original idea of ​​Shane Bacon (who tweeted about it on Monday). Rick Gehman brought this up on the First Cut Podcast last week and I think it’s awesome. Turn The Match into a championship belt. The options this gives you are limitless as they are obvious. If JT and Spieth are the current title holders, another couple could be pitted against them to try to take the title away from them.

Skip the The Match bracelets the duo won on Saturday and won the full 1860s Open championship by handing out belts. You won’t even need to play two golfers against them as long as you’ve taken the handicaps. This will give a slight edge to something that may be lacking at times.

More, as Joseph LaMagna pointed out, you can set up some competition that we rarely get at regular events. Obviously, they won’t be played with the same intensity as the Players Championship or Memorial, but it will still bring some fun to the series.

3. Skill Challenge

Speaking of LaMagna, he (and others were) very interested in the idea.

Although this is not a variation of The Match, it is To be part of it is an extension of it. LaMagna pointed this outsame thing, but something like an all-star challenge might be a better (and certainly more transparent) way to distribute $100 million worth of PIP funds instead of just… online mentions and TV time during the season. You can choose your all-star weekend through fan votes or a combination of stellar gameplay plus fan votes and essentially a PIP — except you’ll earn money from it and it will not act as a top secret effort.

4. Add player comments

One way to increase engagement on a broadcast is to have an existing player who is not a broadcaster join the group. This was done a few years ago with JT on the microphone and he is awesome. It’s too risky for an existing broadcaster to actually reach out to players, but if they get it from their peers, it could work better for the show.

5. Take better courses

The way this exhibition is organized is like going to the Bandons and Sand Hills’ of the world. It’s a great thing and something I hope The Match organization is going for. You don’t need 10,000 people there to make it interesting. Damn, you don’t need anyone. You don’t need massive infrastructure or anything like you would at a normal PGA Tour event. This frees up the event to go to some golf courses that we rarely (if ever) see on television — like the American Amateur or the American Women’s Amateur but with (probably) four of the some of the best players on the planet.