Daily Times

NEW YORK: The intrigue around a couple of recent pairings has Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods negotiating a high-stakes exhibition round between the two, according to Golf.com. On Friday, Mickelson told the website that they were close to working out a deal to play in Las Vegas on July 3, but it fell through. He suggested the sides are still committed to making it happen.

“We’re working on a different date. I thought it was done for the 3rd but obviously it wasn’t,” he said.

The winner-take-all match is said to be for $10 million and involve a television network and other corporate interests. Woods and Mickelson drew lots of attention when they played a practice round together at Augusta National before the Masters. When they were paired at The Players a month later, Mickelson floated the idea. “The excitement that’s been going on around here, it gets me thinking: Why don’t we just bypass all the ancillary stuff of a tournament and just go head-to-head and just have kind of a high-stakes, winner-take-all match?,” he said then.

“Now, I don’t know if he wants a piece of me, but I just think it would be something that would be really fun for us to do, and I think there would be a lot of interest in it if we just went straight to the final round.” Woods sounded like he was up for it. “I’m definitely not against that. We’ll play for whatever makes him uncomfortable,” he said. Woods and Mickelson hadn’t been in the same group at The Players Championship in 17 years or at any PGA Tour event in nearly four years. In their highly anticipated round on May 10, Woods shot an even-par 72 while Mickelson melted down in a round of 7-over 79.

Published in Daily Times, July 8^th 2018.