Top stars from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are coming together … at least for one mid-December night in Las Vegas. The PGA Tour’s Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are set to take on LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a made-for-TV match dubbed The Showdown.
The 18-hole match-play competition is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 17 at Shadow Creek Golf Club in Las Vegas.
This won’t be the first time the venue will be in the spotlight as it has hosted both PGA Tour and LPGA events as well as the first edition of The Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
“The Showdown in Vegas is designed to provide fans with the excitement of head-to-head match play, like the intense competition seen in team events like the Ryder Cup,” McIlroy said in a statement. “We all want to see more of the best golfers in the world going head-to-head, battling it out on the back nine of a tournament. At a time where the professional game has felt divided, we believe this event can bring fans an incredible day of entertainment.”
Las Vegas has been the site for many iterations of exhibition golf from The Netflix Cup this past fall, which saw PGA Tour players and F1 drivers join forces, to numerous editions of The Match, including one that featured Koepka beating DeChambeau as a means of squashing their own personal tussle.
This tussle between top stars from both golf leagues comes at a time when the negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf’s financial backers, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, continue to move forward. Jay Monahan, PGA Tour commissioner and PGA Tour Enterprises CEO, recently played golf alongside PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan at the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.
Not only do the two leagues have history, so do these four players. DeChambeau memorably got the better of McIlroy at this year’s U.S. Open to claim his second major championship. Meanwhile, Scheffler has teamed up with both DeChambeau and Koepka in various sessions across the last two Ryder Cups.
Koepka and DeChambeau had their own back-and-forth, which has since been squashed as both players transitioned to LIV Golf. Koepka passed McIlroy for the most major championships among active players under age 45 after winning his fifth at the 2023 PGA Championship.
“It’s time to give the fans what they want to see, bringing the best players in the world together to compete outside of the major championships,” DeChambeau said. “We look forward to doing just that on December 17. I am excited to be a part of The Showdown and deliver a phenomenal and entertaining experience for fans. Once enemies, now teammates, Brooks and I are ready to go to work.”
