After a fun Sunday where Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, and Matthew Wolff got after it in an exhibition match, we’re going to see another one this Sunday with some bigger names in the mix.
Tiger Woods will team with Peyton Manning to go up against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady. The New Jersey sportsbooks have all sorts of lines up for this event, so let’s take a closer look at what to expect.
The Match: Champions For Charity
When: Sunday, May 24th at 2:00 PM ET
Where: Medalist Golf Club in Hobe Sound, Florida
Odds:
The History
We don’t have a ton of history to go off when handicapping this event but we do know that Woods and Mickelson engaged in a one-on-one exhibition match in 2018. Mickelson ended up winning that matchup.
The Format
The format for this week’s event will be noticeably different than last Sunday, so let’s go over it. The two teams will be playing an 18-hole match but the format for the front nine and back nine will be different.
On the front nine, the golfers will play Four-Ball, which means that each player plays their own ball. Whichever of the two teammates has the lowest score is the score that the team registers for that hole.
In other words, if Woods has a birdie and Manning double bogeys, their team jots down a birdie. Also keep in mind that Brady and Manning will each get three strokes on the front nine with one coming on a Par 3, one on a Par 4 and one on a Par 5.
The back nine will be quite different as the teams will play a Modified Alternate shot. How this works is each team member will hit a tee shot but from there, the teams will pick the best ball off the tee. From there, they alternate shots until the ball is in the hole.
If we’re tied after 18 holes, we will see a shortened hole with teams continuing the Modified Alternate shot format.
Other Challenges
Although it’s unclear if we’ll be able to bet on these, we do know that there are going to be other challenges on the course. This is mostly to make things a little more entertaining but given that we don’t know exactly what these are, we probably won’t have lines upon them.
From what we’ve heard from rumors at Yahoo! And Bleacher Report, it appears that the players will play one hole with just one club. There are also rumors that Charles Barkley, who will be on the broadcast, will play one hole too.
DraftKings Champions For Charity Promotion
DraftKings Sportsbook is all over this event with a whole host of betting props. One other fun thing they are doing is a special incentive for this event. If you bet at least $20 on any market for the match, you’ll get $20 in Free live bets.
DraftKings Sportsbook has a huge selection of props for this match in including leader after 12 homes, will someone nail a hole-in-one, who’ll hit the longest tee shot, and much more. Take a look through their huge array of props as you might find some value on the board.
They’re also running a massive $50,000 contest at DraftKings DFS. You can visit DraftKings.com for more details.
How To Bet This Event
If you’re betting this event, there are a few things that you need to know. We do know that Mickelson beat Woods in the 2018 matchup but things could be different this time around. For one, Woods might have an advantage on this course.
He’s a member at Medalist and likely knows it very well. He will have a bit of a home-field advantage. Also, Woods has been playing better than Mickelson of late.
Taking a look at each of their performances through 2020, Woods has the edge. Woods has played in four PGA Tour events since October of 2019 and he’s won once, place fourth, ninth, and 68th. As for Mickelson, he’s labored quite a bit more.
He’s placed in five events since the start of 2020 and he’s missed the cut in four of those events. Of course, we’ve had a long layoff due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’re not sure how rusty the players will be.
The other reason we see the Woods/Manning team favored is that Manning is apparently a slightly better golfer than Brady (by roughly three strokes). The other key here is that Manning has more time to play golf these days compared to Brady, so he might be a bit sharper.
- Overall, I’m leaning towards the team of Woods and Manning at -186.
I also wouldn’t mind taking a small flier on ‘Yes’ for will this be decided in a playoff.
It’s a longshot but I have a feeling in this exhibition, they might try to keep things close on purpose to play more and raise more funds for the COVID-19 relief efforts.
