After months of buildup, two greats of golf in Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will finally go head to head for a whopping $10 million in Las Vegas this weekend. The one round match will kick off on Saturday at 7am AEDT from Shadow Creek Golf Course in Vegas. We take a look at the matchup and give our betting tips below.
Showdown at Shadow Creek Betting Tips
When the matchup was first announced mid-way through 2018, Phil Mickelson was playing some great golf and Tiger Woods was in the midst of his comeback, still trying to find his feet. However, now that the showdown is just a few days away, the roles seems completely reveresed.
Throughout the last few tournaments of the 2018 PGA Tour and the Ryder Cup, the only way to describe Mickelson’s form would be deplorable. Mickleson tied for 58th in the BMWQ Championship before finishing dead last in the season ending Tour Championship. He then went on to have one of the more forgettable Ryder Cup performances in recent history, playing just two matches over the course of the weekend and losing both.
He has made just one start so far in the 2019 PGA Tour season, which came at the Safeway Open in early October. He finished tied for 17th in that event, which was a decent bounce back after the horror finish to last season, however, he’s had minimal golf over the past month and could be coming into the with varying form.
On the contrary, Tiger Woods finished the 2018 PGA Tour season as arguably the best player in all of golf. He tied for 24th in the Dell Tech Championship and tied for 6th in the BMW Championship before finally cementing his miraculous comeback in the final event of the season, the Tour Championship, winning with a final score of –11.
His Ryder Cup was as respectable as could be expected given the European dominance over the weekend, but Woods is yet to play a 2019 PGA Tour event so far.
Hard to look past Tiger with the form that he carried throughout the final stages of the 2018 PGA Tour season and the troubles that Mickelson was facing. No doubt that Lefty will be more engaged in this event than he was towards the end of last season, but we can't see him sticking with Tiger over 18 holes.
As it’s not a sanctioned PGA event, the two players will be much more engaging with both the crowd and the broadcast, which is maybe the most appealing thing about the whole event. Both players will be mic’d up along with their caddies and throughout the course of the round, the players will make situational side bets, whether it be closest to the pin, long drives etc.
This is where we think Lefty might be able to do some damage to the Woods back pocket. We’ve seen Mickelson make some truly remarkable shots over the course of his career from tough positions, and his short iron and wedge game is renowned as arguably the best ever. We think he will have more to prove from these situational bets.
Mickelson more $ in side bets
$1.88
