BELLEAIR, Fla., Dec. 8, 2022 – Coming off a memorable Pelican Women’s Championship in November where Nelly Korda successfully defended her LPGA Tour title and capped off her season-long comeback to become World No. 1, Pelican Golf Club is setting its sights to create more memories this weekend as host for the seventh edition of Capital One’s The Match. Featuring four of the most accomplished golfers in the world – Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth – Capital One’s The Match will take place in primetime under the lights in a 12-hole competition on Saturday, Dec. 10 with coverage airing on TNT beginning at 6 p.m. ET.
The four golfers – who will be paired Woods/McIlroy vs. Spieth/Thomas for the event, have combined for 24 major golf championships in their careers and have each previously held No. 1 in the men’s World Golf Rankings. They will compete in a best ball format, with each player on the team playing his own ball throughout the round. After each hole, the player with the lowest score in the hole on each team will serve as that team’s score, with the other player’s score thrown out for that hole.
Capital One’s The Match will serve as a platform to benefit Hurricane Ian relief efforts that devastated the Gulf Coast region. The golfers will be generating donations through a series of challenges on select holes throughout the competition.
“It is an honor for Pelican Golf Club to host Capital One’s The Match and four of the greatest golfers of our generation in Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas,” said Dan Doyle, Jr., whose family owns Pelican Golf Club. “The awareness this event is going to provide in generating donations to Hurricane Ian relief efforts for our region is a tremendous testament to this event. We look forward to an exciting showdown under the lights on Saturday night.”
Warner Bros. Discovery Sports will present exclusive and expansive coverage ofCapital One’s The Match live from Pelican Golf Club. Television coverage will center on TNT, with simulcasts on TBS, truTV and HLN, beginning at 6 p.m., along with expansive content across Bleacher Report’s platforms leading up to and during the competition. Fans outside the U.S. will be able to watch through discovery+, the Eurosport App and Eurosport 2 in Europe; Golf Chanel Latin America in LATAM, Eurosport in Asia; as well as on JTBC’s linear and digital platforms in South Korea and Sportsnet ONE and SN NOW in Canada.
TNT’s programming will start at 6 p.m. with The Conversation Presented by Deloitte, a 30-minute roundtable discussion with Woods, McIlroy, Spieth and Thomas lead by Capital One’s The Match host Brian Anderson. Capital One’s The Match Pre-Match Show presented by ZipRecruiter will follow at 6:30 p.m., leading into the live competition at 7 p.m.
Pelican Golf Club, residing in Belleair, Fla., just south of Tampa, was originally designed by World Golf Hall-of-Fame golf architect Donald Ross in 1925 and embodies the design characteristics of the golden age era with state-of-the-art infrastructure. Renowned architect Beau Welling and his team completed a major restoration in 2019 with inspiration from the original Ross design.
Pelican Golf Club is one of the most striking courses in the region, featuring manicured fairways and uninterrupted rough with greens and tees maintained at the highest levels.
Pelican Golf Club has hosted The Pelican Women’s Championship on the LPGA Tour since 2020, featuring the return of women’s professional golf to the Tampa Bay region in more than 30 years. Sei Young Kim captured the inaugural championship, with Korda winning back-to-back championships in 2021 and 2022.
Starting in 2023, Pelican Golf Club will host The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican, a multi-year partnership with World Golf and LPGA Hall-of-Fame member Annika Sorenstam and LPGA Tour partners Gainbridge and Pelican Golf Club. Taking place Nov. 6-12, 2023, the tournament will feature a $3.25 million purse – the largest on the LPGA Tour outside of major championships and the CME Group Tour Championship. As the sole namesake event on the LPGA Tour, Sorenstam will serve as tournament host, with proceeds benefiting the ANNIKA Foundation.