The Showdown was guaranteed to have trash talk amongst the four competitors.
What wasn’t guaranteed, but was also probably assumed, was that Charles Barkley would find his way into the mix, one way or another.
Barkley on the broadcast, asked Rory McIlroy a simple question, and was greeted with a clapback from the professional golfer.
“How much in a regular round do you eat?” Barkley asked McIlroy between holes, as he was eating a power bar.
“Not as much as you Chuck,” McIlroy jokingly responded.
“Okay,” Barkley laughed. “I’m on a diet.”
Harmless banter, but banter nonetheless.
The event itself features McIlroy teamed up with Scottie Scheffler, as they face off against LIV Golf rivals Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
Scheffler and McIlroy are representing the PGA Tour, while Koepka and DeChambeau will be there for LIV.
LIV poached a lot of the PGA Tour’s players back in 2021 when they came on to the scene, which caused a lot of tension and division in the spot.
Since then, a lot of the animosity has died down, as a merger has been announced to be in the works between the two entities.
The Showdown is set to be played over 18 holes and will be scored via match play rather than stroke play.
2
In match play, the duos will compete against each other on every hole, with the winner of that hole taking a point.
The pair with the most points at the end wins.
What makes this superstar event standout from others, is its’ prize money.
The winner will be awarded the multimillion-dollar prize, totaling $10 million, in CRO, the token of Crypto.com, in an unprecedented move in sport.
