The Showdown Superlatives: Rory dominates, Bryson’s preposterous puffy jacket and Barkley wades into dangerous waters

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The golfers and the producers behind “The Crypto.com Showdown” at Shadow Creek yesterday billed it as the most hardcore golf competition since the inception of “The Match”. It had all the ingredients for it, too. Four of the top 10 players on the planet, a great venue people wanted to tune in to see and a fun, faster, point-based format that should have theoretically kept people watching until the very end.

Seems fair to say it ticked a few of those boxes, though it was lacking a bit in the “good golf” department, save for one member of the foursome. We’ll dole out our first “superlative” honour to him below as we recap The Showdown, superlatives style.

Why can’t we be friends?

Best performance: Rory McIlroy

Death, taxes and Rory McIlroy winning non-major events that feature enormous first-place prizes. That may sound harsh, but them’s the facts, folks. During the past decade, the man has shined when there is a heap of money, but not a heap of legacy, on the line. OK, this was supposed to be a section where we praised his performance. Let’s do that. If it weren’t for him, I’m not sure a memorable shot would have been hit on the day. He came flying out of the gate with a birdie at the first in the best-ball format to give he and Scottie Scheffler a 1-up lead, then he slammed the door on the LIV boys, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, with a bomb of an eagle putt at the fourth, the highlight of the entire match:

In person, this felt like a legitimate roar at a big-time event. Unfortunately, that energetic momentum was lost because this ended the best-ball match, 3&2, and instead of going to the fifth tee, the players and caddies and cameras all hopped in carts and hoofed it to the seventh tee, which was seemingly in another galaxy.

McIlroy and Scheffler went on to easily win the alternate-shot portion and then finished Koepka/DeChambeau in singles. The Northern Irishman’s early-round sharpness set the tone for the entire match.

Bryson DeChambeau delivers wicked sledge to Rory McIlroy ahead of The Showdown

Worst performance: Bryson DeChambeau

DeChambeau was clearly rusty from the start, pulling a simple wedge shot and leaving it short of the green at the first hole. Then, at the second, he hit a wayward drive that left him in an impossible spot to hit his second shot, and it sort of devolved from there. No putts were falling, the shots weren’t going where he wanted them to go and it certainly seemed to affect his mood. At the end of the day, the man wants to perform, whether it’s in the US Open, The Showdown or the hole-in-one challenge in his backyard. He did not perform well yesterday and looked noticeably dejected after the 12th hole, where he left a birdie putt about 20 feet short, leaving Koepka with a long par putt that he missed. At the par-3 13th, with a fresh start in singles to try to change the momentum, DeChambeau sailed the green and confusingly stared at his clubface for a few seconds afterward. Not his night.

Puffiest jacket: Bryson DeChambeau

No one else even had a puffy jacket but if they had they still would have no chance in this category. Look at this thing:

https://twitter.com/NUCLRGOLF/status/1869166876024283605

DeChambeau promised he’d have some new, interesting Reebok stuff, and boy did he deliver. I felt very bad for his caddie, Greg Bodine, who had to carry that thing around in between shots, at least for the first six holes. And for the people saying it wasn’t even that cold, that was true for when the sun was still out in Las Vegas. Once that went down, the puffy jacket didn’t seem so crazy anymore. No humidity in the desert, ever heard of it?

Most inadvertent “great TV” moment: Brooks and Bryson talkin’ balls

Alternate superlative title: funniest moment for extremely immature people (slowly raises hand).

Most painful “bad TV” moment: Raiders tight end Brock Bowers joins the broadcast

Let’s preface this by saying Brock Bowers seems like a really nice dude. I actually introduced myself and shamelessly asked for a picture because I’m an enormous Georgia Bulldogs fan. Great guy. Should win NFL Rookie of the Year, but that award is apparently just a quarterback award now. I digress.

Bowers was inside the ropes doing some social-media content, and for some reason someone thought it might be a good idea to interview him on the broadcast. Here’s how that went:

Fortunately Bowers has a very long football career ahead of him. Television will have to wait.

Most relatable moment: Bryson and Brooks after the first green

After losing the first hole, DeChambeau went over to Koepka and said, “No ‘It’s on me’ today. We’re a team.” Pros, they’re just like us! How many times have you heard that from a mate in your weekend money match? “No sorrys.” In reality, we’re all thinking the same thing when our partner fouls up – “What the f–k are you doing, dude?” But you don’t verbalise it so as to keep the vibes positive. We’re guessing Koepka had a number of thoughts, particularly during alternate shot, that he was kind enough not to verbalise.

Biggest miss: The “banter”, or lackthereof

That last point got me thinking how much better it would have been had Koepka actually verbalised what he was thinking to DeChambeau. Now that would be electric television. Smack-talking your own teammate. So, too, would smack-talking the opponent. But that just never really happens in these events. We forget these guys are professional golfers, not NBA or NHL players who study their opponents’ entire family trees in order to find the most cutting chirps for one another. Yes, guys like Koepka can be killers on the course, but they aren’t going out there trying to show each other up. Your own golf game is hard enough to focus on as is. The best banter in these made-for-TV events comes from Charles Barkley. Without him, I’m not sure how much legitimate chatter there would be:

https://twitter.com/GolfDigest/status/1869169455248380276

Most wading into dangerous waters territory: Charles Barkley

https://twitter.com/NUCLRGOLF/status/1869228075294322953

We almost used “most cringeworthy” moment for this, but honestly, is he that off base with this random little tangent? The issue is, it’s Charles Barkley, a NBA analyst, weighing in on a complicated golf matter that he may or may not have inside knowledge of. Just seems odd. As someone put it on X, this would be like having Trevor Immelman on “Inside the NBA” and letting him rant on the three-point shot killing the game of basketball. Then again, pretty much everyone loves Chuck and lines up to agree with whatever he says, and, as he stated, he could not give less of a you know what.

Most “that worked, definitely do that again” feature: The format

In previous iterations of these made-for-TV events, they’ve been 18-hole matches with some branded challenges sprinkled in. Those can seriously drag when it’s just a bunch of pars and bogeys being made. In this version, it was six holes of best-ball, six holes of foursomes/alternate shot and then two six-hole singles matches played simultaneously, all of those being worth a separate point. I think this is the way going forward. This theoretically keeps the viewer engaged until the very end, as opposed to one team going 4 or 5 up early (which we were on our way to yesterday) and making the remaining holes completely uninteresting and not exciting. In this format, even when Koepka and DeChambeau were in a 2-0 hole, they could have still tied the match with a singles sweep and forced some sort of playoff. It’s a mini-Ryder Cup in 18 holes. I dig it.

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