This week we’ll get to see Tiger Woods in action on live TV when he plays alongside his son Charlie at the PNC Championship. But we already witnessed Tiger’s first competitive swings since July at The Match on Saturday. How did it go for Tiger? Just ask his opponent Jordan Spieth.
Spieth teamed up with longtime friend Justin Thomas to beat Tiger and Rory McIlroy 3 and 2 over 12 holes at Pelican Golf Club in Florida. But during a recent radio appearance, Spieth revealed that despite enjoying their victory, he and JT relished in Tiger’s loss even more.
Spieth joined SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio’s Gravy & The Sleaze show this week for a Match post-mortem, and the three-time major champ expounded on the novelty of Tiger losing, and the joys of being the one to deliver him the L.
“Tiger, first off, he doesn’t lose very often, hasn’t in his whole career,” Spieth told hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz. “In the end we got those bracelets, and Tiger’s just standing there having to watch someone else get crowned a champion. I don’t know if that’s ever happened to him before.”
That, of course, is not true, as Thomas himself acknowledged (“I’m sure he’s finished second at a U.S. Open and they make you go out there”). In fact, Woods lost the first-ever edition of The Match, having to watch his longtime nemesis Phil Mickelson earn bragging rights at Shadow Creek back in 2018.
But the point remains, Tiger doesn’t lose often, and he famously abhors the experience, so Spieth boldly decided to let Tiger know just how much he enjoyed watching him fume at the awards ceremony after the loss.
“I was just kind of laughing, and I said something like there’s more joy in how angry Tiger is right now than even winning this thing,” Spieth shared. “And he just smiled, essentially saying ‘F off.’ He was like, ‘Yea, it’s true.’ He’s just so competitive, and he’s just not used to losing, and even more so having to stand there, I just thought that was kind of a funny situation that The Match will bring out, because we would have been just as pissed on the other side.”
That was far from the only trash talk dished out during the seventh iteration of The Match (you can read highlights of the best smack talk here), but, according to Spieth, Thomas almost pulled off a prank on a whole other level at the very start of the event, one that would have directly targeted Tiger’s age and lengthy injury history.
“Justin and Tiger are really close, he goes over to Tiger’s house quite often, so he can lean on him a little bit,” Spieth said, before making the big reveal. “He almost brought a cane to the first tee.”
