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Former Sky Sports Golf host David Livingstone has described “The Match” contested last Friday by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as “golf’s version of the Kardashians”.
Livingstone, who stood down as the anchor of Sky Sports’ golf coverage following this year’s Ryder Cup at Le Golf National, said that he “enjoyed” the much maligned head-to-head between the two former adversaries in Las Vegas.
However, that’s not to say he was on-board with all aspects of the contest, particularly Mickelson’s promise of “smack talk”.
“If what we heard last Friday is Phil’s idea of edgy banter in a competitive situation, he wouldn’t last five minutes at your local course on a Saturday morning,” wrote Livingstone in a Sky Sports golf blog. “Surely, Mickelson must finally realise that golf simply doesn’t lend itself to gratuitous insults. How can you be “smack talking” your opponent at the same time as your natural instincts tell you to say “good shot” or nothing at all?
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“Good-natured gamesmanship is certainly part of the game and we can all enjoy a bit of needle between shots in a friendly, competitive match. But we don’t need $9m and artificial tension to make a match meaningful.”
He added: “What we watched last week was golf doing its best to meet reality television – Phil and Tiger trying to be Kardashians. And, of course, TV was trying to keep up with the Kardashians.’
Livingstone is the latest high-profile figure to find fault with “The Match”.
Yesterday, Sir Nick Faldo told bunkered.co.uk that the amount of cash put up for the winner was “unnecessary”, whilst several of Woods and Mickelson’s fellow players openly criticised it on Twitter.
Even so, Turner chief David Levy has suggested that a repeat edition of the head-to-head is more likely to happen than not.
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