“Capital One’s The Match”, the popular exhibition featuring professional golfers and other athletes, will include female competitors for the first time.
LPGA star Lexi Thompson and 20-year-old Rose Zhang will compete alongside the PGA Tour’s Rory McIlroy and Max Homa. Thompson has 11 LPGA championships under her belt, while Zhang was the top amateur player in the world for a record 141 weeks before turning pro and winning her debut tournament. Thompson competed professionally against men in the PGA Tour’s Shriners Children’s Open in October, the seventh woman to ever do so.
The competition will be held on Feb. 26 at The Park in West Palm Beach, Florida, and broadcast on TNT Sports. The 12-hole event will give proceeds to First Tee, an organization dedicated to accessible and affordable youth golf, adding to $38 million-plus distributed to philanthropic causes since the inaugural event in 2018.
The eighth and latest edition of the series in June, during which Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce bested Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, drew record low viewership for the event, failing to reach the 1 million mark for the first time.
The LPGA has increased its media rights revenue, corporate partnerships, and prize money in the past few years. The prize pot specifically has grown 70% and reached record levels since its current commissioner began her term in 2021, according to Sports Business Journal. The league announced a two-year media deal with ESPN in November that will stream events on ESPN+.
