Two of the top golfers of the past two decades could be meeting in a one-on-one showdown soon.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are negotiating a $10 million, winner-take-all, 18-hole one-on-one match that will air on prime-time TV, according to Golf.com.
The website reported the match almost took place on July 3 in Las Vegas, with a major television network and several corporate sponsors included in the logistical planning. But the group couldn't come to terms quickly enough to make the matchup come to fruition that quickly.
Woods and Mickelson, however, remain committed to making the event happen, Golf.com reported.
"We're working on a different date," Mickelson told the website Thursday. "I thought it was done for the 3rd but obviously it wasn't."
Woods' reps declined comment.
According to Golf.com, Woods and Mickelson started discussing the potential match in April when they were paired together for a practice round at the Masters.
Mickelson then publicly speculated about the possibility a month later at the Players' Championship, when Mickelson and Woods were grouped together for their first two rounds. At that point, according to Golf.com, negotiations were "well underway."
Woods and Mickelson are among the world's richest athletes. According to a 2016 report from Forbes, Woods' net worth is $740 million, while Mickelson has a net worth of $375 million.
Ten million dollars may not seem like a big deal for the two golfers to the average fan, but Mickelson disagrees.
"It's a ridiculous amount of money," Mickelson said. "No matter how much money you have, this amount will take both of us out of our comfort zone."
Extended work
After being knocked out in the second round of the men's doubles Friday, Cameron Norrie's biggest disappointment was falling short of a Wimbledon record.
The British player and countryman Jay Clarke came up short in a three-day, 87-game, 5-hour, 2-minute first-round marathon against Hans Podlipnik-Castillo of Chile and his Argentine partner Marcelo Arevalo.
The 6-4, 6-7 (5), 5-7, 6-4, 22-20 scoreline left the match tied for the fifth-most games in men's doubles at Wimbledon, 15 short of the 102 played when Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa defeated Kevin Ullyett and Paul Hanley 28-26 in the fifth set of their second-round encounter in 2007.
Norrie, ranked No. 75 in singles, doesn't take doubles "too seriously," but he was down after being told how close they had come to topping the long-match list.
"It's tough we just missed the record," he said.
Having started Wednesday evening, the match resumed late Thursday and was suspended once more with Norrie and Clarke leading 4-3 in the fourth set.
"I thought it was pretty poor scheduling," said Norrie, who felt the match should have resumed earlier Thursday.
Melo was also in men's doubles action Friday, as he and Lukasz Kubot made a second-round exit.
The Brazilian was happy to have held on to his record.
"Only at Wimbledon can this happen," said Melo, referencing the fact the other three Grand Slams have made men's doubles best-of-three sets. "That's why I love to play here."
Those doubles tussles pale in comparison to Wimbledon's longest-ever match.
It took John Isner 183 games to defeat Nicolas Mahut in a 2010 first-round men's singles clash. The American player prevailed 70-68 in the fifth set after 11 hours and five minutes.
Sports on 07/07/2018