Tiger Woods v Phil Mickelson: The Match – live!

Mickelson is first to tee off the first, a 379-yard par four, following a warm introduction from Samuel L Jackson. Remember: there’s a $200,000 side bet between the players that Mickelson birdies this hole He splits the fairway with an iron. Jackson then introduces Woods and he promptly rips one into the rough. Both reach the green with their approach shots and have 12-foot putts for birdie. Woods misses his first and concedes the hole, but the side bet is on the line for Mickelson. He lines it up and misses it just left. That’s a spicy meatball. We’re all square after one and Mickelson is $200k in the red. “The first hole played out exactly how I thought it would until the putt didn’t go in,” says the miked-up Mickelson on the walk to the second.

“Tiger and Phil, head to head, in a payday for the ages,” commentator Ernie Johnson says. Now they’ve cut to a promo featuring a number of boxers and UFC folk discussing the aura of pay-per-view: Tyson, De La Hoya, Deontay Wilder, Chuck Liddell, et al.

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“It takes years of practice to be able to put that ball in that hole,” Floyd Mayweather says, urgently.

Oh boy.

It’s time for the coin toss! They’re flipping a poker chip on the first tee. Mickelson wins and decides to hit first.

The wait is over. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are minutes away from teeing off in their $9m winner-take-all match at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas. It’s not quite Mayweather v McGregor, but at least the $20 price tag won’t hurt as much in the pocket.

Woods and Mickelson, the two richest and most decorated golfers of their generation, rank first and second on the career money leaderboard (with $112.2m and $87.6m respectively), with Woods having won 14 major titles and 79 tournaments compared to five majors and 42 tour wins for Mickelson. They will play 18 holes of match play, meaning each hole is scored individually with the winner of each receiving a point. Whoever has the most points at the end will be declared the winner, collecting $9m (reportedly ponied up by Turner) and whatever else they make in sidebets along the way.

We should be under way any minute now with the players having just finished up on the range.

Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s our Ewan Murray’s take on today’s winner-take-all showdown.

Removing the whiff of vulgarity will be no mean feat as “The Match” tees off on Friday in Las Vegas. Those already offended by Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson playing off in an exhibition match that cannot even be deemed glorified will not have been placated by the promotional images of them surrounded by bundles of banknotes that emerged in recent days. Harry Enfield’s Loadsamoney immediately sprung to mind. Enfield was at least garish as a comedy routine as opposed to partaking in a tawdry marketing exercise.

With Samuel L Jackson joining Charles Barkley as part of the coverage team, US residents will be charged $20 should they choose to take in this matchplay contest, in which participants will wear microphones, the public cannot gain entry and $9m (almost £7m) is available to the winner. That pot was reduced by $1m after a quiet appeal by the PGA Tour, keen to protect the, ahem, authenticity of its FedEx Cup playoffs bonus.

It was revealed this week that side-bets between the players, running heavily into six figures, will also be in play. Unlike the prize fund, this at least is the competitors’ own money.

The imminent American explosion in sports gambling is an important subplot as, indeed, is whether two of the game’s biggest names should be so publicly advocating an occasionally problematic concept. Golf should be careful, given in theory it was wide open to betting manipulation even before legislation began to break down on the other side of the Atlantic. Mickelson’s penchant for a bet is legendary; his role in the Billy Walters inside-trading scandal such that he, too, should be treading warily.