Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau were once sworn enemies, but they are about to join forces in a mouth-watering showdown on behalf of LIV Golf.
And if the American duo, who buried the hatchet last year, manage to get one over on the PGA Tour pairing of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in a two-v-two match dubbed 'The Showdown' this December, it will be a particularly bitter pill to swallow for McIlroy.
The Northern Irishman was a fierce and outspoken critic of LIV Golf and all the players who signed up to it when it first threatened the PGA Tour's position. To maintain its credibility and for the sake of his own pride, the upcoming grudge match at Shadow Creek Golf Club is a must-win for McIlroy.
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"I hate what LIV is doing to the game of golf", "I hope it goes away" and "If LIV Golf was the last place to play golf on Earth, I would retire" are just a selection of the things McIlroy has said about the Saudi-backed breakaway league in the past two-and-a-half years.
Defeat would therefore be difficult to stomach against two of LIV's biggest names, who only recently put an end to their long-running feud.
Koepka and DeChambeau had been going back and forth since 2019, when the former called out the latter's slow play at the Dubai Desert Classic. The following year, DeChambeau said on a Twitch stream that Koepka 'does not have any abs'.
His rival fired back with a picture of his four major trophies, captioned: "You were right [Bryson], I am two short of a six-pack!"
The pair continued taking potshots at one another and only started to build a friendship of sorts at the start of 2023. Fans began to recognise that the bad blood was no longer present when they acted cordially as a pairing at the PGA Championship last year.
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And any notions of an ongoing rift were put to bed last July, when Koepka uploaded a picture of him and DeChambeau arm in arm to his Instagram page.
The once unlikely duo's upcoming showdown with two of the PGA's finest is already being hotly anticipated, but overall tensions between the two tours are easing. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Saudi PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan were spotted enjoying a round at Carnoustie recently as talks continue to try and find a mutually beneficial solution for the future of golf.
