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Tiger & Rory set for one-off matchplay showdown

Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods will face off © PA Photos

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Rory McIlroy will go head-to-head with Tiger Woods in a special one-off matchplay event in China in October.

McIlroy, the world No. 1 once again after winning the US PGA Championship last weekend, will play 14-time major champion Woods over 18 holes at Jinsha Lake in Zhengzhou on October 29.

The exhibition event comes the day after both men are in tour action - McIlroy at the BMW Masters in Shanghai, Woods in the CIMB Classic in Malaysia - with both almost certain to pick up sizeable appearance fees for the occasion.

"It should be a lot of fun," McIlroy told the Golf Channel on Wednesday. "It's the first time I've ever done something like this with Tiger."

McIlroy can expect to see much more of Woods in the coming weeks - it is widely expected that the two men will be paired together for the first two rounds of next week's Barclays Championship. US captain Davis Love III also joked this week that he and European opposite number Jose Maria Olazabal may fix things to ensure the two men play each other in the singles at the Ryder Cup at the end of September.

"He [Woods] would probably like that, it would be a great match," Love noted. "I'm sure they both would relish that.

"We have got some guys on our team that I'm sure would love to take him on. Because you want to play the best. You want to play a guy that's hot, and I know Tiger or Phil [Mickelson] or any of those guys would love to try it."

Woods is no stranger to such exhibition matches - between 1999 and 2005, he was involved in a number of one-off battles with the likes of David Duval, Sergio Garcia and even Annika Sorenstam, in a series that became known as 'Monday Night Golf'.

The return of such an event involving McIlroy only serves to indicate the 23-year-old's growing popularity and commercial appeal.

"With the huge growth of the game of golf across Asia and the inclusion of the sport in the next Olympic Games in 2016, I think it's fitting for this great event to take place in China," added McIlroy.

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