Thus far the ongoing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf has only resulted in a fracture in the men’s professional game and disillusioned fans. Now, it will be the centerpiece of a made-for-TV match later this year.

The PGA Tour’s Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are set to face LIV’s Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a primetime match on TNT. Golfweek first reported the news, but it was confirmed to The Athletic via a person briefed on the agreement, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the match.

Set to be held in Las Vegas in mid-December, the event will naturally utilize the growing tensions between the two leagues to engage an audience for the first time since the emergence of the start-up league in 2022. The “framework agreement,” announced on Jun. 6, 2023, live on CNBC by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yassir Al-Rumayyan, vowed to bring the game of golf back together.

Since then, the PGA Tour and the PIF, which funds LIV Golf, have missed their deadline for completing negotiations. They’ve continued to discuss solutions behind closed doors, with no new deadline on the calendar. Monahan met with the media at last week’s Tour Championship and insisted that the PGA Tour and the PIF are in “regular dialogue” despite the lack of updates surrounding the proposed unification of the game.

There have been nine iterations of TNT’s “The Match” — the latest featuring Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang earlier this year — but it is not yet clear whether the new LIV versus PGA Tour exhibition will be a part of that series.

Koepka and DeChambeau were famously participants in a previous installation of the event as a way to settle their boiling online rivalry. Now they’ll team up as the two most popular representatives of LIV Golf against the world No. 1 and a four-time major champion. McIlroy and DeChambeau are just a few months removed from their tense duel down the stretch of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, during which McIlroy missed two short putts to allow DeChambeau to seize his second U.S. Open trophy. Scheffler has not yet been a part of the primetime match series. He is coming off one of the most dominant seasons in golf history.

“Brooks and Scottie are very excited to be a part of this unique event and look forward to sharing more soon,” Blake Smith, the agent for both Koepka and Scheffler, said in a statement.

The PGA Tour declined to comment through a representative.

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(Top photo of Scottie Scheffler, left, and Brooks Koepka: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

Ever since they returned from midseason treks to triple-A Oklahoma City, Bobby Miller and Walker Buehler have been in a similar boat.

The Dodgers continued to believe in their potential, even after porous and injury-plagued first halves of the season.

But to be counted on in October, they’d have to back it up with their late-season performances.

To this point, only one has answered the bell.

While Buehler has shown signs of life — and said he has felt more like his old self — with back-to-back encouraging starts, Miller continues to trend in the wrong direction, reaching perhaps a new low in his frustrating sophomore campaign in Wednesday night’s 10-1 loss to the Angels in Anaheim.

“I’m obviously not happy about it,” Miller said after a five-inning, seven-run start in which five runs scored in the bottom of the first. “But when that happens, you gotta forget about it and wash it. That happened and you just got to forget about it and move on.”

Miller’s first inning was an unmitigated disaster. He walked his first batter, then hit the next. He gave up two runs on back-to-back singles, then served up a first-pitch three-run homer to Mickey Moniak.

Just like that, it was 5-0 … before Miller had recorded his first out.

“It’s got to be better, and he knows that,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You just can’t go out there and give up five runs and put us behind the 8-ball.”

Things only got marginally better for the 25-year-old right-hander from there. Despite striking out eight batters, he issued three total walks and gave up two more home runs: first to .079-batting designated hitter Niko Kavadas in the second inning, then another to Taylor Ward in the fifth.

The five-inning, seven-run start left Miller with a 7.79 ERA in 11 outings this year; more than double his 3.76 mark in a promising 2023 debut.

“After the three-run homer, I seemed to really lock it back in,” said Miller, who has been bitten by 15 home runs in less than 50 innings this season. “I wish it wouldn’t take a home run to get locked back in each time.”

While Roberts said Miller would make his next start next Wednesday against the Chicago Cubs, the clock is ticking for him to salvage what remains of a disappointing 2024 campaign — let alone build a case for a potential postseason role.

“I think where we’re at right now with certain players — Bobby, in this particular case — performance matters,” Roberts said.

“It’s not about the stuff, because as we’ve seen the stuff is there. I say it time and time again, it’s about performance. You’ve got to perform and give us a chance.”

In what has been a recurring problem for last year’s rookie star, Miller struggled to command his secondary pitches and was punished for fastballs he threw over the plate (his four-seamer averaged 98.3 mph, but induced zero whiffs).

“I don’t think they used his secondary pitches — the slider, the changeup, the curveball — the right way to protect the fastball,” Roberts said of Miller and catcher Austin Barnes. “Very predictable to an aggressive fastball-hitting team.”

Miller also continued to look out of sync with seemingly inconsistent mechanics, though he downplayed the effects of a knee issue that has bothered him since his return from a two-month midseason absence with shoulder inflammation.

“Today it actually felt really good, way better than it did last week,” Miller said. “Unfortunately, just a bad first inning today.”

The good news for the Dodgers is that pitching reinforcements are on the way.

Yamamoto’s start on Tuesday will be his first since suffering a strained rotator cuff on June 15. Though the right-handed Japnese rookie only pitched two innings in his last rehab start with triple-A Oklahoma City on Tuesday, the 53 pitches he threw in that outing (including 17 in one at-bat against former MLB All-Star Omar Narváez) were enough for the club to feel comfortable bringing him back.

“The way we’re looking at it is we’re going to get four starts from him [before the playoffs],” Roberts said of Yamamoto, who was 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA before getting hurt. “If we can log four starts and build up volume, we’ll be ready to go beyond that.”

Staff ace Tyler Glasnow is also making progress in his recovery from elbow tendinitis. He threw a flat-ground session before Wednesday’s game, and could begin throwing bullpen sessions again this weekend, according to Roberts.

If the Dodgers get both of those pitchers back in time for October (or Clayton Kershaw, who continues to play catch while nursing a bone spur on his left big toe), the team might not need Buehler or Miller in its potential postseason rotation, with Jack Flaherty and Gavin Stone showing more consistency than either to this point of the season.

But, given the Dodgers’ injury luck on the mound this year, it remains highly possible that there could be openings to fill in the playoffs.

In the last week, Buehler has provided reasons for optimism.

Miller, on the other hand, is going back to the drawing board.

“We got put in a tough spot,” Roberts said. “Fortunately he got through five innings. But obviously the damage was done.”

Late next week, the WNBA will send out ballots for its end-of-season awards. Sixty-eight media members will have eight days to submit selections for 10 different awards, including Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, and first- and second-team All-WNBA.

What I’m about to say will never happen, and I’m equally aware it would be wildly unpopular on the fringes of Caitlin Clark’s and Angel Reese’s fan bases, where rational discussion goes to die and a compliment of one player is viewed as a criticism of the other. But, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway.

For me, this season’s Rookie of the Year award should be shared by Clark and Reese, not only for their performances on the court, where each has done things never before seen in the league’s nearly three-decade history, but also for their impact off it. The two have been like neodymium magnets, attracting viewers and generating revenue at a dizzying rate.

Longtime league followers will argue the W’s popularity was trending up before the rookies’ arrival, which is true. But the level of interest among mainstream media and casual fans was negligible for much of that time. Broadcast partners even treated the W as an afterthought, neither promoting nor amplifying it with much vigor.

Today, however, the league has a regular place on the ESPN rundown sheet, and its stars are sought-after guests on popular podcasts. Is that solely because of Clark and Reese? No. But is it largely because of them? Yes.

Their Q Scores coming out of college were as high or higher than anyone in the W, the byproduct of a rivalry that began two seasons ago when Reese and LSU defeated Clark and Iowa for the NCAA championship. In transitioning to the W, the two brought all those eyeballs with them, raising the league’s popularity to a point not seen since its inaugural season.

Their influence can be seen in attendance figures. Clark, the all-time leading scorer in NCAA history, has helped the Indiana Fever go from ranking 11th among 12 teams in average attendance in 2023, at 4,066 spectators, to No. 1 at 16,978, according to Across the Timeline. Not surprisingly, the Fever were the opponent in July when the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces attracted 20,366 fans to T-Mobile Arena to record the largest WNBA crowd in 25 years.

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The fact that Indiana is also the top-drawing road team should not come as a surprise to anyone — the Fever are averaging 14,837 spectators away from home, according to Across the Timeline — but it might surprise casual observers to learn that the struggling Chicago Sky rank No. 2. The main reason? They’re led by Reese and her 4.1 million Instagram followers.

That’s why I believe they should share the award. Years from now when think pieces are done on the growth of the league, all roads are likely to lead back to 2024 and the arrival of Clark and Reese. What better way to recognize that than by having their names side by side in the record books?

I don’t care what comparisons you make both @Reese10Angel and @CaitlinClark22 deserve the Rookie of the Year Award! The pressure and the weight of this season has forever changed the @WNBA and both rookies rose to the top and exceeded all our expectations! Take a bow ladies👏🏽👏🏽

— Lisa Leslie (@LisaLeslie) September 2, 2024

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I get why some would prefer to reduce the vote to on-court performance. If forced to do so, my vote, if I had one, would go to Clark. Her ability to impact games as a shooter, passer and pace-setter is remarkable, and she only figures to get better. Beyond that, she has helped to make the Fever relevant for the first time in years, rallying them from a 3-10 start to a team that could be a problem in the playoffs.

Indiana has won four in a row, six of seven, and is 9-3 since July 6. During that stretch, the Fever defeated four of the top five teams in the standings — New York, Connecticut, Seattle and Minnesota — as well as a dangerous Dallas team. At 17-16, they’ve clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2016, are over .500 for the first time in more than five years and have scored 100 or more points in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history. That means something.

Individually, Clark has broken the franchise’s rookie scoring record, the W’s single-game assists record (19 vs. Dallas) and is on pace to break the league’s single-season assists mark. She currently ranks first with an average of 8.4 assists per game. More tellingly, she has scored or assisted on 37.3 percent of the Fever’s points, according to ESPN, which would break the WNBA record if it holds.

Reese’s game is not as diversified or polished, but that should not be taken to mean it’s any less dominant. When you break league records — not just rookie records — once held by legends like Candace Parker, Sylvia Fowles and Tina Charles, you’re in rarefied air, which is the case for Reese. The “Bayou Barbie,” as she is known, is a relentless glass cleaner who holds league records for total rebounds and offensive rebounds. She also is a walking double-double whose 15 consecutive games with double digits in points and rebounds broke Parker’s mark. She currently has 25 double-doubles, which is three shy of the league record set by Alyssa Thomas in 2023.

GO DEEPER

Angel Reese sets WNBA single-season rebounding record

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But talking about Reese or Clark solely in terms of statistics seems insufficient considering their importance to the league. Some have tried to compare their arrival to that of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the NBA in 1979. Although similar in some ways — they were rivals who competed against each other in an NCAA final; also one is Black, the other White — there is a subtle yet significant difference. Johnson and Bird helped resuscitate a dying league, while Clark and Reese have built on a foundation that was already in place, which is no small feat. The accomplishment becomes even more impressive when looking at the growth of the league.

Consider: The W tracks the demographic makeup of its audiences and what it calls complementary viewership marks (CVM) among diversified groups. In the first month of the season, its CVM grew 60 percent year over year among people of color. The most represented demographic groups in that category — Hispanics and African Americans — had a 96 percent and 67 percent year-over-year increase in viewership, according to the league.

“The growth of diverse audiences is also resulting in deepened and more frequent single-user engagement across digital platforms,” the league said in a statement at that time. “WNBA App monthly active users is up 613 percent year-over-year, and League Pass subscriptions more than tripled in the first two weeks of the season with the highest average minutes watched in league history.”

I’d argue those numbers are bigger than any player statistic, which is why Clark and Reese should share the award.

(Photo of Caitlin Clark, left, and Angel Reese: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)