McIlroy And Johnson Triumph In TaylorMade Driving Relief Match

The pair secured victory with a closest to the pin challenge on the 19th hole of the match.

McIlroy And Johnson Triumph In TaylorMade Driving Relief Match

The juggernaut pairing of Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson narrowly secured victory on the 19th hole of their skins match against Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff yesterday.

McIlroy and Johnson secured 11 skins during the match, six of which came on the final hole as McIlroy won the closest to the pin challenge that would separate the teams.

The two teams tied the final six holes of the match which meant they went to the 17th-hole to play a 120-yard closest to the pin competition. Wolff hit his shot to roughly 18-feet so it looked like he had done enough but world number one McIlroy just held the green at roughly 13-feet to secure victory.

Those 11 skins amounted to $1.85 million which is going to be donated to the charity the winning team was representing, the American Nurses Foundation.

Fowler and Wolff secured 7 skins in total which amounted to $1.15 million which is going to be donated to the CDC Foundation.

There were plenty of other ways money was raised throughout the day with the figure sitting at around $5.5 million after the match concluded. The GoFundMe page that was created for the event raised millions for Covid-19 relief.

Indeed the team of Fowler and Wolff added a lot to that total sum as they won both long-drive contests and had a mountain of birdies too which were part of a birdie-eagle pool put together by Farmers Insurance.

On the 2nd and 14th holes Matthew Wolff won both long drive contests with tee shots that flew 356 yards and 368 yards respectively. Those two shots were worth $100,000 and $350,000 respectively as well.

In terms of birdies Rickie Fowler had the most with seven with his partner adding three of his own. The team of McIlroy and Johnson had seven in total with McIlroy producing five of them. Each birdie was worth $25,000.

The charity that benefitted from this outstanding play was Off Their Plate, a fundraising initiative through World Central Kitchen that helps both frontline Covid-19 healthcare workers and impacted restaurant shift employees.

Speaking after the round Dustin Johnson acknowledged where the event stacks up in his career;

"It definitely stacks up there. Not only how much UnitedHealthcare Group donated, but also you got through telling us how much we raised just from the people watching and calling in. It's incredible what we did, and obviously it's very nice to be a part of something so cool."

McIlroy echoed the same sentiment by saying;

"Yeah, I'm really proud. Look, it's a huge effort from everyone involved to put this event on, but obviously Jimmy Dunne, the club president, obviously I have ties to this golf club with my dad being a member, but with TaylorMade, who sponsor all of us, UnitedHealth Group, who are a partner of mine, really proud just to be a part of an event to entertain people at home on a Sunday afternoon but also to raise money."

Fowler said; "It's just fun being out here, being able to play golf, play with some of our close friends for a really good cause, or multiple causes, but all kind of central around Covid relief."

And finally Wolff said; "I think everything that we did today was awesome, and we achieved our goal of raising even more money than we thought we were. It's a great cause and a good time."

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