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Phil Mickelson drags Charles Barkley to victory over Peyton Manning, Stephen Curry in The Match

TUCSON, ARIZONA - NOVEMBER 27: Phil Mickelson and Charles Barkley pose for a team portrait prior to playing against Stephen Curry and Peyton Manning in Capital One's The Match: Champions For Change at Stone Canyon Golf Club on November 27, 2020 in Oro Valley, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images for The Match)
Charles Barkley, golfing champion. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images for The Match)

Not even Charles Barkley as a partner could stop Phil Mickelson from emerging victorious in the third iteration of The Match on Friday.

Mickelson and the NBA Hall of Famer cruised to a 4-and-3 win over Peyton Manning and Stephen Curry at Stone Canyon Golf Club in Arizona, confirming that having a professional golfer on your side can make up for a lot of mistakes in a foursome.

The winning duo had a 4-up lead by the seventh hole thanks to four straight hole wins, and stayed 3-up or above for the rest of the match. Barkley missed a chance to win the whole thing with a birdie putt on the 15th hole, but Mickelson picked him up to notch the upset.

The event was held with a focus on promoting and contributing to historically Black colleges and universities, raising a total of $4.4 million.

Yes, Charles Barkley is still bad at golf ... but not totally awful

While Mickelson helped hide some of Barkley’s struggles on the course, the modified alternating shot format meant that the Phoenix Suns great still had to keep the pair on the course. He accomplished that, for the most part.

There were, of course, moments like this:

However, Barkley showed off a swing that was much-improved compared to the one that pushed him into golf infamy. The enormous hitch that not even Hank Haney could fix was mostly gone, and it’s arguably laudable that Barkley agreed in the first place to compete alongside a 44-time PGA Tour event champion and two near-scratch golfers. And then he won (obviously with Mickelson’s help).

That still didn’t stop former The Match participant Tom Brady from exacting his revenge after Barkley’s harsh mockery of his performance earlier this year.

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