Tiger Woods praises ‘golden child’ Jordan Spieth and his partner in The Match, Justin Thomas

Tiger Woods has heaped praise on his rivals in Saturday’s edition of The Match, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth.

Woods will team up with world No. 1 Rory McIlroy to take on Spieth and Thomas at Pelican Golf Club.

While it is an event to aid charity, the competitive nature of all four will ensure it will be a serious contest.

But in the lead up to the seventh edition of The Match, Woods had words of praise for Thomas and Spieth.

In winning the US PGA Championship at Southern Hills in May, Thomas joined an elite set of players who have won multiple majors, the Players Championship and 15+ PGA Tour events before the age of 30.

Woods feels the accolades are well deserved, and that Thomas has more in the locker as he starts to manage his game.

“He is finally learning how to play golf on a daily basis, where his bad is actually pretty good,” Woods said of the 29-year-old Thomas. “That’s where you need to get to.”

Like Thomas, Spieth is a multiple major winner – he has three to his name. While Thomas has yet to have a sustained slump in form, Spieth’s career fell off a cliff after winning the Open Championship in 2017.

He went almost four years without a win, but is now back into the top 20 in the world.

Woods feels it is inevitable that players go through slumps, and praised Spieth for getting back to the top of the sport.

“We always called him the golden child just because of the start to his career,” Woods said of Spieth. “But if you play this game long enough you are going to go through slumps and times when things are tough.

“He has fought back and ground his way back into this position and he has earned it. It is one of the things we all respect about him.”

Woods and McIlroy will take on Spieth and Thomas over 12 holes under floodlights at Pelican Golf Club, with the action live on Eurosport and discovery+.

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