Yesterday, the NFL announced the eight tests that will form the make-up of the 2023 Pro Bowl, and it involves golf. Of sorts.

The All-Star game takes place on 2nd and 5th of February and ESPN will broadcast the event live for the first time, with the made-for-tv festival containing ‘skills’ that NFL.com reporter Ian Rapoport called school games.

This is tremendous. The 2023 Pro Bowl Games skills competitions are out and… I can’t wait to tell my kids when they get home from school that NFL players will play all their games pic.twitter.com/D9i4gAIfAv

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 11, 2023

On Thursday, the two teams, headed by the coaches Manning – Peyton (AFC) and Eli (NFC) – will face a game of classic dodgeball. The offense and defence of each team will face each other to determine who makes the final and wins three points.

Then follows the bizarre ‘Lightning Round’, something the older readers might have found on Almost Anything Goes! (known as It’s a Knockout for UK subscribers). Then, in the middle, just before ‘Precision Passing’ and ‘Best Catch’ is ‘Longest Drive.’

As NFL.com suggests, this comprises:

 “Four players from each conference will compete in a challenge to drive a golf ball the furthest distance off a tee. Each player will get three swings and the player that drives the furthest within the boundaries on each side of the fairway will win three points for his conference.”

It’s not much, and will probably get lost amidst the more relevant football games, as well as Sunday’s ‘Big Catch Finale’, ‘Gridiron Gauntlet’, ‘Kick Tack Toe’ and ‘Move The Chains’, let alone the Flag football games that conclude the jamboree.

News divided potential viewers, and their reaction was mixed.

Many felt that it was a good move, and would be more entertaining than the usual arrangement:

Anything entertaining will be better than what the actual pro bowl game has reduced to and might actually get top names to do these fun activities. Good for fans to see their favorite players being relatable

— Todd (@todd_ray) January 11, 2023

However, there was plenty of opposition too:

Waste of everyone’s time. Have them play a 4 man scramble against every team in the league. Barkley can announce it. That would more entertaining. And no injuries. Guys half ass running throwing a ball into a moving barrell or hula hoop is no bueno

— Steven R. Pearson (@BigDaddy9804) January 11, 2023

So, what about the golf element?

No matter how hard they try, the Long Drive World Championship has never seen other than a novelty event by the vast majority of golf fans, despite the best attempts of 2020 U.S Open champion Bryson DeChambeau.

It’s also worth noting how much golf viewing figures take a downturn during the football season, so whilst maybe this is some nod to the sport, it feels like nothing more than more novelty.

Fun, maybe, but the move is unlikely to bring in any converted fans to the sport.

Longest Drive?!?! They could have put soooo many other football challenges in there. But chose golf?

— Vinny Martins, BS, CSCS, USAW (@vinnymart1995) January 11, 2023

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