Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Lexi Thompson, Rose Zhang ready for 'Capital One’s The Match'

Rory McIlroy, Max Homa, Lexi Thompson and Rose Zhang play an individual and often very serious game, but those walls will come down in "Capital One’s The Match" at 6:30 p.m. ET on Monday (TNT, TruTV, HLN, and the B/R Sports Add-On on Max).

For the 12-hole charity skins game at The Park at West Palm Beach, a Gil Hanse design that reimagined and resurrected a closed muni, their goal will be the same: to broaden the game’s appeal, especially to kids.

“I’ve been there a few times,” McIlroy, who lives in the area, said of The Park in a conference call Thursday. “If you go there at 6 p.m., that place is filled with kids – boys and girls.”

Added Homa, “I grew up on a very public golf course, a rough-around-the-edges par-3 course, and I’ve always wanted these types of things to go to places like that.”

To be clear, The Park is not rough around the edges. Thompson, who like McIlroy lives in the area, recalls attending the course opening and hearing music, part of a blessedly unstuffy vibe designed to appeal to newcomers. She said bringing "The Match" to such a track, meeting the people where they are, is part of the appeal.

“As athletes we just want to leave the sport in a better place than when we first stepped out here,” she said.

Viewers have seen eight iterations of "Capital One’s The Match," including not just golfers but also athletes from other sports raising $38 million for charities nationwide. This version will be different in that it’s co-ed, under the lights, and all four players will use the same tees on the four par-3 holes. Each hole will be worth a specified amount for charity, and the player who raises the most money through the skins format will be declared the winner.

In conjunction with the First Tee, the event will promote inclusiveness and access to the game, with commentary by Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Trevor Immelman, Christina Kim and Kathryn Tappen. DJ Khaled and former NHL player Paul Bissonnette also will chime in.

Homa, who said he watches the LPGA when that circuit is on the West Coast, has long been a fan of "The Match."

“Whether they’re athletes in other sports or golfers, their guards are down a bit, they talk a bit more, they laugh a lot more,” he said. “I’ve found it quite fun to see how the people playing are people and they hit bad shots and laugh it off, or hit great shots and gloat a bit, as a Sunday golfer would.

“And any time Charles Barkley is on a call I find it incredibly entertaining,” he added.

Zhang, the newly minted LPGA star who still attends Stanford, will travel the farthest for "The Match." She’s also the only one who will be missing class – she’s been in study mode and had a statistics exam Wednesday night. She’s looking forward to seeing the guys’ towering tee shots and impeccable short games – their “magic hands,” she said.

McIlroy, who noted that his career has had some overlap with Thompson, has run into her at The Bear’s Club and elsewhere, marveling at her “speed and athleticism.” Homa said he tells friends to emulate the more relatable LPGA pros, even though their swing speeds are still higher than those of most amateurs. He admitted he hasn’t played with Thompson or Zhang, adding, “I want to feel my inadequacy in relation to their golf games.”

Thompson, of course, grew up with two older brothers, plays in the Grant Thornton Invitational, and even teed it up at the PGA TOUR’s Shriners Children’s Open last fall, where she was in the mix to make the cut but missed by three. Although she said she’s never played golf under the lights, she knows all about competing with the guys.

“You’ve got the contrast between how Max and I see things from the men’s side and how Rose and Lexi see things from the women’s side,” McIlroy said. “I think this edition of 'The Match' is going to be really interesting to see that contrast. … And doing this at a public facility goes back to that relatability for the fan at home.”

So, too, presumably, will banter from Barkley and Christina Kim. Perhaps one will ask Zhang to do the stats.