Rory McIlroy scooped an unusual prize worth £3.9million after winning The Showdown, a new golf tournament involving four of the world's biggest stars.

Billed as a grudge match between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, it featured two leading players from each faction. McIlroy was on the winning team alongside Scottie Scheffler, with the duo prevailing over 18 holes in the Ryder Cup-style event.

They defeated Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka and were rewarded with an unusual prize, each receiving £3.9m in cryptocurrency rather than traditional money.

After receiving his share of the prize fund, Scheffler admitted: "I don't know a whole lot about crypto, but this is some good motivation to do some research! [I need to] figure out what is going on."

It was a comfortable victory for the PGA Tour duo, who set the pace by winning the first two holes of the four-ball session. They went three ahead of their rivals courtesy of a brilliant long putt from McIlroy for an eagle on the fourth.

They maintained control in the foursomes, pulling further ahead on the ninth after the seventh and eighth holes were tied. Their success left the LIV Golf team needing to win both singles matches to force a playoff, but they were unable to mount a comeback.

The event was seen as symbolic of thawing relations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, with talks over a reunion deal ongoing.

PGA Tour boss Jay Monahan and his board are still discussing terms with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia over a reported acquisition of six per cent of the tour's commercial arm, which could bring peace in the so-called 'civil war'.

McIlroy was quizzed on what The Showdown meant for the game before the start of play and said: "We're trying to bring these players together and the more opportunities we can get to do that, the better.

"Does it remind people we're not playing together all the time? Yes. But at least we're making the effort to try to bring the best together more often. If we can start by doing something like this, that's only a good thing.

"It took a few conversations to get them to the point where they saw that this could be a good thing in the long run. It wasn't all plain sailing, but we got there in the end."

Scheffler echoed McIlroy's verdict with his own take on the tournament, saying: "There's been so much talk about LIV versus the PGA Tour, all this talk about money. We want to get back to the competition. It's fun to get together to compete."