PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — TGL, the tech-infused indoor golf league brought to you by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, has teed off at last. And the verdict: Good start!
The Bay GC claimed the first match of the inaugural TGL season, a 9-2 win over New York GC, with Shane Lowry, Ludvig Åberg and Wyndham Clark playing like they were in a major. Xander Schauffele, Matt Fitzpatrick and Rickie Fowler, meanwhile, played like they were hitting into a simulator.
Let’s be honest, though: the match’s outcome was a secondary concern. The real question of the night is, Is the TGL worth watching? The answer: Yes, with a side of “it depends.”
Look, if you’re predisposed to hate simulator golf or believe the only “real” golf is played outdoors with nature as the only soundtrack … well, TGL didn’t, and won’t ever, do much to change your mind. It’s loud, it’s fast, it’s got fans booing bad shots … this ain’t Augusta National, friends.
For what it is, though — a tech-heavy, rapid-fire golf exhibition — TGL’s first night was a significant success. The evening moved quickly, the energy of the crowd was palpable, the players seemed engaged, and the tech spectacle was virtually flawless.
Will TGL draw in new golf fans? Will it convert old ones? That’s very much TBD, but TGL has come out of the gate with a solid first step.
In the hours before the match, pinpoint spotlights traced the sky above the SoFi Center on an uncommonly cold South Florida night. Inside, soft jazz and club music filtered down from the massive speaker system overhead as a well-dressed crowd, heavy on blazers and quarter-zips, filed in.
Patrons — or fans, whichever — filed past craft-cocktail booths, a floor-model Genesis SUV, a putting green and a fan shop featuring merch from all six teams. (T-shirts: $44.99 and up.) They found their seats shortly before 9 p.m. ET … just in time to sit for an extra few minutes while the Duke-Pitt game finished up on ESPN.
“This is not a golf course, not a country club!” bellowed emcee Roger Steele. “This is a real club!” Remixes of everything from the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” to Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” pulsed through the arena, leading up to the WWE-style entrances of the two teams. Of all the flash-and-dazzle elements of TGL, the intros were the ones that felt the most forced, mainly because most golfers can’t begin to summon up the love-me-or-hate-me charisma necessary for one of those rattle-the-heavens introductions.
Shane Lowry had the honor of hitting the first drive in TGL history, and he striped it right down the center of the par-4, 480-”yard” debut hole entitled “The Plank”:
“It all happens quite quickly when you’re out there, because it’s loud and you’re not kind of used to that,” Lowry said afterward. “But yeah, I enjoyed it. I had an amazing two hours this evening. It’s a lot of fun out there and something we’re not used to. But it was good.”
The Bay GC claimed the first point, and the next five after that, streaking out to the largest lead in TGL history. New York GC finally got off its Jets-and-Giants-esque slide by winning a point on the last hole of triples. (TGL features 15 holes of match play: nine holes of triples, where everyone plays, and six holes of singles, where players go at one another head-to-head.)
Playing golf in front of raucous crowds is always dicey; sometimes they can pump up the players, like in a home Ryder Cup, and sometimes they can be an active obstacle, like at the WM Phoenix Open after a few too many beers. The TGL crowd was encouraged to get loud, so the players knew what they were getting into. Even so, hearing a crowd actively boo a player’s bad shots was a new experience.
“That was as bad as it could have possibly gone for the New York Golf Club today,” Schauffele said. “Bummer to let my boys down here, and it was a rough go. I heard a couple boos in the crowd when I duffed my chip there, so I was definitely motivated to do a little better next time.”
Some of the players — notably, Fitzpatrick — struggled with the green. Others, like Åberg, thrived:
Most of the holes were over and done in about five minutes or less, and the entire proceeding took about 1 hour and 50 minutes, give or take a swing or two. The shot clock forced players to keep up a quick pace of play, and hot mic moments gave some more insight into players’ personality than viewers usually get on tour.
“We had a lot of fun,” Clark said. “I feel like no one had more fun out there than us. We were laughing. The stuff we were saying in the locker room and to each other is a lot of fun. It’s fun being up here with these guys. We’re excited to be a part of this.”
“I’m always so jealous of basketball and football guys that they get to do this so much more than we do,” Aberg said. “It’s cool playing in a stadium. The crowd gets going a little bit more. The energy is different from a regular golf tournament.”
Woods and McIlroy were in attendance, watching over the proceedings and offering hole-by-hole commentary on ESPN. Both are slated to play in the coming weeks, and both will provide a shot of star power for golf casuals.
“This is something fun for the game of golf, and it’s not trying to compete with what we do on the Tour,” Fowler said. “This is a supplement to the game. Hopefully, who knows, it can open some people’s eyes to what’s possible.”
TGL returns next week and every week through the end of March. The initial returns are positive, and golf Twitter seemed to enjoy the chance for a little weeknight golf repartee. A guaranteed two-hour competition, with little TV downtime and plenty of statistical detail, seems tailor-made for analytics-heavy, attention-light 2020s golf fans.
The only remaining question now: Can anyone stop the mighty Bay GC?