Tag: Golf

TGL, the new indoor team golf league co-founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, begins its 2 1/2-month inaugural season next week on the heels of the first PGA Tour event of the year.

The tech-driven league features six teams comprised of four PGA Tour players each: Atlanta Drive Golf Club, Boston Common Golf, Jupiter Links Golf Club, Los Angeles Golf Club, New York Golf Club, and The Bay Golf Club. The players competing in TGL have a combined 230 PGA Tour wins and 33 major titles between them.

The New York team, which features Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young, will face The Bay GC (Ludvig Aberg, Wyndham Clark, Min Woo Lee, and Shane Lowry) in the first match of the TGL schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 7. Held at TGL’s custom-made venue, the 1,500-seat SoFi Center on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Florida, the two-hour match will air on ESPN in primetime.

TGL will look considerably different that what golf fans are accustomed to – and that’s, in part, by design.

“We really wanted to keep one foot firmly planted in the traditional game, and there’s elements of that, but with the other foot we really wanted to be trying to bring the game more into the future and embracing technology,” said Mike McCarley, the CEO and co-founder of TMRW Sports, which partnered with the PGA Tour in creating TGL. “From the very early conversations with Tiger and Rory, both of them shared that thesis. They saw what was happening in their daily lives and how can we bring that into golf and showcase it in a way that there will be people who don’t necessarily follow the traditional game but will get into it because of the way we present this.”

Here are 10 things to know about the new-age TGL:

Screenplay and Greenplay

TGL isn’t just a “simulator golf” league. Yes, players will hit golf balls into a screen, but this one is IMAX-sized – 64 feet wide and 53 feet tall. It’s about 24 times larger than a standard golf simulator screen. But that’s just one side of a competition venue that also includes a 41-yard-wide green complex that rotates 360 degrees like a turntable. Depending on the hole, the green rotates to simulate approach angles. Players will finish each hole – from about 50 yards and less – in the short game area. After players hit their approach shots into the simulator screen, small LED beams of light from the ceiling (different colors for different teams) will show players where to place their ball on the putting surface, like a virtual caddie. Competitors will finish play on the green, which will have different undulations, contours and slope from hole to hole thanks to 600 motorized actuators embedded beneath the synthetic surface.

Real Grass Hitting Areas… and Real Sand

There are two different teeing areas for the simulator portion of the competition – one about 20 yards from the screen and the other about 35 yards away. Instead of synthetic mats one might find at a driving range, each has two real grass hitting areas – one with longer (rough-like) grass and the other closely-cropped like a fairway or tee box. Tee shots will be taken from the latter, while players will be able to place their ball in the “rough” or “fairway” depending on their lie after teeing off. As on a regular golf course, divots can be taken, and the teeing areas will be replaced with new grass after each match. The fairway bunker hitting area also has real sand. In fact, it’s the same bright white sand that’s found in the bunkers at a particular course that hosts the annual Masters Tournament.

The Venue is Big, Yet Intimate

The roof of the original TGL arena collapsed after a storm, pushing the league’s debut back from 2024 to 2025. The new 250,000-square foot venue looks like an airplane hangar from the inside, yet the two levels of seats that surround the playing “field” are right on top of the action. As a result, fans will get to see every single shot from every match, a departure from the neck-craning that often is a part of the viewing experience for fans outside the ropes at a traditional on-course professional golf event. For those watching at home, there are cameras from almost every angle – in the tee boxes, buried in the bunkers, one along a rail on the perimeter of the arena like those used in Olympic track & field competitions, one directly above the green that gives the same view as from a blimp at a golf course, and a sky cam or spider cam above the field of play like those at a football stadium.

“The idea is to really try to create the best experience for the fans that you possibly can,” said McCarley, the former president of Golf Channel. “(With) the players, the feedback that we’ve gotten is it is a primetime stage. You’re trying to create a little bit of the gladiators-in-the arena (feel).”

“We play in front of fans already, but it’s in an open space,” said Billy Horschel, who is part of the Atlanta Drive. “Here we’re in a confined area. Murmurs can ricochet off walls, so even though (the fans) may not be right on top of us, it’s going to feel smaller than out on a PGA Tour event.”

Challenging Short Game Complex

Based on initial practice feedback, players say the greenside bunkers, chipping areas around the green, and the putting surface will all take some getting used to. Compared to natural light outdoors, the overhead indoor lighting might be one of the biggest early adjustments when it comes to seeing breaks and putting lines. There’s also a learning curve when it comes to the grain of the synthetic grass just off the putting surface.

“This isn’t real grass, but it’s the closest thing we can get to it, and I think it reacts very similar in the sense of the shots you can hit,” said Billy Horschel, who is part of the Atlanta Drive. “You can still hit the high spinning one. You can hit the low one that runs up the green. It’s really tough to replicate what we have outside in here, but I think the team has done an unbelievable job of getting as close as they possibly can.”

Players say the greenside bunkers, meanwhile, are playing pretty soft with the new sand that’s fluffier.

“Someone is going to skull a bunker shot into the crowd and it’s going to be awesome, but you don’t want to be that guy that does it the first time,” added Horschel.

Shorter Format & Shot Clock

Because of the TV window and the desire to keep the team competitions within a 2-hour limit, each match is 15 holes. Three players will compete per team each week and all three will participate in the nine holes of the “Triples” session, which involves an alternate shot format. The remaining six holes will be played as a “Singles” session, with each player from a given team going head-to-head against an opponent on the other side. There is also a 40-second shot clock that starts once a player puts their ball down on the ground. Teams can also call timeouts to avoid a one-stroke penalty for a shot clock violation.

“For the new golfer, I think it’s fun because it speeds up golf,” said 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark of The Bay GC. “We’re playing in such a short time, and there’s no lag time. There’s no walking. We only get 40 seconds. I think that’s going to hopefully appeal to the new golfer, that it’s like ‘Wow, this is fast, this is fun. This is like other sports inside an arena.’”

Unique Hole Design

Beau Welling Design, Nicklaus Design, and Piza Golf are the three design groups that designed custom holes for TGL in collaboration with its technology partner, Full Swing Golf. The results are a mix of virtual and real-world golf design, each created specifically to challenge the best players in the world without the constraints of traditional course architecture. The 30 holes – par 3s, par 4s and par 5s – feature a variety of settings, including links, canyons, coastline, desert tropical landscapes, and even one that’s located within a volcano. The TGL competition committee will choose the 15 holes used in each individual match.

“I never use the phrase a blank canvas in my regular work because it’s never a blank canvas. It’s nature. This is a blank canvas,” said Piza. “Now you not only have to think about the strategy of the hole, but how are you going to invent the setting? It is an exciting thing. I was brought here to think outside the box, but still want to retain the integrity of the game we love.”

While seeking to retain traditional elements of golf architecture, there’s also a desire to widen the funnel for engagement and get viewers captivated by the dramatic look of a fictional hole. And in Piza’s case, also get players to take “a nanosecond more to think about the strategy.”

Hot Mics

In addition to ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt and Matt Barrie covering the action on the broadcast while popular golf content creator Roger Steele does player introductions and provides running commentary from the arena floor, all of the players will wear microphones during play. While we get to hear some of the player-caddie interactions on the PGA Tour and in other professional events, the banter is expected to be a little different in TGL. Teams will certainly talk strategy, but it’s a safe bet that good-natured trash-talking is par for the course in TGL.

“What I say is what I think. Sometimes it’s got me in trouble in the past, and I’m sure it’s going to get me in trouble here during the season,” said Horschel. “Certain words may come out that shouldn’t come out. I think pretty much everyone here is going to be authentic, too. Now, you may get to see a Patrick Cantlay show a little bit more openness than he shows at PGA Tour events and that’s okay because we know who he is inside the clubhouse. Same thing with Cam Young. The Cam Young you see on the golf course is a little bit different guy than in the locker room where he’s a little bit more engaging and a little bit more talkative.”

“On our team, Shane Lowry has some cuss words on trigger pretty quick, so he’s going to have to really watch himself,” joked Clark. “I’m hoping none of us look bad in any way, but I think it’s going to be really fun. There’s going to be some good banter, and I think people are going to see some great golf.”

Team Atmosphere

At the professional level, golf is typically an individual sport, with the exception of the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup (and the format in the LIV Golf league). But with TGL, the teams will go head-to-head each week over the course of the season, with four of the six squads advancing to the playoffs. Like professional hockey, TGL uses a points-based system for its standings that includes two points for a win and one point for a loss in overtime.

But players thus far see the most similarities to another professional sport: the NBA.

“We’re going to have walk-up songs,” said Clark. “We’re going to have benches that we go sit on. We’re going to have our ownership group behind us. We’ll have our trainers, everyone there. It’ll feel a lot more like a team, which is pretty cool.”

McCarley said he doesn’t necessarily expect large team fan bases from the start.

“Sports are tribal and they have been for centuries. There are allegiances that will happen, whether it’s regional or its players, or frankly, players in their home countries. It will grow and build over time,” McCarley said. “The teams have done a good job of building out local communities and social media helps quite a bit. Having these celebrity ownership groups really helps too.”

Noteworthy Partners – Owners and Sponsors

The owners and ownership groups in TGL are a veritable who’s-who in the world of sports and entertainment. Steven Cohen (Mets) in New York, where investors include Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Michael Strahan, CC Sabathia, Jimmy Fallon and John McEnroe. Arthur Blank (Falcons) in Atlanta and the Fenway Sports Group in Boston. Tennis’s Williams sisters in Los Angeles with entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Igoudala along with Marc Lasry in San Francisco (The Bay GC), and of course, Tiger Woods in Jupiter.

It was McCarley’s vision from the get-go to have prominent and visible owners and investors involved, with Curry, Fallon and Blank among those now involved who were mentioned in the original presentation he made to Woods.

“They were examples of people we would go to but when we went to them, they all understood it and they said yes,” McCarley said.

Genesis, Best Buy and Businessolver are founding partners, while SoFi is the league’s presenting partner, seeing sports as a perfect medium to build awareness with large audiences.

“The question that was hard for us to answer when we entered into the relationship was would it be authentic? Would people feel like it wasn’t the game that they see outside?” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto, who previously held executive positions with Twitter, the NFL and Goldman Sachs. “The team has done a phenomenal job and overdelivered on every element of the center, every element of the technology.”

Matches Are Planned Around the PGA Tour Schedule

TGL matches are played Monday and Tuesday nights, after PGA Tour events finish on Sundays, and all at held at the SoFi Center in South Florida, not far from where many of golfers on tour live. Players detailed which PGA Tour events they planned to play this season, which helped TGL line up which of its teams would play certain nights. As the presenting sponsor, SoFi is also providing transportation for players who need it following a tour event. The inaugural TGL season runs through the end of March, with the two-night championship series scheduled for March 24-25.

Golf in a Different Package

Simulator golf is becoming increasingly popular, and it’s another way non-golfers are being introduced to the sport in a low-pressure, non-intimidating fashion.

Ultimately, TGL marries the simulator side of the game with more traditional chipping and putting. And they do it in a high-tech fashion with a competitive format that puts a completely new spin on what a professional golf event might look like.

“The thing behind this is we want to make it different than what people are seeing on the golf course,” said Horschel. “This is supposed to be different. It’s supposed to be new, it’s supposed to be fast, engaging, in a two-hour window when you’re going to be able to see every golf shot. You’re going to be able to see guys more engaging than they would be out on a PGA Tour event. I love the game of golf, I think it’s the greatest sport in the world, and my entire thing about golf is I want to get more people engaged. I want to get more people playing the same of golf because it can open up so many doors. It can do so many things for your life.”