By Frank Pingue
(Reuters) – The inaugural season of the tech-infused indoor team golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy tees off on Tuesday in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida with organisers hoping a fast-paced twist on an age-old sport attracts new fans.
Combining the best of virtual and real-world golf, Woods and McIlroy will be among the 24 TGL players competing in two-hour matches during prime time on Monday and Tuesday nights for the next three months.
McIlroy, one of four members of TGL’s Boston Common team, does not expect the new league to take over the world of golf but rather be complementary to everything else that is going on in the sport.
“I’m still a traditionalist in a lot of ways. There’s no replicating championship golf. I think that’s always going to be around,” McIlroy said on an NBC Sports call last month to promote a five-part docuseries about Boston Common.
“But there are certain things that we can do to innovate and try to maybe appeal to a different and younger demographic, especially trying to condense it into a time frame that is a little bit more digestible and putting it on at a time where we’re maybe going to get a few more eyeballs as well.”
TGL features six teams of four PGA Tour members competing in a fast-paced form of team golf where players will hit shots at a five-storey-high simulator screen before eventually shifting to an adjustable putting surface.
Every shot on the field of play, which is about the size of an American football field, will be broadcast live, players will be mic’d up and enter the competition area to walk-up music and a shot clock will force teams to hit within 40 seconds.
“You never know what this thing could be. This could be the future of golf,” 2023 U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, whose TGL team — The Bay Golf Club — will launch the season against New York Golf Club. “This could be one of the coolest things on Monday nights after football, and that’s the hope.”
WOODS DEBUT
Woods, a 15-times major champion who has not competed in a PGA Tour event since last July’s British Open and underwent back surgery in September, is expected to make his TGL debut on Jan. 14 in a format that will be much less physically taxing.
“Because he doesn’t have to walk as much and it’s not four days and counting practice rounds, so let’s call it five or six days of a tournament, it does take away some of that physical part that Tiger is struggling with,” said Clark.
“This is going to be maybe — I don’t know, but this could be maybe the new place to watch Tiger Woods play, which is pretty neat.”
TGL, founded in 2022 by Woods and McIlroy’s TMRW Sports in partnership with the PGA Tour, was originally set to launch in January 2024 but was delayed after the dome of the host facility was damaged and later replaced with a steel-supported structure.
TMRW Sports CEO Mike McCarley said the idea behind TGL was to incorporate elements of the traditional game of golf while also bringing the game into the future and embracing technology.
“From the very early conversations with Tiger and Rory, both of them shared that thesis,” said McCarley.
“Showcase (golf) in a way and present 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, and then because of that, they may become fans of the traditional game in a certain way.”
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Toby Davis)
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