{"id":15555824,"date":"2025-01-08T10:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T15:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golf.com\/?post_type=article&p=15555824"},"modified":"2025-01-08T12:36:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T17:36:23","slug":"tgl-thrive-need-essential-ingredient","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/golf.com\/news\/tgl-thrive-need-essential-ingredient\/","title":{"rendered":"TGL is different. But to thrive, it will need this 1 essential ingredient"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After watching TGL\u2019s opening night<\/a>, here\u2019s a burning question for ya: Do you need more golf on a screen in your life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And by screen, we\u2019re not fussy. All screens are welcome here. The UHD screen in your personcave with its 65-inch wingspan. The screen on your iPhone 16, not even three inches wide. Something in between. But the question for you<\/em> is do you want more golf on a screen? You have your answer and I have mine. The SoFi Center in South Florida, the venue for these prime-time indoor golf competitions, holds 1,500 people. (SoFi Stadium, a Southern California football temple, seats 70,000.) This golf play is not about bums in seats. It\u2019s about eyes on screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t look away. Not because the golf was captivating. But because we got to see some familiar people in unfamiliar settings. Tiger Woods<\/a>, offering some color commentary on a league he part owns. Tiger Woods, selling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Woods has appeared in TV commercials for nearly 30 years. But he wasn\u2019t selling. He was saying you can drive the car I drive, wear the watch I wear, carry the credit card I carry. Now he <\/em>needs us<\/em>. Do we want this high-tech golf-ish thing? He seemed nervous. I cite that as a positive. Has any of us ever done anything audacious and not felt nervous about it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s wildly inventive. Anybody would say that. It was all new. Two three-man teams playing indoor golf on a Tuesday night when most of the country was in a deep freeze. There\u2019s never been anything like it.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

On that basis, there\u2019s nothing to compare it to. Every tee shot looked like it was going to sail right off the screen like a slicing 50-yard field goal attempt. But, through the miracle of its own technology<\/a>, the next thing you saw was a golf ball flying 290 yards and landing on a fairway at the Fantasy Island Golf & Country Club or some other course on an island that looks like Tahiti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In time, these shiny new toys will become old, or at least familiar, and all that will be left is the actual competition. If anybody cares about the actual competition will depend on how much the players actually care. That\u2019s what made Tiger at the Masters so compelling. Jack Nicklaus at a U.S. Open and Seve Ballesteros at a British Open, the same. They cared. More<\/em> than cared. The fundamental problem with LIV Golf is (maybe I should speak for myself) . . . people don\u2019t care about what actually happens. Not in large numbers. You can\u2019t trick us into caring. Ratings will tell all. That\u2019s why Tiger was trying so hard Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There can be only one opening night for a new anything. Everywhere you looked on your screen, there was something new to see. Indoor divots with real grass. A tick-tick-boom shot clock<\/a>. Golf\u2019s first indoor PA announcer, Roger Steele, calling the players to the plate with a bellow that brought to mind Oprah Winfrey. (ZANNNN-drrrrr SHOFFF-lay!<\/em>) Any single TGL drive, by Xander Schauffele or anybody else, makes Alan Shepherd\u2019s 6-iron on the moon look like child\u2019s play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was <\/em>easy to find. I was nervous, because the things I want to watch on TV these days are usually crazily difficult to locate, between Showtime and Netflix and Amazon Prime and Disney+ just for the Beatles documentary. By way of Tuesday-night party prep, I typed this question on my answer machine: How to watch TGL golf<\/em>. The first hit took me to an ESPN website.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n\n
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\n \n News <\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n \"The <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
\n
The TGL’s first broadcast gave us a genius innovation … AND a sugar high<\/a><\/blockquote>\n By:<\/span>\n \n \n James Colgan <\/a>\n \n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

On the right side of the website\u2019s first page there were large, expressive action shots of a bearded Scottie Scheffler, a semi-bearded Xander Schauffele and a stubbled Rory McIlroy. On the left side was a call-to-action click button to get ESPN+ for $11.99 per month. I feared coming up with yet another UN\/PW one-two punch, plus the three-digit thing on the back of my credit card. Turns out, all you have to do is turn on your TV to ESPN. Duke’s rout of Pittsburgh ended, and there was Scott Van Pelt\u2019s familiar mug in studio, going deep with Rickie Fowler of the New York club, at the SoFi Center. Nobody in golf does casual better than Rick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shane Lowry looked like a wreck, and that was cool, too. He\u2019s the big stick of the Bay Golf Club, a virtual San Francisco team. (None of its players actually lives in San Francisco, although one of the team owners, Steph Curry, works there.) Steele, the arena\u2019s barker, called for Lowry to step in for the league\u2019s first-ever shot. The Irishman got to the tee box with his driver and a ball and then realized he did not have a peg. And all the while, the shot clock was ticking. I could feel his <\/em>jangly nerves right through our home Hitachi screen here in Philadelphia, 1,100 miles away from the indoor excitement at SoFi Center, off of PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, the main street of the modern PGA Tour. It\u2019s a healthy thing, to get out of your comfort zone. Almost every winner of a major championship says that. Most of them have lost a major down the stretch before they win one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many people in golf are trying to figure out how to bring the thrill-a-minute aspect of golf\u2019s best team event, the Ryder Cup, to other golf events. LIV Golf is trying to do that, the PGA Tour is trying to do that, amateur golf is trying to do that, TGL golf is trying to do that. The key word in the phrase team golf <\/em>is the first one. I don\u2019t know if you can go into a conference room and come out with six four-man teams, but that\u2019s pretty much what TGL has done here. Well, you have to start somewhere. The NHL was once a new league with six teams, too. (Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, New York and Toronto). TGL\u2019s original six teams represent five American cities and one town: Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco \u2014 and Jupiter, Fla. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did you ever hear an explanation of what TGL stands for? I did not. Originally, I thought it was for Tuesdaynight Golf League (I have since learned that some of the matches also will be played on Mondays). Which brings to mind Sheryl Crow\u2019s first album, Tuesday Night Music Club<\/em>, and its big hit, All I Want to Do. <\/em>You may recall the preamble:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ain\u2019t no disco.<\/em>
It ain\u2019t no country club, either.<\/em>
This is L.A.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She could have been talking about TGL. South Florida went L.A. for a night. That\u2019s how it seemed on our TV. There\u2019s a fine line here. If 007 took himself too seriously, there would never have been a movie called\u00a0Octopussy.\u00a0<\/em>TGL, the same. But neither can it appear to be a joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Per Wikipedia, <\/em>TGL stands for Tomorrow\u2019s Golf League, although the league itself, according to a thorough investigation<\/a> by my colleague Dylan Dethier, says TGL stands only for . . . TGL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, you couldn’t fault fans for assuming the acronym stands for something else: Tiger\u2019s Golf League<\/em>. Tiger does own the PIP voting<\/a>. (Player Impact Program.) He is on a first-name basis with Yasir\u00a0Al-Rumayyan, governor of the PIF, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, bankers to LIV (as in the Roman numerals for 54) Golf. You maybe know that Tiger has won the API (Arnold Palmer Invitational) eight times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n \"Tiger
\n Tiger Woods and Wyndham Clark at TGL’s opening night.<\/span>\n \n getty images <\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n

Woods is one of the founders of TGL, along with Rory McIlroy and Mike McCarley, a former president of Golf Channel. (AP was the GC\u2019s OG.) That threesome \u2014 McCarley, McIroy and Woods \u2014 has a company called TMRW Sports, which is pronounced tomorrow. <\/em>(Tiger\u2019s business life is conducted as TGR Ventures.) There are no LIV golfers playing TGL golf. That is not a coincidence. TGL is owned in part by the PGA Tour. TGL has helped keep Woods and McIlroy in the PGA Tour fold. There\u2019s a lot going on here, a lot at stake. Of course <\/em>Tiger was nervous. Jay Monahan was nervous, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a story on The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s website Tuesday that explained how TGL works. At the bottom of the article, there was a place for reader comments and the first person to post typed this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sure, why not<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA little casual,\u201d John McEnroe, an owner of the New York TGL team, said a couple summers ago, when an ESPN camera at Wimbledon panned by an overweight fan in a tight T-shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sure, why not<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A little casual but a useful way into this bold, complicated, semi-ridiculous, made-for-TV golfing entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The star of the night was DJ Khaled, the larger-than-life record producer and golf nut. In a standup interview midway through the show, he talked about what he liked about golf.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s like life,\u201d he said. \u201cIt ain\u2019t easy but it\u2019s beautiful.\u201d The beholder decides what beauty is. We all know that. We decide what golf is, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty years ago, the rock critic Jon Landau heard a New Jersey band fronted by some skinny kid at the Harvard Square Theater. Landau wrote, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” The world always <\/em>needs more good music. Does it need more golf on a screen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discuss among yourselves.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Bamberger would be delighted to hear from <\/em>InsideGOLF readers wherever they may be! His email: Michael.Bamberger@golf.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In time, TGL\u2019s shiny new toys will become old, at which point the league\u2019s success will hinge on something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15555826,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-01-08T15:11:20Z","apple_news_api_id":"a5aa5943-88a2-4d63-8790-82bef945e0b7","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-01-08T17:36:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/ApapZQ4iiTWOHkIK--UXgtw","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[37],"tags":[61370,62295],"class_list":["post-15555824","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-insidegolf","tag-tgl"],"acf":{"tee_time_button_status":false,"wsum-gated-content":true,"user_manager_gated_modal_heading_overwrite":"","user_manager_gated_modal_image_overwrite":false,"user_manager_gated_modal_cta_text_overwrite":"","user_manager_gated_modal_cta_link_text_overwrite":"","wsotp_enable_one_time_payment":false,"allow_instaread_integration":false,"ad_meta":false,"article_template":"standard","featured_image_caption":"Bay GC, in green, cruised in TGL's debut match Tuesday night. 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His work has appeared in three editions of the annual anthology The Best American Sports Writing.","post_title":"Michael Bamberger","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"michael-bamberger","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2024-03-22 16:01:03","post_modified_gmt":"2024-03-22 20:01:03","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.golf.com\/?post_type=golf_person&p=14045639","menu_order":0,"post_type":"contributor","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"art_source":"None","enable_chirp_widget_integration":false},"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nTGL is different. 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