TGL did one thing uncommon in its debut. Replicating that will likely be key to the league discovering long-term success.
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After over a 12 months of hype and publicity, together with untold hundreds of thousands in funding and bills, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s area golf league, the TGL, lastly arrived Tuesday night time on ESPN.
Polarizing is the primary phrase that involves thoughts after the two-hour inaugural match that noticed Ludvig Aberg and The Bay Golf Membership hammer (sure, that’s a TGL pun) New York Golf Membership 9-2.
There was no scarcity of opinions in regards to the debut of Woods and McIlroy’s imaginative and prescient.
Some praised the quick tempo, modern expertise, and laid-back environment that allowed gamers to point out extra of their personalities than they do below event situations. Others demanded somebody take the concept behind a shed and snuff it out of existence earlier than the 15-hole match concluded.
Therein lies the largest win from TGL’s opening night time. It’s one thing not simply replicable. It would even be the important thing to making sure the league grows into what Woods and McIlroy envision and doesn’t simply slowly fade into irrelevancy.
It made golf followers really feel one thing.
At the very least for one night time.
What’s a TGL match actually like? We had been there on opening night time
That’s highly effective. It’s additionally scarcer than we’d like. Golf nonetheless has a handful of occasions — the majors, the Ryder Cup, the Solheim Cup, some big-time Tour occasions — that stir the soul. However there are many weeks that golf followers are underwhelmed by vanilla course setups, watered-down fields and disappointing TV protection.
All of which might result in a sense of pro-golf apathy.
However TGL? On Night time 1, the brand-new league had golf followers flocking to their tv units to see one thing distinctly totally different.
It delivered on totally different, and that wasn’t for everybody. Half of my texts had been from mates dismissing this as “not golf” or asking me: “Who is that this for?” The opposite half had been from individuals who discovered it enjoyable, goofy, entertaining, and price one other watch.
On a Tuesday in January, three months from a return to Augusta Nationwide, golf followers received to be invested in and care about one thing. Not the 9-2 drubbing Bay Golf laid on New York GC. That’s irrelevant until it results in Steve Cohen taking a few of the cash he gave Juan Soto and sliding it Scottie Scheffler’s solution to get NYGC heading in the right direction.
However golf followers hadn’t had one thing they really cared about because the closing spherical of the 2024 Open, and the TGL, at the very least for one night time, gave them that on an in any other case lifeless Tuesday in January.
Did you want Shane Lowry strolling out to “Snap Yo’ Fingers” or Xander Schauffele hitting with DMX taking part in within the background? Possibly the totally different holes (some good, some very unhealthy) piqued your curiosity. Maybe you cackled at NBA referee Derrick Stafford getting concerned. (Can we even want a ref for the shot clock? Doesn’t it simply make a noise?)
