The Latest News on TGL’s Inaugural Season

After getting lost in the shuffle of the PGA Tour merger with LIV Golf and a much-anticipated Ryder Cup, the launch of TGL is just a few months away and golf fans are buzzing with curiosity.  TGL is a first-of-its-kind indoor professional golf league backed by the likes of Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and a host of celebrities and other high-profile investors.  

The new league is set to launch in January 2024 featuring six teams and they’ll play in a brand new state-of-the-art facility in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

 

The Venue

The Tiger Woods’ TGL concept will take place in a high-tech venue with a focus on enhanced fan engagement.  The So-Fi Center, TGL’s brand new custom-built arena, will be the league’s competition stage and will showcase an AI-driven virtual golf course paired with a tech-driven short game course.  

SoFi Center will be a nearly 250,000-square-foot venue and will fit close to 2,000 TGL fans during matches. Inside the venue will be a giant simulator screen powered by Full Swing technology measuring 64 feet high by 46 feet across, roughly 20 times the size of a standard simulator screen. Alongside the simulator inside the venue will be a dynamic short-game complex that includes three sand bunkers and three individual 15 feet by 27 feet Virtual Greens within a massive 3,800 square-foot putting surface.  The entire playing surface inside the venue (simulator area and short game complex) will be 97 yards by 50 yards, roughly the size of a football field.

Think of it as Top Golf or Drive Shack on steroids.  You have not seen anything like this at your local driving range.

 

The Schedule

In addition to an incredible new arena, the TGL tour season will span 15 regular season weeks, with matches played on Monday and Tuesday nights, followed by a playoff season with a semifinals and finals bracket.  The TGL tour will make its debut on January 9th, 2024 with ESPN owning the new league’s television rights.

The league’s initial matches will be perfectly wedged into one of the busiest times of the year for sports fans.  The inaugural night will air on ESPN in primetime and comes one night after the College Football Playoff’s National Title Game and week two will air the day after NFL Wildcard Sunday.

 

The Format

In terms of actual match play, from what we know, players will hit full swing driver, wood, and iron shots into a huge 64-foot by 46-foot simulator screen that’s roughly 20 times the size of the typical golf simulator screen.  

The players will then transition to an actual short game complex located inside the arena that will feature three separate 15-foot by 27-foot virtual putting greens inside of TGL’s 3,800 square-foot putting area.  Each putting green will come equipped with actuators and jacks that will allow for slope and undulation changes from hole to hole.  For reference, the entire TGL short game area will be roughly the size of four full-sized basketball courts and the large simulator screen will be positioned at one end.

All of TGL’s indoor technology will be made possible by Full Swing, the PGA Tour’s licensed golf simulator partner and provider to many of the Tour’s best players.  Pros like Tiger and John Rahm are well known to have full-swing simulators in their homes and swear by the company’s technology to provide valuable feedback on their golf game. 

While few details have been released about the format of the individual matches, it’s believed that the season will be round-robin style where each team will have the opportunity to play against one another once.  Since the TGL tour is airing in primetime, matches are expected to last two hours but it’s unclear if teams will play a full 18 holes.  There’s been little else in the way of details but it’s safe to assume that fans will be watching their favorite PGA Tour pros play golf in a way they have never seen before.

 

The Teams

Season one of Tiger Woods’ TGL concept will consist of six franchises.  As of today, five of the six teams have been established and their ownership groups announced:

• Atlanta Drive GC is owned by Arthur Blank, the co-founder of Home Depot and owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons
• TGL Boston is owned and led by the Fenway Sports Group which also owns controlling stakes in the Boston Red Sox, the Liverpool of the English Premier League, and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League
• The Los Angeles Golf Club features an A-List ownership group headlined by Venus and Serena Williams
• TGL New York will be led by hedge fund titan and owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen
• TGL San Francisco’s ownership group features NBA stars, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson

With such an exciting roster of owners, there’s no doubt that more celebrity power players will be lined up to get a piece of the ownership action as TGL grows and expands beyond the initial six franchises.

 

The Players

Tiger Woods TGL startup league gained immediate player interest upon announcement.  While Woods and McIlroy were the first two PGA Tour pros to commit, Tour superstars Justin Thomas and John Rahm came into the fold shortly after.  The league recently announced its full roster of players for season one and it carries some serious credentials.  Players committed to the TGL tour have a combined 224 PGA Tour wins, and 32 major victories, and have spent 886 weeks ranked as the No. 1 player in the world.  

The full roster players include Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley, Matt Fitzpatrick, Lucas Glover, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Adam Scott, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa, Cam Young, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Sahith Theegala, Tom Kim, Min Woo Lee, Billy Horschel, and Kevin Kisner.

This list represents seven of the top 10 players in the current world rankings.

The buzz around Tiger Woods’ TGL concept has been a slow build but rest assured you’ll be hearing much more about it in the coming weeks.  By January, when many of us haven’t touched our golf clubs for weeks or even months, we’ll all be excited to check out this new, high-tech fixture of professional golf.