PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Ludvig Åberg will answer the trivia question: He made the first bird in TGL history.
And with that, the indoor golf tournament that Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy had envisioned for years was underway.
The TGL had its first match on Tuesday night, with Rickie Fowler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Xander Schauffele of New York Golf Club facing Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark and Aberg of The Bay Golf Club in the opener. A 15-hole match took less than two hours, which is how TGL felt this would work. Final score: The Bay 9, New York 2.
“The last time I had this much fun was probably last September,” Lowry said, turning to Clark as he said it – an obvious reference to the fact that he and Aberg were part of the European Ryder Cup team that defeated Clark and the team. United States in the fall of 2023.
Yes, trash talk is a part of TGL as well — even among teammates.
“Look, I had an amazing two hours,” Lowry said.
Lowry hit the first shot at 9:15 pm Four minutes later, the first hole in TGL history was completed when Aberg rolled in a 9-footer for the first point in league play. Yes, that goes fast.
“This was a dream come true,” Woods said on ESPN. “Rory and I were talking about it; it’s hard to believe that a dream came true and we were able to take golf to another stratosphere, really.”
Woods and McIlroy — part of the brain trust that put the venture together — were there, as expected. DJ Khaled was also there, rocking out as the players warmed up, showing off his club swing.
The facility is a 250,000-square-foot facility at Palm Beach State College. Players hit shots on a video screen, some from real grass, some outside, and the fairways aren’t just real sand — it’s sand from Augusta National Golf Club, the same sand Woods has on his home practice area. It’s high tech, with data collected from every shot.
“Nobody was happier than us,” Clark said.
The players wore microphones, there were betting options and the fans circled the “course” in the nearby stadium where the music played and the noise was welcomed.
“A glorified man bends way,” Fowler said.
Once the teams have moved within 50 yards of the pins, they head to the short fairway — a green that sits on a 41-yard turntable and has about 600 putting devices underneath. Players say it’s difficult to make putts, which may be understandable.
The fans are happy. And they growl — a little, anyway. Schauffele heard those after finishing the chip, part of a night when not much went right for his team.
“I probably would have been abused too,” said Schauffele.
The players seemed to love it. Lowry had one line after one line. A few examples:
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“I’m going to be the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf.”
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“A little bit like me. A little bit,” he said after one shot.
It ended with a 729-yard par-5 — a reachable 729-yard par-5, if that makes sense. Shaking hands and cheers all around when it was over, Lowry gave the fans a big wave and the night was over.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Aberg said.
Woods loved it when some fans were, shall we say, silent as Clark holed a putt on one of the first holes.
“You don’t usually hear that at events,” Woods said. “You will hear it here.”
Woods is expected to make his Jupiter Links debut Jan. 14. McIlroy may make his first appearance on January 27 when Boston Common plays Jupiter Links. The regular season runs through March 4. There are 24 players — six teams of four — and the top four teams advance to playoffs with a best-of-three tournament series two weeks before the Masters.
Each team opens three players in the match, and the 15-hole tournaments will be played in about two hours. Everything will be shown on ESPN, usually in prime time. The league has been active for several years; The original plan was to start last year, but the typhoon slowed the construction and the organizers postponed the debut back to 2025.
“It’s not traditional golf, of course,” Woods said. “But it’s golf. And that’s what matters.”
And, as Fowler pointed out, the crowd in the stadium is one thing, but how the television audience receives it will be the big test.
“If it does well there, the sky’s the limit with what you can do,” Fowler said. “You can put stadiums in different places. This is just the beginning.”
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